While I wait patiently for my violets to grow, the crushing feeling on my chest has lessened, and I find myself clutching my heart only in the morning. I have fewer and fewer moments of panic, and today I laughed for the first time when out with an amazing friend. I laughed because I forgot my heart was broken. Even if each moment was fleeting, I still laughed. And my soul was a little bit lighter.
But then I came home, and after reading over a few things, I realized I was being erased. I was being erased from memory: jokes, pictures, items, messages, letters. I was being erased. And knowing, and accepting, that you’re being erased is no easy feat. It means you no longer matter, or that you matter so much that you bring pain to someone’s heart. Neither option is very uplifting and neither proves to be easier than the other.
But alas, I am being erased. I thought I was having a good day, I found all five seasons of Daria for $25, and the first season of The Big Bang Theory for $28. And then I remembered: I am being erased. I no longer matter. Memories with me will no longer matter. This idea squeezes my heart and I feel I’ve lost all progress.
But I’ve come so far, and so many friends have given so much to me that I cannot stop growing from here. My friends have seen me through these seventy-two hours. Seventy-two hours that feels much closer to three weeks, the way the empty days drag on.
I am clueless as to how to handle the idea of being erased, and ignored, and the subject of someone’s anger when I am trying to be kind, caring, and loving. That’s for another time.
I am being erased. However, I am not being erased with my friends, near and dear, close and far. They have kept me going, and I may be erased by one, but I will have countless others to count upon. So how to cope with being erased? You create new. You create beauty, you create laughter, you create smiles, you create words. You create new. I am creating words, even if they hurt, I am creating, I am building, I am not deconstructing. I have done some erasing, to make room for the new. I cannot fully erase this relationship because I have no bitter feelings. I refuse to be bitter or angry. To be bitter or angry would be to waste valuable energy and minutes of life.
I have not accepted and coped with being erased; I will rise above this, and cope, by creating beauty and by continuing to move forward.
