To The Woman I Use to Be

To the Woman I Use to Be

I miss you, I miss your unlimited love, your kindness & generosity. I miss how you saw every person who entered your life as a gift, a friend, a soul to help shine brighter. Most of all, I miss your blind naive trust of others. How you interacted with no fear of hurt or expectations. 

Now you hold yourself apart, a wall surrounding your heart, allowing emotion by tiny increments. To others you seem almost normal, but your tender heart is guarded. Guarded from trust, love, fear, and from feeling. 

The woman you were is gone. Killed by disrespect, silence & heartbreak. The echo of a voice lost, refusing to look into a mirror. A mirror that would reveal only a shadow of the woman you were. 

Pain, rejection & judgement bled you dry. They never saw you, or valued you. The silence & neglect turned you into a shadow unseen. You closed your eyes as your heart died, and when you opened them, the woman you were was gone. 

I miss your trust, hope, vitality, and I miss the magic that was your perspective. I miss me. 

While I am not the only person in this voyage of pain, it is a process of grief from my own perspective. I left myself in a grave as surely as if death had taken me. Little matters now to the heart that bled itself dry. It is enough to be, to exist in old memories of laughter with sepia tones on still images.

To the woman I was I have to say goodbye. To the woman I have become there is only silent, sad acceptance. 

No last fight, no tears or pleading. Just silence of heart, voice and mind. Some think it is death while living. Like looking at a big blue sky, and knowing that release comes only when your spirit flies. 

But know this, the strongest metal, the strongest mountain, the strongest clay pot, is forged in fire. The woman you have become is stronger, smarter, and fire can no longer burn you. It can only make you stronger.