...

As the song says, I'm torn.

It's been about a week since I turned a year, and it feels only slightly different from before.

I'm still ripped at the seams, and I still can't find a way to fully let it all go. It's been very difficult for me, but I've been trying. Hard.

I still find myself going back to the year that passed, those moments by the river, those times at the park, the first kiss and the ones after that, the first night and the warmth of it all, the petty arguments, the hearty laughs, the sitting spot, the long train rides, the mindless wandering, the apple martinis and smoothie margaritas. I remember them all in hi-def detail, especially in my dreams.

Which is why I've taken to inebriation... because for the past months or so, the sweet dreams have hurt just as much as bitter reality has. And if I'm being honest, coming home intoxicated enough to head straight into a dreamless sleep has become a comfort of sorts to my bleeding heart and aching mind. I wake up feeling like a gerbil died in my mouth and an elephant is sitting on my head, but that works... because for a few moments, the physical overrides the deeper emotional ache.

It's been months and I still continue to do this. The mother asks me if I'm becoming something she should be worrying about. I've told her again and again that there's no need for it. And in truth, there really isn't no cause for worry.

Because even if at the moment it seems as though I'm self-destructing due to scorned love, as society labels it, that actually isn't the case.

The real score is that I am only doing this until the invisible tears dry... and they are beginning to.

I have to let them dry on their own, because forcing the issue would only mean a higher risk of me slipping back. Knowing myself, that would be bound to happen. So, now, I'll take the slow route... ease the pain out of my system one slow ballad and one dreamless night at a time.

Because at a moment, precisely one week ago... I looked at myself in the mirror... and I finally convinced myself to let it all go.

The steps will be steep, and from moment to moment thoughts of before will still escape the back of my mind and rise to the surface, but I'll take it as it is. It might depress me, but what won't kill me will only make me better.

In spite of it all, yes, I'm still torn right about now.

But being torn is still a step towards me being whole again.