I really do.
I love that I have someone that I can wake up when I'm having nightmares, someone that will volunteer to do the dishes when neither of us really want to, someone that I can start a pillow fight with (and promptly, lose).
I love my husband, so, so much.
I can't imagine my life without him.
But the truth is, sometimes I get lonely, even when he's around.
What a horrible thing to say, am I right?
But it's true.
Sometimes, my heart aches when I look back at friends that I've had in the past. How did I let things slip so quickly? How did I not recognize when those friendships were falling away? How could I be so selfish?
Let me tell you: it's incredibly easy.
It's easy to tell yourself that no one could possibly understand how you feel. It's easy to say, "I have hurts and burdens that are way too heavy for me to bear on my own, and obviously no one cares enough about me to be interested in my overly emotional problems." It's easy to start drowning in depression.
It's easy to find one person who will listen to you and to leave it at that person. Not only did I fall in love with my then-boyfriend, but I found the one person that I would allow myself to trust with my burdens. How unfair is that?
Because, let's face it -- no one likes those kind of awkward conversations where you just have to sit and cry with someone. I don't. It's uncomfortable and it makes me sad. That's just the truth. So, I convinced myself that having those conversations only once was enough.
To those people that I didn't trust enough to share my life with: I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I didn't allow myself to be uncomfortable, both in listening to how you felt and in sharing how I felt. It's easier to avoid talking about problems than it is to work through them with sweaty palms and excruciating silences. It's easier to say nothing than to potentially say the wrong thing. It's easier to avoid eye contact than to look into the darkest places of a persons soul. I'm sorry that I was a coward, and I'm sorry that my actions hurt you.
To my loving, burden-carrying husband: I'm sorry that I put so much pressure on you to be my only emotional support. I'm sorry that finding and sharing my life with community seemed too overwhelming, that I was silent in the small things and waited until they became big boulders of pain to drop on your shoulders. Please forgive me.
Trudging through life feeling lonely is an awful way to live.
And so, back onto the clumsy, bow-legged horse that is my social life I climb.
It's finally time that I allow myself to share in life's awkward pauses, terrible misunderstandings, poorly worded condolences, and times of deep, deep sorrow.
Because I would rather share every aspect of life with friends than to find my heart sitting painfully alone at the end of the day.
