Yesterday

Yesterday, I asked you for help. I finally told you about the war I fight with myself on a daily basis.

Yesterday, you told me you couldn’t be with someone who was depressed. You couldn’t be with someone who was at zero when you were at 100.

Yesterday, you made your case for why you would be leaving me.

You mentioned I don’t clean often enough

That you are disappointed that I can’t seem to commit to something as simple as taking a walk every day

That I don’t talk much anymore.

That although you love my cooking, I don’t do that enough either.

You told me that even on a family vacation where I was actually having fun, there were many points where I looked absolutely miserable, even though I’d deflect when someone brought it up.

You mentioned that I don’t really take care of myself or do anything that is just for me

And that the efforts I’m making to become financially stable again are not enough.

So you said you would be leaving. 

I didn’t fight you on that. I didn’t beg you to stay or reconsider. 

I told you I understood.

I accepted it with a shattered heart, that it was simply my lot in life to be trapped in this hole of nothing, alone.

Yesterday, I cried until my face hurt and my eyes were swollen shut. 

Yesterday, I should have told you that getting up every morning is a struggle and that the days I manage to win the battle and go for a walk first thing may seem tiny and inconsequential, but for me it’s like I climbed mt. Everest while dragging a tank.

I should have told you that the days I can convince myself to clean the house are a small victories in my fight to escape this sucking wasteland of misery. 

I could have explained that cooking dinner seems almost pointless to me because everything tastes like ashes.

I wish I had explained that the vacation we took was the first time in months that I felt like the sun was shining through the clouds. That I was more relaxed and happier than I’d been in months.

I wish you would understand that I pour everything I have into taking care of you and my daughter, that there is nothing left for me so I continue to treat myself as an afterthought. 

That I feel empty and hollow. 

But I didn’t tell you those things yesterday. Instead, I told you I understand.

And I do understand, because I’m not an easy person to love.

You think that leaving me will make me better, snap me out of this fog.

But I already know it won’t.

Because yesterday, I had at least a glimmer.

But today, I have nothing.