About the Anguish -- Yomi

Some people say that we never stop loving our first love, and, to a certain extent, I think it's true. That person holds a special role because they were the one who taught us how to love another, whether they are conscious of the lessoning or not.

But what happens when your first love never returned the sentiment? What kind of grief tears and rends' the lover's heart? This rending I know all too well.

On to of that rending grief, imagine having kept the love--such an enormous expenditure of the heart--secret for years? Imagine the grief then. This too I know too well.

For the sake of conversation, I shall call him "John," which is not his real name, not that it really matters much. This John, I met him nearly ten years ago, which could even be eleven years at this point; I fell in love with him almost immediately, though it took me at least four years to understand that. I was only twelve at the time, so I suppose my confusion was understandable.

After the realization that I did, in fact, love John, I cannot begin to describe the grief it brought me. I knew from the beginning that it would never go anywhere with John and I. I was the girl next door, the best friend who happened to be a girl, the person with whom he could talk about anything. I adored the friendship we had made and I was loathe to change the status quo. Our friendship was easy, simple and I didn't dare complicate it with something I so firmly believed would not work. So I stayed silent for three years after the discovery.

It was painful, beyond painful. It was agony. Love is not something to be locked away, but I did so everyday, only unchaining it at night to ravage my heart and soul. I still bear the scars.

When I could take it no longer, I decided to breach the subject with John... It took me a year, but I finally did it, though it caused even more anguish since he did not return my feelings. More grief followed, as did awkward meetings after our discussion, but we both pushed through it.

Four months later, all the grief from seven long, horrible years of hidden, secretive love, it was all turned off as a light blinks out with the flick of a switch.

I was grateful; I thought it was an answered prayer from God; an answer that lasted two and a half years.

Then I met the Anguish with its overwhelming sorrow and grief that is a shocking blow. My first meeting with the Anguish all I could manage to do was cry with heaving sobs, not understanding what was happening. Since then, I have gained insight as to what the Anguish is exactly; Morrigan has been quite helpful here.

When I would communicate with it in order to figure out what memories and emotions created it, the Anguish would only reply with mild things: homesickness for Okinawa, losing friends due to moving, or my dad suddenly not spending time with me... Not even all these things together accounted for the sheer enormousness that is Anguish. It was Morrigan who finally figured it out.

I woke up one morning to find a note from Morrigan that read: You idiot! The Anguish holds onto your grief for John that you never processed properly. Have fun with that.

And this is where the dots connected: the prolonged grief, its sudden disappearance, Anguish's massiveness... It all makes sense...

Now I must wrestle with this grief a second time. I can only hope my present situation is better so it does not throw me into another downward suicidal spiral as it did the first time around.

Here's to second chances.