"Denial: It's not just a river in Egypt, it's a freaking Ocean."

Meredith Grey- Greys Anatomy (S02E04 Deny, Deny, Deny)

Clearly you've picked up I'm a big Greys fan by now (That show has some major life lessons). Anyways, I digress..

Denial.

I got home, parked outside the gate and just sat in the car. I was there for about 20 minutes. To date, I have no idea how I drove from the restaurant to the house. (Yes, he did it in a restaurant. Sigh.) I was in tears the entire time. But I sat in the car to collect myself. "What next, what do I need to do, What do I need to say, Who do I need to call/Text.. Omigosh, I need to cancel vendors.. My dress... My dress! Sigh"

I texted my closest friends aka bridesmaids, told my baby brother what happened, switched off my phone, locked myself in my room and slept. I didn't even tell my folks till the next day, and even then I wasn't really the one who told them, my Aunt did.

You know those people who have it all together? Always seem to have it figured out, strong, etc etc.. Yeah, I was one of those. And right there in the car I decided that I was not going to allow people to think I was broken by this. Never mind how badly broken I actually was.

Thing is, I wasn't in denial of that he had left. I was in denial of how I was feeling. And that is the worst kind of denial. It will eat at you from the inside day in day out, and half the time you won't even realize what it is doing to you. I cried openly only for the first two to three days but after that, I never let anyone see. I'd wake up, put a smile on my face and switched my automatic response to "I'm fine. No, really, I am."
But it got hard to keep up. So eventually I sort of just started shutting people out.

It's hard to be in a place where you constantly have to give answers to questions whose answers you are searching for yourself.

"What happened?" "I don't know"

And every time I said I didn't know, it was assumed that it was my way of shutting the conversation down. But I honestly did not know. I still do not know. The difference between then and now is t hat I made peace with the fact that I probably never will know.

And that's OK.

However, in retrospect, I can openly admit that one reason I struggled with denial so much is because I was so deeply ashamed and embarrassed. This sort of thing only happens in the movies, it's not supposed to happen to me. I have always been the sort of go to person for relationship advise and real talk - what water does my talk hold now when my man left me for absolutely no reason. I at times just wanted to bury myself in a hole and hide till all this passed over. But I couldn't. It was so hard for me to face people. I would do it daily, but it was so difficult.

I had to get to the place where I needed to accept that as long as I keep denying what I am feeling, I can never move past it.

This jackass broke my heart. And it's not OK. And it's not my fault.

I decided that this could not be my burden to carry. I didn't do anything to warrant it. I almost feel like it may have been easier if it was my fault that he left.... But this is a story for a different post...

My refusal to accept and/or deal with what was happening did not change the fact that it had happened. And you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time..