Today, it's been 4 months since the love of my life passed away. And I've slowly been coming to understand what exactly they meant to me and truly how much I've lost.
At the time they actually passed, I had been heavily considering breaking up with them. There was... a lot going on, globally and personally. But questioning the foundation of my relationship with my fiance was not a new thing when the pandemic started. In fact, even before we moved in, I knew it would be a hard time. Their sleep disorder had made school, let alone work, practically impossible. So I knew it would be financially hard if we were to stay together. And then domestic life... I had done most of the... well, everything in the house. Cooking, cleaning, shopping, laundry, driving, everything. I was starting to question the ratio of effort and heartache I was putting in vs what I was getting out. And at the time, the ratio was... certainly not what I wanted it to be. I was miserable.
Now, maybe it's rose tinted goggles. Or I'm far enough removed that I have skewed memories. Or maybe I just don't give a fuck. But the amount of fucking love that they gave me, all the time. No one has ever loved me like that. Wholly, unabashedly, uncompromisingly, unmitigated, consummate, never ending, pure fucking love. That's all they ever had to give of themself, because life fucked them over every other way. And I took that incredible love for granted. At times even ignored it, because it's easier to focus on your own suffering and not realize what good you have right under your nose. You always hear people who have lost others say that, don't you? And I've only learned it from the deafening stillness that has come over my life in their absence.
And despite how much I loved them, and still love them, and always will love them... I hate with every fiber of my being how much relief I feel in their death. Because life would have been hard for us. It would have been harder for them, I don't doubt for a second. But it would still have fallen on me to make life go on for the both of us, and in the meantime, I'd have to pay off two college debts, keep us in food and clothes and a roof, and probably care for them. Because they did deteriorate, and I did have to. I fucking hate myself for thinking that the universe, in some infinitely perverse way, saved me from a lifetime of that. Because I love my fiance to the moon and all the stars and back again, and my life was made so much richer by their love. But it's also a story that wouldn't feel out of place in a Greek story of hell; Cursed to toil for the love of my life in all the ways that Hades could find to make me miserable.
But now I recognize, more than ever, what an incredible person I found. And I would do anything to make them smile again.
