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Svasti: A Journey From Assault To Wholeness

~ Recovery from PTSD & depression + yoga, silliness & poetry…

Svasti: A Journey From Assault To Wholeness

Tag Archives: Heartbreak

A short run

21 Tuesday Jul 2009

Posted by Svasti in Poetry

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

bothering, endings, final act, final bows, glitter, Greasepaint, Heartbreak, Loss, Poem, Poetry, Sadness, sonnets, unwritten scenes

‘Scuse my silence, I’m just

Over here dealin’

With a little heartbreak

Nothing that’ll kill me

But enough to knock

The words from my mouth

And the sonnets from my sight

Keep writing what I think

Happened, knowing it wasn’t

Like that, not entirely

Got a lot to say but

Nowhere to put it; the

Ninth act deleted

Before it began

Curtains drawn, no

Final bows allowed

I fear now, all along my

Interpretation was off

Making more plot than

The playwright conceived

My performance gaudy

Overdrawn and naught

But bothersome to

Other players, time wasting

And over-sharing barging

Through unwritten scenes

Now sitting in the wings, the

Show’s over, the run’s complete

Time to repaint the backdrops

And move on then, is it?

Hard to forget, don’t really want to

Greasepaint and glitter stubbornly

Linger, a constant reminder

Ever fainter, of shows past

Perhaps never to play again

~ Svasti

Panic at the food hall

18 Saturday Apr 2009

Posted by Svasti in Life, Relationship History

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Broken engagement, Ex-fiancé, Heartbreak, Living alone, Lonliness, Love, Relationships, Supermarkets, The Corso, Trust

I’ll never forget that trip to the supermarket when for the first time in years, I was no longer shopping for two.

I’d just moved in to a unit on the other side of town, a short stroll from the beautiful tourist beaches of Manly. And I was shopping for food and supplies.

Little did I know, aged twenty-seven, this was the first solo shop in a long line of more of the same.

Felt like I’d almost forgotten what I wanted. Cringing as I looked at those things we’d buy together – stuff my ex-fiancé liked/needed.

Suddenly, I was free of planning meals that were always a compromise. He, a meat eater who wasn’t big on vegetables, and I, a strict vegetarian at the time.

I didn’t want to plan meals any more, so I just bought whatever! Such sorrowful freedom, I made a point of each difference as I noticed.

Most stuff I’d left behind – spices, sauces, soap, toilet paper. All of that had to be purchased again.

Really, it felt so weird. Shopping alone, no one to argue with about the home brand and if it was really worth the extra ten cents to buy something else.

Nothing says you’re alone quite like the contents of your shopping trolley.

In that brightly light Safeway (or Woolworths?) on the Corso, it felt like I was rolling my trolley on broken eggshells, crushed rocks and seashells.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

No, wait. That was my heart crumbling.

Okay, I left him. Well, that’s how it looked from one point of view. But emotionally, things had been putrefying for a while. Felt very much like he’d left me six months earlier. Did I even have a choice, in the end?

The night before my move, boxes were all packed, removal truck was booked… and he breaks down and says Don’t go. Don’t go, I’ll change. We’ll make it work. Sleep in our bed tonight and not the front room.

Is that just the pain of separation talking? Not wanting to lose something that’s already almost slipped away? Sentimentality? Fear of change? Or did he really mean it?

Look, I said, I’m tired. I’ve tried for so long to make this work with us. And you kept saying things would get better, but that never happened. So I have to go right now. But if you want to try, then here’s the deal. I’m still moving out. But we’ll try to get things back on track. We’ll date. I’m afraid if I stay here right now, things won’t change. They haven’t before. Why should this time be any different?

He didn’t like that, not at all.

No, if you move out then it’s over!

His way or the highway. The story of my life – men wanting me to bend this way or that. Do things like this and it’ll be great, they’d say or imply, or both.

So, my choices were – stay in what had become a loveless and passionless engagement, with no concrete plans to actually get married any more. Or leave.

Stay, where I’d repeatedly tried to discuss and work out our issues. Or leave, and see what happens.

