Hole In My Soul

I've been struggling to write this for several days now. I seldom have this much trouble putting my feelings into words. I don't think I've done it justice, but I've done what I could for now.

How do I explain what happened to me last summer? I'm not sure I can.

I'd been very certain of a few things - that Aiden and I were made for each other. That I was making the right choice. That things would turn out okay.

When he walked out of my life, I was honestly shocked. So was everyone else who watched it happen. One friend had observed months earlier, "You and Aiden are so close. It's like he just puts up with Shelby."

I felt like I'd been punched in the mouth, repeatedly, with a brick. Not only did I have to deal with the grief that comes with the end of a relationship, but I was facing a devastating lack of faith in myself and my own judgment. If I could be so wrong about something in which I'd had complete confidence...I couldn't trust myself anymore. There seemed to be no point in making goals or otherwise working to improve my life. If I tried too hard, if I put my love and my faith into something, it would only crash and burn.

"I don't know how to be in this much pain," I remember telling someone. I can't describe what it was like, other than overwhelming. The panic and sense of utter failure and hopelessness pervaded everything. I skidded through the bottom of old familiar depression and straight off the deep end.

The damage to my arm healed but the damage to my soul didn't. I've already described the general shape of my summer. I'm struggling to explain what was underneath it and the changes that happened inside me.

Hopelessness is a strange thing. Without hope, with nothing left to strive for, there are no consequences. Without faith or confidence, there's no joy. Commiserating with a friend one night, I described the feeling as having my head squeezed and feeling the cracks working their way up the sides of my skull.

There was a split that I can't quite explain. Not a dissociation - I certainly became a different person than I was before, but I'm not trying to describe the state of having multiple personalities. I think the split was between me and my faith, and I fell through the crack into a world where nothing mattered.

I wandered around the country and sat around and home and did a bunch of crazy shit just to try to stimulate myself, looking for that high - something - anything that would make me feel better. Of course I didn't find it, because that's not how these things work. I no longer had the energy to do anything beyond my category of cheap thrills, though, so I spent a lot of time getting drunk and a lot of time riding my motorcycle - usually not together, though there were exceptions to that.

At some point I couldn't stand it anymore, being surrounded by constant reminders of everything I'd fucked up. I packed my belongings into a storage unit, put some clothes and some camping gear on a motorcycle, and left, in search of anything else. Traveling can actually be easier without any fucks to give.