You Have To Go Through This Alone

One of the things he always told you was, “you don’t have to go through this alone”.

That was something that kept you glued to him. It kept that heavy, weighted door, cracked just a little bit open, for him. It was sealed shut to everyone else, locked, and the key was hidden far away. Honestly, you don’t think you know what’s behind that door. And that was what made letting someone else peer inside all the more terrifying.

To say it’s the scariest experience of your life would be an understatement. You can laugh at it if you want, but the fact is that when you yourself don’t even understand how your own mind works, how deep those cracks run, and if they should even be called cracks at all, or just figments of shadow you let your imagination run wild with – it’s scary. And it’s even scarier to let the one person you love more than anyone else in this world to see that too.

Every second of it feels like the last second underwater before you run out of breath. Every time you tell him something new it feels like peeling back your own skin. Every second spent crying on his shoulder because you don’t understand why you are the way you are and you don’t understand why he is still there feels like the weight of the world is on your shoulders – but someone else is there to take it from you and you don’t know if the relief from the pain of bearing it alone is worth giving even half that pain to someone else.

He says it doesn’t bother him. And the worst part about it is you know it’s true. You can let him shoulder that pain because he doesn’t feel it the same way you do. He feels it in extra hours of work and spending more seconds smiling and laughing and singing aloud in the car and taking his hands to roam over your skin and make you forget what’s swimming in your own head. You feel it in sleepless nights and wondering where your place is in all of it and wondering why he cares so much if you can’t see the worth in yourself. You bear it in quiet moments watching him laugh and wondering if you are enough to compensate for the nothingness you feel you give him in return.

He is not perfect but neither are you. But is his imperfection the same as yours? He gives and gives and never thinks twice about it, and you think you can’t give enough to be wanted or loved but even by thinking that selfish thought, aren’t you taking something?

Maybe you are enough, to him. But you are not enough, for him. Not in your eyes. Not when you see the soft way he smiles, the sunlight catching his hair and lighting it up like gold. His freckled skin crinkling around his eyes as he laughs. Or the way his lips part as his rough fingers trail up and down your back in the quiet moments you lay side by side, studying each other.

In those moments, you see a boy who is worth the entire world. And you can’t give him that, but he thinks you can. So, you do not leave, because to leave would be to take away the world he thinks he has, and you can’t do that to him. But by yourself, when he isn’t there, you sit alone, and wonder if he would be better without you.

“You don’t have to do this alone.” In you he saw a broken girl. He took those pieces and tried to glue them back together, and he called you his own. And you love him for trying, but though he doesn’t see the flaws, the cracks in your skin, you know they are there. And what makes it worse is you know he will never see them too. So, after all, you really are alone.

You stay because you love him, and he loves you, and for you to leave would break his heart. You don’t want to leave. But in quiet moments you do sit and think, and realize that it was the biggest lie you ever believed. You do have to do this alone, because he cannot fix you, and he cannot bear your weight and he cannot take away all of the pain. The fairytales and the stories and the lovesongs all lied. One person does not fix another. They stand by you, and they support you, and they love you, but they do not solve you. They do not heal you. They do not complete you.

You do that by yourself, and it is a lonely road. But they are next to you for it, and you do it for them. So that even if they cannot see your pain as you take another step, and even if you do not understand why they think you are worth accompanying on the long journey, you will not leave them to continue it alone.