Stay, and watch him constantly say I understand, only to never work with me to resolve problems. Or leave, and create real change.

He hadn’t given me much to hope for.

Saying I love you in those circumstances is a hollow phrase. A threat, an attempt to justify or manipulate. It’s not really saying I love you. Its saying – how can you leave me?

Well, I did. Had to, for my own peace of mind and mental health.

Doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt like hell. Or that I wasn’t supremely lonely in that supermarket.

~Svasti

Break down

02 Thursday Apr 2009

Posted by Svasti in Life, Relationship History

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Empathy, Exams, Failed high school, Heartbreak, Lonely, Maths, Physics, Teacher, Vulnerability

One day Mr J, her Physics teacher asked (let’s not get into why a creative type had been shoe-horned into a science class) – Just what the heck is wrong with you anyway?

At the end of the day, at the end of the last class of the day. He was fresh enough at teaching to still be completely optimistic. She was in the first class he ever taught. Right out of university.

In that moment she trusted him enough. To tell him about N.

She cried and he cried too. For her. With her. Tears rolling down his cheeks, openly. Such gentle empathy expressed in his eyes. Kindness. Shock. Disbelief.

She told him how empty and desperate she felt. Not in those words exactly, but he got the gist. And she told him how sad and lonely she was – none of her friends could understand, and no one talked about it at home. Like it never happened.

Except the impact was ongoing for her. Made worse by the silence, though she couldn’t speak of it. Til now, years later. Still confused by what happened.

And still overflowing with feelings there wasn’t really a place for. No one wanted to know. But it was with her every day, all the way through high school. She felt dirty and didn’t know how to feel better.

Then, a teacher cared. He saw her, beyond the bravado, the joking around, the silence. He saw her struggle and he cared enough to ask.

And they talked for over an hour, and somehow, just saying it out loud, it helped.

Thank goodness for Mr. J!

His reaction showed her it wasn’t weird she felt the way she did.

But then, as much as it helped that night, she realised giving away her secrets made her feel even more vulnerable. So, now when she sat in Mr. J’s classes, or saw him looking at her, she knew that he knew.

And she couldn’t stand it.

So she distanced herself from him, she wouldn’t let him get that close again. Not all the way through those last two years of high school.

Between her brother’s daily torment, and her heartbreak, the wheels were coming off. So slowly, no one noticed. And she just tried to keep going. School. Swimming practice. Friends. Trying to avoid her brother. That was life, that’s all there was room for.

But the whole school it seemed, was shocked when she failed her final year of school. How could that happen?

Everyone knew she was smart. Really smart. But her smarts, if properly assessed, would have been better off in English Literature and Drama classes, instead of Maths and Physics. She tried to tell them, but no one listened.

Not even Mr. J, who perhaps, just wanted to keep her in his class.

But as hard as she tried, her Physics and Maths grades just got worse. Her parents’ response? Hire a tutor, who hopelessly attempted to explain things that refused to compute. She wasn’t coping in the least, and still, no one listened.

Then, final exams. And she was stressed, knowing those two subjects for her, were doomed. Then, she messed up another one, not seeing the final page of the exam til it was too late. Ensuring a poorer grade than she would have gotten otherwise.

She failed year twelve.

And all those plans made on her behalf, dreams of university (though she had no idea what she wanted to study) were gone. For now.

Very little was said at home. No one asked her – what happened? Although it was a complete surprise to everyone.

Her parents’ first assumption – she’d repeat the year. No question. She agreed, for a while.

But she wasn’t going back to her old school. Way too embarrassing. Everyone knew she’d failed – the news whipping round the student body like wildfire.

One of her old school friends (a very loose term) incredulously said – Wow, so I passed and you didn’t!

To this layer cake of torment, sadness and heartbreak, add shame. A cream filling of feeling stupid. And the icing on top – incredible embarrassment, just for being who she was.

~Svasti

Please note: I am writing here about the past, and mostly its in the past. I do this to help shine the light and illustrate where I was, and how I got to this point. This is no longer stuff that torments me.

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