After

I remember how the air felt that morning. Cool. For the first time in forever, it finally felt cool. After suffocating in a humid hot-box for six months, it was finally the first breath of fresh air.

It was September, and the need of a fresh breath of air was long over due. It coincidently happened to be the first day of fall, the season we find beauty in the nature dying as another cycle comes to an end.

I woke up that morning feeling the shift in the air. I somehow felt lighter, a contrast from the emotional roller coaster I’d been on from the days prior. I had been hurt, confused, and tired... but mostly confused.

Hurt accusations were being made against me and shocked to be dealing with conflict that spiraled out of control. I believed I had out-grown attracting people who craved chaos. I didn’t know where it had all originated from. Who started this, when did it start, and why? Who came up with these fabricated and exaggerated lies about me? But the most confusing part for me, was that I was in love. A powerful feeling I believed would never resurface after my first, yet there I was. Deeply in love, and confused.

I woke up that morning to a text asking if we could talk. We drove in a stale silence to our small neighborhood park. He parked the car, lowered the windows, and there in silence we sat. Something felt off. I stared at the trees above us glistening from the morning mildew and rising sun. As I sat in the passenger seat, my body began to instinctively shake. My natural state became a ball of anxiety. My stomach was in knots, my hands started to quiver. It all rose to a peak until he eventually told me that everything was a lie.

That he started all this. His pretending act of confusion and denial of where this all came from, right along with me, was a lie. Everything I once I knew or thought I knew about him now crumbled. Everything was in question, I knew absolutely nothing anymore. Nothing about who I just spent the past few months with giving my heart to. If his feelings were even real, if how I felt was one-sided, yet again. But that was it, that was the truth... that it was all a lie.

Had I just heard what I had known deep down but was too afraid to admit?

My trembling stopped, my heart no longer raced, my breathing slowed, and my eyes drifted away from his face up towards the sky. I watched the sun gently glowing through the tree tops, as the cool breeze flowed through from the windows gently brushing against my face. I was somehow calm, I was okay. My mind was clear because the truth came out. The tension and confusion dissipated. The only thought that popped into my mind was, why do I keep attracting this?

Did I ever truly break the pattern... or do I just keep attracting a different face?

Image by Danielle Noel