The last few years

The last few years have been some of the hardest in my life. I have experienced peaks of both joy and sadness. I struggle to remember who I was 6 years ago, how did i look so young and happy. I have smile lines now on my face. But my skin looks fresher. Apparently hair is growing back again as well. I remember reading this quote that said that the person who you choose to be will affect every cell in your body. I cant imagine how true it is. The last few months have felt like someone has punched me in my stomach and as if i am carrying a hole inside me all the time. I have cried so much the whole of last year. I feel pathetic in some ways about how i have allowed myself to be treated. Roaming the streets with this lost look thinking this is the last weekend after which i will be single again. Weekends used to bring this dread and sadness with me. The sunday yoga class in the afternoon used to remind me of the sunday evening before school started, when my homework used to be incomplete and i used to dread being found out. I didnt sleep properly because i used to be scared that i will take too much of the duvet or i would toss and turn loudly or worst of all accidentally touch his legs or his shins which was very painful for him. He liked to be wrapped up in the duvet from all sides, spread vertically because taller and bigger and i would be sticking to my side of the bed trying to take little space and then he would hug me and put his whole body weight on me. It was so uncomfortable, i could not breathe and my back would become stiff. In the little space that i had as it is I could barely move without waking him and then i was expected to enjoy being spooned and held. every night which became very few towards the end as he would prefer to be alone in his country home with the bricks and the tractor and the tiles and the cement and the grit, i was expected to stroke his head from the back in a very specific angle and then massage his broken back at certain angles and keep pressing and stroking his back until he fell asleep. I was to continue without expecting my back to be stroked in return. And then if by mistake i took the extra duvet to cover myself while his back was exposed, all hell would break lose. In the last few months, he would ask me to cuddle him and say how much i loved him. I just could not bring myself to do either. The guilt of not doing this , guilt of not showing physical affection - how it haunted me. I cried thinking that if i had hugged him enough, allowed him to kiss me and allowed myself to say that i loved him more than what he credited me for then maybe the events of that night would not have occurred. I have never been kicked in my life before. But then maybe i gave the impression that it was ok to be physically aggressive. i guess that i will never know now. because its been 6 months since i have seen him or heard from him. in his last message to me he had said that he wanted me to stop harassing him and for me to leave him and his family alone. Not hearing his voice and not being able to speak to him has been one of the hardest things for me to do. One of the first things that he said to me was that he would always have my back, that he was the rock that i could lean on. I used to joke with him that he is my rock of Gibraltar. And now that rock is gone. My yoga teacher said that in order to cope i must be a distant observer to the part of myself who hankers after him and his affection. The part that was so so desperate to just get his attention. I was so desperate in the end to just somehow win his mother's approval and for him to say that it would work out. I think in part I drove both him and i mad. i was relentless but that was never a reason to have been kicked. I remember lying on the floor , crying and thinking that there is no use in shedding a tear as no one is coming to pick up. He had said that I have crocodile tears and he thought i was exaggerating. His version of that night's event was whatever happened was "my perception". My perception. The second time when i was kicked, i dont even remember. i just remember falling on the floor and crying and noticing that my toe was scratched and bleeding from the side. I asked him to fetch me band aid from the bathroom and he wouldn't go. I saw him sniffling and felt that perhaps he was too embarrassed with what he did and i forgot about my toe and was comforting him. he said don't touch me and stay away from him. and i was apologising to him and next morning asking him if he would speak to his mother again and ask if she was ok. I was really so pathetic. And the amount of co-dependence. just the thought of not having him around me used to make me lose my appetite. And then one day suddenly after all the drama, he is just gone. There are days though when i miss him and miss his smile and his self assured demeanor. I miss the man who I had met 6 years back in the cafe who had asked me with full vulnerability in display if I would like to consider him seriously. The man who went to great lengths to woo me and who wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. But that was not to be. Now I need to focus on building myself again, piecing myself together and try to look forward. My parents love me and have been very supportive.  After 6 years of listening being constantly told to find yourself someone who makes you happy, find yourself someone who is Indian, find yourself someone who is your own age group, find yourself someone, finally I am by myself again.