alone

  As I'm writing this, I feel like my heart has been pulled out of my chest. It's as if I can see it, lying on the floor, gasping for air like a fish out of water.  My heart, my soul, my entire being has been crushed. 

  My partner of ten years has left me.  There aren't words that are adequate to express the level of sorrow and loss that I am feeling.  I just know that my entire world has fallen apart.  Everything I own, everyone I know, every memory I have  are all linked to one person.  And now that person is gone, and I am left holding on to the scraps of my entire adult life. 

  I am Alice, and I just fell down the rabbit hole.  My life is upside down.  I think about the days, weeks and months ahead of me, and I can't even breathe.  All of the pain in my life has been, up until this moment, inconsequential. 

  Friends have told me to take it "one day at a time."  But you know what? That is too much.  I can't even fathom hour by hour, let alone day by day.  I am plodding along, watching each minute inch past and hoping that five minutes from now will somehow hurt less than it does right now. 

  I thought soul mates were forever.  I can't fathom not having this man in my life.  Even apart, he is my best friend, my brother, my lover, my dearest and most beloved of all companions in the universe.  I could never talk to him again, and it wouldn't change a thing.  He is truly a part of who I am.

  I know the universe is trying to teach me an important lesson, and I find myself struggling to accept that.  Perhaps I need to learn to accept suffering, or that nothing is permanent.  I don't even know at this point.  But whatever lesson it is, I just have to ask: damn, why does it have to be so painful?