Session Two
You’re mad, aren’t you?
That I saw him again.
Well, I’m mad enough for the both of us. Heartbroken for myself. I’m supposed to be a beacon of hope, healing. And yet, I bleed to you all my mistakes – regrets.
After I walked away from Jace, made the decision to leave those blue eyes behind, I faced the biggest beast of them all: An Identity Crisis.
So, welcome to Identity Crisis 101 folks, where I walk you through all of Blu Henderson’s crash-outs (at the time)! Fun!
No.
It wasn’t fun. It’s never fucking fun when you question reality, sanity, your self-respect AGAIN after finding what respect looks like.
And then throwing it away for the same person who made you stare at yourself in the mirror and question where the beauty went.
Where’d you go, Beatrice? How can I find you?
I mean, you know it’s toxic when your worth depends on getting a text back.
I’ll start by admitting this:
I wasn’t over him. I’d never actually recovered, not really, anyway.
You know what he said to me, when I came back?
“Well, don’t blame me. Why did you stay if I’m such a horrible person?”
Gaslight. Gaslight. Gaslight.
He knew I loved him, knew I’d do anything for him, knew I’d let him hurt me just to see that twisted fucking smile one more goddamn time.
Gaslight. Gaslight. Gaslight.
You know what I said? I’m not fucking proud of it, but my pride’s out the window. You know me better than anyone.
I said: If I put two pills in front of my mom, a needle and some scotch… You think she’d shelve it for a rainy day? Or do you think she’d jump at the opportunity to drown herself in the vice she loves?
“So, I’m just a vice to you?”
And on and on, that’s how our fights went, every single day, a new way to make me feel like the villain.
I’d talk to Stacy about it, I’d say it each week for months. “Am I the problem? Who am I? Is he right?”
And it goes without saying that I accepted responsibility, for coming back that is. But I refused to accept the treatment he injected into my veins like sweet poison, rotting me from the inside out.
If someone makes you a worse person, they’re not the person for you.
If someone makes you hate yourself, they’re not the person for you.
If someone drives you to the edge of insanity…
Push them off the cliff.
I’m KIDDING! I’m totally kidding.
No, I am. Let me rephrase.
If someone drives you to the edge of insanity, stop letting them drive. You decide who you want to be. You decide what you want to tolerate.
You decide who you let break your heart.
And I kept handing mine to the same person, hoping he’d hold it gently this time around.
Obsession is a real thing. A close enough feeling to God, if you think about it – the euphoria that a living, sentient being can bring you.
I was fucking obsessed with Jace, but I was addicted to hoping he’d become someone else.
Someone who could tend to my wounds and plant flowers in their cuts.
Someone who could shelter me from the rain, not see me as a storm.
Someone who could bind my heart in his, fuse our lungs together and breathe – in and out – and release our fears that one day, we’d lose this.
The love we found.
The love we inevitably lost.
It took me years to realize the kind of person I was morphing into. A widow, in some capacity, unable to glance at my reflection because he’d be there. Not in the romantic sense, no, in a taunting, distorted version of the person I once loved.
He’d whisper all the things I felt about myself.
Nothing more than a body.
Nothing more than a face.
Ugly, worthless, spineless Blu. Chasing after a career I had no business being in. After all, what was it but a hobby?
It’s thoughts like that, grisly feelings that sat dormant in my mind for so long that I fell into depression.
I’d been in it before, never gave it a name but this time felt different. Like, I’d just enough energy to brush my teeth, but not enough to comb my hair. I could scoop peanut butter out of the jar, but the spoon remained unwashed for days.
It wasn’t all Jace, the reason I’d turned to the dark blanket of depression. It was me, riding a high, thinking I was finally over it – that I’d bested the beast. Only to fall right back to where I started, maybe worse because now – now, there was no hope of us ever getting our happy ending.
There was no sense in a second chance, not when I gave it a million and they all ended in disaster.
I’m not telling you this to make you sad.
Maybe you feel the same way. I sure hope not, but if you do, I’m sorry. I truly am. It’s not easy to part with a heart, especially when it feels like your own. Because that’s what love is, isn’t it? Two hearts ripping in half, tendrils of each other pulling away slowly and fuck –
Fuck, it hurts.
Love consumes us.
Until we disappear.