Time heals. I feel time passing like water smoothing out the edges of what was once sharp allowing my life to take on new forms. But there is one thing that remains and that has seemed to deepen – this sense of fragility.

I feel fragile within myself. Not fragile as in weak but fragile as in delicate and easily awoken. Things that once seemed so ordinary no longer are.

The wind passing along my skin, a butterfly, the birdsong that wakes me – I not only hear them but I can feel them move through me. I have become mindful of the little things. I have become aware of impermanence.

I’m secretly grateful to be alive. The experience of trauma and healing has led me to place of gratitude and deeper awareness. I don’t think that I will ever forget what happened. It was a lesson in love for me. Him I have already forgotten and all I can say about him is that he is an aberration of what it means to be human.

What I will never forget is the hideous disconnect between who he said he was, what he thought he was and who he actually was and how seriously it threatened my life.

It added a whole new dimension to my understanding of what it means to love someone and trust someone and also that it can be dangerous. I am now vigilant I place my own personal safety both emotionally and physically over what my heart may be telling me.

I know the signs now of emotional and physical abuse and if anything I am more optimistic about love because I now know what love is not.

The world that he had imposed on me was very small. I am glad to have left it. I now use my mind and heart to map new territory, to create new worlds and bring them to life. I have regained a sense of confidence and gratitude that helps me connect in a meaningful way with others and with myself.

And…

In my heart, I feel that I am not alone. There is this one constant that refuses to let me go. A man that comes into my aloneness bringing the world behind him and in his voice. Asking me questions as to whether I am ok, what I have eaten, do I have plans tonight and – most importantly – how I am feeling because he says it with such sincerity.

And then there is his closeness. We don’t talk about the L word. It doesn’t seem to matter much to me these days. But there is this strange feeling of being unwell when we are apart for too long. I feel disturbed and with that comes a sense of knowing that there is on some level togetherness but we haven’t named it yet.

With Love,

Martina