Heartbreak is the title of the chapter.

August 1, 2025

Today was the hardest day I’ve had in a long time.

Harder than I remembered pain could feel.

Harder than the days I thought had already shattered me.

Harder than I was prepared for.

Today, my husband told me he didn’t want to be married to me anymore.

And this time, he meant it.

Not in the way people blurt things out when they’re overwhelmed.

Not in the middle of a fight where we both regret our words later.

He meant it.

He’s been saying it for days—like a drumbeat.

Cruel.

Precise.

Calculated.

Like he wanted me to hear it clearly—no echoes, no confusion.

“I don’t want this. I don’t want you.”

And for the first time in seven years, I heard him like a bullet entering my skin:

He doesn’t love me.

Or worse—he doesn’t care enough to love me well.

And I broke.

Not in the poetic, metaphorical way.

Not in the type of break people write songs about.

No.

I shattered like something dropped from too high.

I howled.

I wailed.

I curled into the fetal position and begged the universe to unexist me for a few hours—just long enough to not feel everything all at once.

Because that’s what it felt like—everything all at once.

Grief.

Rage.

Fear.

Abandonment.

Loneliness that tastes like blood.

And I swear to God, if I could’ve run into my mother’s arms,I would have.

If I could’ve clawed through the fabric of this world and into her chest—buried my face into her and soaked her shirt with snot and pain—I would have.

I needed to be held.

I needed it.

And she wasn’t there.

She’s never going to be there.

And that’s the kind of grief that splits you in half.

Because when the man you married chooses meanness, and the mother who birthed you is buried beneath the ground, where the fuck are you supposed to go?

Where do you go when the two people you once believed would love you forever no longer do?

Where do you go when the house is silent, but inside your body, it sounds like sirens?

I wanted to break something.

I wanted to scream into my pillow until the seams burst.

I wanted to collapse into someone’s lap and cry so hard they forgot their own name.

But no one came.

And something inside me went quiet.

Like a part of my heart heard the truth and stopped waiting for him to take it back.

I’ve seen different versions of this man—loving, flawed, human.

But today, I saw the ugliest one.

And I’ve never felt more alone.

Not the kind of alone where the house is quiet.

The kind of alone where your chest feels hollow and your hands forget what safety feels like.

I’ve been angry.

I’ve been scared.

But today was different.

Today, I felt all of it at once.

And I couldn’t hold it in anymore.

I wanted to crawl into someone’s arms and fall apart.

Not gracefully—I wanted to fall apart in the way a child does when their world caves in.

And all I could think about was my mother.

I wanted her so badly.

I wanted her to pull me into her comfort, to let me cry until there was nothing left.

I wanted her to hold me until I was ready to sit back up. I wanted her to hum something soft without needing to know the details.

I wanted her to tell me, “You don’t have to carry this alone.”

But she’s not here.

And the ache of that absence hit me with new force.

It’s a particular kind of grief—to need your mother on the day your marriage begins to dissolve.

To want comfort and protection, but have no one to call who will pick up without asking questions.

I sat in the quiet and let it come.

The sobs.

The shaking.

The grief that doesn’t knock before entering.

I don’t know what love is anymore.

I don’t know if it lasts.

I don’t know if it was ever what I thought it was to begin with.

But I know what longing is.

I know what it means to hurt so deeply that words can’t touch it.

And I know the sound of my own wailing in a room that holds no one but me.

There’s no bow at the end of this.

No tidy resolution.

No sudden burst of empowerment.

Just breath.

And silence.

And the quiet return of my own heartbeat.

If you’re in the dark too, I want you to know this:

It doesn’t mean you’ve failed.

It doesn’t mean you’re broken.

It means you’ve loved deeply.

And you’re grieving honestly.

And that, in itself, is a kind of courage.

We're talking about Heartbreak. You don't step away from that. Step into it. Moving will not help the heartbreak. Call it by name.

Heartbreak is the title of the chapter.

I don’t have answers tonight.

But I do have my truth.

And for now, I’ll let that be enough.