Betrayal and Forgiveness

I feel like venting about what has thieved me of every last bit of passion in my reserve. A fate even worse than being alone in the world: Betrayal. That kills. I have only seen its true face twice, but the first was under entirely different circumstances. Now, having been betrayed by a lover, by someone that you love so incomprehensibly much… you are only left with an indescribable burning, even though the flame was being extinguished and not lit.

I do know that I am not special and that this happens to the majority of people, but it was my first dance with deception and the first cut is always the deepest. When you are truly severed for the first time, the heart is not wearing any armor. It shatters, and is scattered on the floor for others to walk on. The innocence of a pristine heart has perished, and although everything does heal itself over time, thick scars are left behind and it is that which becomes your armor.

Many will simply say “this is life,” and maybe it is… and I never was naïve about it. It has always been very easy for me to overcome most grievances, much more rapidly than others I know of, but this time is proving to be the most difficult. I feel like my soul was strangled, spit on, poisoned, and eaten alive. I have felt this pain once, following a death, but not my own sort of death. Your body physically stops responding to the world and smiling feels like the heaviest thing your lips could ever do. You don’t feel exhaustion, so you do not sleep. You don’t feel hunger, so you do not eat. Your mind is empty and is literally void of all thought, your eyes are blank and for a time you shut out the entire world and feel like curling up and dying with whatever they have been so generous enough to spare. Your heart is broken, and I am now crestfallen for every person that has ever felt pain so deep it pierces your soul and leaves you bleeding on your knees. I am with you now.

Death brings a natural pain of separation, but betrayal is something unnatural. What we do to ourselves and what we do to others are in no way the same game. I have always been a soldier against my own bitterness; I have always been in constant war within myself, fighting against anything that tries to inflict upon me a heavy heart. I must say I have always been fortunate to be the winner of these battles. Forgiveness is the only way to keep your heart alive and open, and I have always been quick to forgive. Even for this abrupt and excruciating torpedo that blew me to dust.

Now, being the crazy optimist that I am, there is also an abundance of wonderful things that only transpire after undergoing such an excruciating experience. You learn what you are made of. He was always this mountain in my eyes, and for so long did I happily stand in his shadow. I found him to be purer than me, more religious than me, happier than me, stronger than me, more honest than me, even more loyal than me. Now I have discovered that this is not so, and it is I to whom these qualities have always belonged.

I love him no matter what he has done to me. Although, he is no longer prince charming fit for any Disney epic, which he truly was once upon a time. I do love my fairy tales, but I believe that an even greater love story is one of forgiveness. I do not believe that God is a separate entity; His paradise is within us just as His hell is within us, and we damn ourselves. God is love and He resides within, and if He can forgive all things, I assure you so can I.