The Sun's Gone Dim

When I say, “I love you,” I thought if I could say it, I could make it happen. I do love him. I want to believe in myself — that I can love someone. I fell in love with someone who seemed to be my whole world. I want to believe in him. I want to believe in our future together. I believed in the power of love to heal and conquer all. But there’s always something that doesn’t work out in the end. Slowly, it revealed that in love, it shouldn’t be only one side that continually gives and the other only takes. A love that sparks only in the beginning starts falling into a toxic place.

I thought, “If I love him enough, the love I give will be enough.” But it isn’t. His doubts and disappointments all fell on me. Every time something went wrong, it seemed to be my fault. It’s my fault. It’s me. I couldn’t see him for the wall he kept up in his own mind. I should have recognized it, but I was blinded. He revealed what I thought I could handle, while keeping everything else hidden, until everything was his and I had nothing left.

My voice. My spirit. Whatever was mine — the more I tried, the more powerless I felt. My body trembled. My mind went numb. I fell into myself. I started to forget the feeling of peace, of happiness, of loving without fear — a feeling I once dreamed of.

The woman who once walked under rainbows. Who blossomed amid flowers. Who made fairies fly just by smiling. That woman was gone. She felt stranded, stranded within herself.

I made myself someone else — someone quieter, more distant — a ghost of her former self.

The people around me said: “Hang in there.” “It will get better.” “It’s your relationship; you can fix it.”

I tried. I prayed. I compromised. I shamed myself just to seek help. My friends, my family, my passions, my work — all were dismissed by him. When I turned to God for peace, for guidance, even my prayers were questioned by him. It’s the “wrong” way, according to him. I had no peace, not even in God.

I fell into doubts about everything that made me worth loving. The love I fought for became a cage because of the man I chose. Alone in my doubts, I whispered, “Who am I without you?”