I chose this life.

In a way, at least.

That is to say, I didn't choose to be who I am.  Be the way that I am.  To struggle so intimately with a fear of death.  Or to wake up every day wishing I wouldn't wake up.  I did not decide to have the brain that I have, as intelligent and dysfunctional as it is.

(Honestly, sometimes I think I'm highly intelligent, and that the cost for being such is to not know what being normal - i.e. having a chemically balanced brain - is like.)

But the life I did choose, was the one I'm currently living.
The one where the man who holds my heart is gone for long periods of time.
Where we are separated from each other, sometimes only for a couple of weeks, other times for months on end. 
Where communication is cut off, and he's in potentially dangerous situations, and I am constantly worried about his safety.
About whether or not my phone will ring with an unknown number with news that will change my life forever.


This life is not for those who are faint of heart.


And yet...here I am.
Not because I don't have any other choice.
It's life.  Everything that happens is dictated by a choice (more or less).
I could choose to leave.  I could have chosen, from the very beginning, not to be a part of this.  To not even encourage it.  But that would have been betraying what I felt, and what I felt was right.

So I am here by choice.
A choice borne of love and commitment and wanting to support the dreams of My Heart.
Honestly, I didn't even think about myself when this all started.
I didn't think (didn't realise, truthfully) how difficult this could be.  The potential for things that could happen. 
Would I have changed my mind if I had taken those things into consideration?
...I'd like to think I wouldn't have.
But who's to say for sure?


But it isn't easy.
It's heart-wrenching, it's throwing internal temper tantrums, it's wishing there was any magic way to speed time up to make the months of separation pass.

But there is no way to bypass these moments.  No way to make them not happen.  No way to skip ahead to the happy reunion of being together again.


I don't like it.
Who in their right mind would?


I spent a lot of years of my life hardening my heart, building up walls miles high, turning off my emotions so I wouldn't have to feel and suffer and break.

And then I met the man who won my heart.

And I started to allow those walls to come down.  I allowed myself to become soft, for his sake.  I realised that I could, indeed, feel things, and while in general that's good, it's not always so good.

Like in the times when we're separated.

Never in my life did I think I would be so connected to someone on all fronts, that I would almost physically hurt while being apart from them.

I knew I had the potential for that.  Because I knew of my tendency to get extremely attached to people; which I also fought against by keeping distance between myself and any other person around me.

But he came along, and he won my heart.
He is My Heart.
He is a part of me.
When he's gone, it feels like a piece of me is missing, and I don't feel whole until we're together again.

Part of me hates this.
Being so dependant upon someone, being so attached to them, that some days I feel like I can't go on, like I want life to end, because they're not around.
It makes me feel like something is wrong with me.
Like I'm too dependant upon him.
Like he's a crutch, he's my weakness, he's my downfall.

...I don't like having weaknesses.

So of course I don't like this.

I could change.
I could allow myself to reverse progress.
I could stop being soft, stop feeling, start building up those walls again.

It makes sense, right?
It's self preservation.

After all, how else am I going to go through an almost-whole year of being separated from him?
I could barely hold my shit together when we were apart for seven months, and he was in a safe environment, and I occasionally heard from him.

...how the fuck am I going to keep my shit together this time, being apart longer, and knowing he's in danger all the time?


I am terrified.

I honestly don't have any idea how I'm going to make it through this.  Again.

On the inside, I feel like a child, kicking and screaming and throwing myself on the floor, pounding my fists into the ground, crying, screaming "MAKE IT STOP!"

But it can't stop.
There is no way to prevent this.
It's going to happen whether I want it to or not.

My heart hurts so much even thinking about it.
And I know I shouldn't be thinking about it.
I know I should be more present, enjoy the time I'll have with him before he's gone.

But I can't ignore what's going to happen.
I have to keep it in mind, because it isn't going away.

Oh god, I want it to go away.
I don't want this.
I don't want to be apart.
I don't want to be separated from My Heart.


...

(I just want to die...)