I was having quiet time this morning when something in me told me to go find my prayer journal from the previous year. I searched around my room and studio but never found the book. I saw my journal from 2018/19 sitting on a stack and grabbed it.

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I had been told perhaps I didn’t know how to ask for help. I had been told you did see me. I didn’t see all you did. You told me I hadn’t changed until October. Everything had been fine until then.

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Those pages reminded me none of that was true. Some of it I had bought into. Maybe I hadn’t really spoken up. Perhaps I hadn’t asked for the help I thought I asked for. There certainly were things you were doing I overlooked, right?

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Those painful pages I flipped through reminded me of the deep sadness I felt day in and day out. The deep longing I had for connection. The deep-rooted belief I had that everything wrong in our relationship was my fault. If only I could fix myself we would be fine. The times I wrote about when I spoke up, asked for things to change, was promised change, to only write the same words a few pages later. I begged to feel connected to you.

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No. It was broken long before October. It had broken years ago and I was drowning in it while you sat on the beach.