Days like today

Days like today are hard. 

Timehop and Facebook memories can be a wonderful thing. I love checking my memories each day to see what I was doing and posting about one year ago ,3 years ago, 10 years ago on this day. I especially love looking at old pictures! 

But on some days, like today, I don't want to open those apps at all. I don't want to be reminded about what happened on this day 10 years ago. I don't want to see the pictures. Because on days like today, it's just too painful. 

Ten years ago today, Austin and I were married. 

We were young, and in love, and happy, and naive about the world. I can remember all the nervous, excited jitters thinking, "This is it. This is my forever." Because that's what I thought it would be. It was what we had both planned for. What we expected. 

But marriage is hard. Life is hard. We learned that quickly. But we managed to still survive it together. We were still us. 

Then, life got hard. And we started to become less of 'us'. And it continued to get harder until we were no longer an 'us' at all. And that was devastating and heartbreaking because it was always suppose to be us. 

Only it didn't stop there. Life continued to be so hard that eventually we became so unlike anything else we had ever been, so far removed from the 'us' we once were. And then, one of us was gone forever. 

This was not the life I imaged on this day ten years ago. This is not what I wanted, not what I had hoped for and prayed for. And yet, this is where I am. 

Looking back on this day ten years ago, seeing the pictures of two happy and in love people who no longer exist... that's painful. Reading the sappy anniversary posts we wrote for each other... those make me incredibly sad. 

And then there was this post. From three years ago, on our seventh wedding anniversary. And the last anniversary we would celebrate. 

I remember first reading this post and being filled with a hopeful joy and love. I remember thinking maybe this could be where we turn it around. I thought we still had a chance at us. 

But now, when I read this post, I feel regret. I feel dread. I feel shame. Because when I read this, I can't help but feel like I gave up on AJ. Like I let him down. Like I failed him.

Before you all start yelling, I know logically, that what happened to AJ was not my fault. I know that. He made his own choices. But just because you know something, doesn't mean your feelings will agree. 

Things got too hard, too difficult. I needed to do what was right and healthy for Jacob and I.

But I also got too angry. I completely let go of the us that we had been and any resemblance of us. 

And then he was gone. Forever.

I lost any chance that we could be an 'us' again. I lost the hope that I had clung to, deep inside, that one day we would find our way back together again. Any dream I had about us in the future was abruptly taken from me. And that's what I'm left with now.

An incomplete us.