the luckiest

last night i heard a song i hadn't heard in years. and it just hit me so hard. you know when you hear a song you haven't heard in a long time and it makes you remember the last time you heard it?
the last time i heard that song, i was in a sad place. i just knew i would always be alone, that i would never find someone who would make me understand this song from a lover's point of view. i wanted to be the luckiest and feared i never would. i can remembering listening to this song on repeat late at night, over and over and over, and sobbing. i was missing alex, who was on his mission, and feeling convinced that i would never find real love.

i heard it last night in travis's sister's car. travis and i were sitting in the backseat together. it was dark, and the music was loud. all those emotions i felt the last time i heard it came flooding back, but they were accompanied by an overwhelming feeling of safety, gratitude, and love for travis. for such a long time i was convinced i would always be alone and never find someone who can handle my crazy, my stubbornness, my flaws, fears, self criticizing doubts, just everything. sometimes it hits me and almost literally takes my breath away, he loves me. 

then the song came to the last verse, about the old man who dies and then the wife goes too, and i lost it. sitting in the backseat of the car, and even now as i listen to it while writing this, i cry. i think about my grandpa who is sick with cancer and his wife being all alone if he dies, wandering around their big, empty house. i think about travis and i growing old, and how terrifying it is to love someone and take that risk, the risk of losing. i think about how our life together has just begun, how young we are, and how far we have left to travel together.

if you are currently alone and afraid, i know how awful that is. i know what it is to feel alone in a crowded, dirty, apartment. you watch everyone else find love and you feel left behind. it won't always be that way for you. maybe in a few years you will hear this song again and cry just as i did, in thankfulness.

 i'm so grateful for my life and that i have a person who shares it with me. when i remember just a few months ago, when i was so low, and compare it to now, it's just amazing.

a few weeks ago, i was treated unfairly by a family member. i was complaining to travis how unfair it was and he made an excuse for that family member, a valid, solid excuse. but that morning, i had gone to counseling and relived a particularly painful memory. i described to my counselor the first time he had assaulted me and how i can't remember exactly what happened, but that i can so clearly remember walking home from his house. even now, it's hard to say this. i remember walking home alone, in the early spring weather. it was about four thirty in the afternoon. i stood looking at my house from across the street, thinking my mom would wonder where i had been, that she would be preparing dinner soon, and that i had a soccer game later that night. i vividly remember thinking to myself, well, what happened, happened, and i'm done thinking about it. and then walking into my front door, like i had always done, except that i wasn't the same person anymore.

since then, anytime i have remembered that 14 year old girl, i have felt contempt, shame, guilt, anger at her for being so stupid, and self hatred. in counseling as i described this memory, i felt those things. i felt that my counselor probably also thought those things about that girl who let a boy use her and didn't stand up for herself. even though i can remember fighting back. for so long i felt i hadn't fought hard enough. and now, i'm a person who stands up for herself, so it's difficult to remember being a person who didn't have a voice. for so long, i have hated that 14 year old girl.

my counselor has been sending me home with reading materials about different ways to think about trauma, how you can approach those terrible thoughts with curiosity, acceptance, and patience, instead of shame, fear, and anger. and as i listened to travis make those valid excuses for the family member who hurt my feelings, i thought, no one ever made those excuses for me. i never made those kinds of excuses for me. all i ever did was hate that helpless girl. i never looked at her and said, "it's ok. you didn't know how to handle it. how could you have ever known what to do? it wasn't your fault and you are part of who i am and i love you."

and then something incredible happened.  i wept for her, that helpless, scared, junior high girl who didn't understand how a boy could take something without asking. that girl who just wanted to be liked, to be thought pretty. it wasn't her fault. it wasn't my fault. 


i grabbed onto travis and just wept into his shoulder. he knew why i was crying and he let me cling to him, something i had never done before, preferring to either hold it in or battle it out in private where no one could see my weakness. it's terrifying to let someone in, to let someone see you at your lowest. i truly am the luckiest. 

i don't hate her anymore. i am learning to look at her with sympathy and kindness, instead of cold indifference. it's the start of something. and i am so thankful for that.