Gestating

It took 9 months to get over Aaron, a gestation. I gestated heartache for 9 months. And as in gestation, my heartache only grew with the passing of time.

My growing heartache, though, was not for the loss of a man, but for the loss of a concept – the loss of the strong, independent, and utterly free woman I wanted to be – a woman with an identity beyond wife and mother. Aaron was the mirror that reflected back to me that vision of myself. It was the shattering of that mirror and the loss of that expansive vision of myself that I mourned so fiercely.

I've felt ashamed of how crazy I acted over losing him, how heartsick, how completely bereft and depressed. He wasn't worth it I told myself and my friends. And he wasn't. But I was.