Bleached: The Heartbreak

I knocked on the door of my parent's house, tears streaming down my face one dark February night.  My navy blue sweatshirt still sticking to my arms from the vigorous workout I just finished.  Trying to cry and sweat away my hurt, stomach growling as I hadn't eaten nearly enough that day.

If I could just get a hug from him, feel his arms and know that someone still loved me and wanted me - if my daddy could just say all the right things, maybe I could feel better somehow and the pain would finally subside.

Robin answered the door and I went inside.  "Is daddy here?" I asked through my sobs.

"No sweetie - he's at church practice late tonight.  What's the matter?"

I didn't know what to say or how to say it.  The man that I had somehow fallen in love with over the phone and through e-mails and instant messages....this man that I was so certain was 'the one' for me, took one look at me and rejected me.  Though, that wasn't really how it happened.

D was never that way - he would never be that cruel.  He was kind and gentle and caring.  He explained that when meeting me, that the "spark" simply wasn't there.  That he wasn't attracted to me even though I was this amazing, incredible woman.  If I would have been honest with myself, I would have said that the same was true for me - I didn't feel a spark or attraction either.  But I so badly wanted it to be him.

Mostly, I didn't want to feel lonely anymore.  And D - our talks, our conversations about so many meaningful things - all of it gave me a taste of what it would be like to not be lonely.  To have a man that cared about me and my thoughts and who wanted to know me and be with me.

We went from talking all day long, to this nothing.  I now felt this emptiness and this hole that I had somehow allowed him to so quickly and fully fill.  I didn't know what to do with myself.  The tears hadn't stopped since I first got his phone call and later his e-mail that seemed to put an end to this love story, that for two weeks, I thought was the beginning of some amazing, wonderful thing.

I felt like a complete fool.  An idiot.  A moron.  To think that he would have wanted me.  This obese, pathetic, ugly, poor excuse of a twenty-something girl.  What was I thinking?  Nobody wants me.

"He didn't want me!"  I sobbed. 

I can't remember everything I told Robin or even the words of comfort she gave me that night.  But I remember the softness of the couch.  I remember that she was wearing her silky blue robe, hair wet from just showering.  The invitation to rest my head on her lap while I sobbed.  And I remember her nurturing, motherly hands stroking my hair.  How wonderful and disrupting and foreign that felt  to me - me, the motherless one, having some kind of daughter moment with the only woman in my life that could even somewhat play the role of 'mom' to me.  And more than anything, I remember how surprised I was to hear her crying with me. 

My heart hadn't ached that badly since the brutal murder of my first love, Aaron.  And losing D....or not ever really having him, felt like betrayal somehow.  I was confused at what God was doing.  It felt like He had brought us together for a reason and a purpose - even D had said that.  This simply didn't make sense.  I thought God was finally going to reward me for all the good that I had done and had been doing.  That I was being rewarded for not only being some super-christian, but finally tackling my food demon and working hard to exercise and stick to a diet.

But no.  He took something else away from me.  As if He hadn't taken away enough, He took my only chance at this wonderful, godly, kind, caring man and squashed it.  He had taken away my parent's marriage and my chance at a normal life.  He had taken away my mother and my chance to sing opera and my first love.  And now this too. 

Even after the care and the hugs and the tears that Robin and later my dad had for me, I walked out of their house, tears finally subsiding.  I felt my eyebrows furrow and the anger began to settle in.

"Why God?  Don't you care about me at all?  Are you just out to break my heart and take everything away from me?  You've done nothing but screw me over my entire life!  I hate you right now!"

That was the night that I began to believe that was true.  That God was out to get me.  That He wasn't good and that all this work I had done - all the church service and Bible studies and ministry - it was all for nothing.  It felt as though something in my heart died - perhaps something that had been trying to stay alive for years.  I was done with feeling pain.  Now - I was angry.  Seething, lividly, angry.

On that cold, dark, February night, in the room I lived in at my Gramma's house, was where I boldly told God to fuck off and leave me alone.

The heartbreak did me in.  And I was done with church and ministry and the Bible - and so very done with God.