April 21st, 2023

How do you go from speaking everyday to being strangers overnight?

There was no warning, no argument.  We went from sharing reels and voice notes throughout the days into the evenings every day for a year. We had spent what I thought was an amazing night together the week before and then I sensed the distance. The lack of response to my messages until I sent the inevitable text, "Are you ok?" dreading the response.
"No, I'm not feeling it, " he said weakly, adding . "You're intolerable."
I'm WHAT???????
The cruel words pierced through my core, ripping me apart like shrapnel. There was no hint of this coming.
"But we're still good friends."
Really? Friends don't deliberately hurt the other, friends don't pick apart your personality and friends don't leave you. 
When you go from talking every single day to being total strangers, you get into the habit of picking up your phone and putting it right back down. You click on their name, type a message you never would have hesitated to text them back in the day, and then erase the words before you get too tempted to press send.
You want to talk to them about everything, to share the stories you have had during the day, but instead you choose silence to preserve your dignity.
No one would know how I was feeling, my social media posts shout out the usual positivity and inspiring messages of encouraging people to live their best life.
But inside I am hurting, I am so sad but I don't cry. I wonder if there's something wrong with me and I question my self worth. Childhood trauma of loss and abandonment have been triggered by the way I was discarded so carelessly. My mother told me from the age of four that I didn't deserve to be loved. Was she right?
I know they say that time is a great healer but every hour feels like a thousand years. 
I will be fine, my real friends tell me, and that I have survived worse. 
But when you go from talking every day with someone whose company you enjoyed and who you thought was a real friend, it's hard to trust ever again. It took me so long to let someone back into my life and they threw me off a cliff. 
I have a lot of thinking time now and the silence is deafening. I know a break up is one of life's experiences and gives you the chance to evolve into an even greater version of yourself. I know what I want and deserve. I want an emotionally mature man who isn't afraid to tell me that he loves me, or tell me that I look nice. Strangers telling you that you're beautiful mean nothing but when you hear it from the man you want, the words mean the world. I want a man who is proud to have his picture taken with me. I want  a man who doesn't put me down to mask their own flaws and insecurities to make them feel better about themselves. I am a high value woman,  financially independent all my adult life and authentic and honest and if that makes me intolerable then so be it.
They say people leave your life for a reason, to clear the path for better people and even more enjoyable experiences.  I hope this it true.
For hope is all I have right now.