Yesterday, Monday was the night to actually turn the page.
Before turning out the light, I picked up my phone and erased all the SMSs from her that I had been keeping. I had put this off for a week, partly because I didn't want to think about it, I was hoping that I could still be somehow able to treasure them, and partly because the actual act of deleting them would be too hard.
But now I was ready. I tried not to read the words, but you have to look in order to cut, and so the words flashed up on the little screen. Not very long ago, but from another life. It wasn't a long time, only a few months.
When it was over I turned off the light and lay in the darkness for a long time, too wound up to even think about sleep, thinking over all the useless questions:
How did we get here from there? Did I try too hard, did I not try hard enough?
Would it have been better never to have opened up. I did it consciously, deliberately, shedding layers of armour because I believed it better to feel. So now I feel. Again. A raw wound. I got broken bones, not from the sticks and stones, but from the words I don't want to want to remember now.
Why doesn't this ever get any easier? I should know what I'm doing by now, unlike her. When did it all come to mean so much?
Does my anger impede or help the process of picking myself up and trying again? Where do I start? Tick Tock, the silent red digits on the clock roll over, 0:00. And all we have is time until the end of time. Nothing to do or to want.
Would it be better to keep my silent pride and say nothing, or to call her up and call her a cold-hearted bitch. I'm still silent so far, holding in the pressure. Hence, I suppose, this unburdening.
Some time after I wept, I slept.