Silenced Fear

Warning: Tonight's blog is somewhat graphic -- don't feel preasured to finish.



You can't run away from them forever. Tears find me still, ache still hurts my heart some nights, but now the tears and the ache come more from knowing what happened to someone I cared about. It makes me physically sick to remember what I found that night...looking at photographs of him will never be the same because the last time I saw his face, the smile I saw was the most awful thing I could ever see in my life...I've thought about going into nursing, but the mere thought of blood...it's not fair that was the last thing I had to bear witness to in his tragic life. I watched him play with those guns, hold them to his head, hold them to my head just so I could "feel what it felt like", get so drunk I wasn't sure if he'd quit breathing in the middle of the night...one night I found him crouched in a corner with blood coming out of his nose because he'd done cocaine and wasn't himself. I watched him punch himself in the head until his knuckles would bleed because he thought he was such a terrible person. All this a young girl watched in absolute paralyzing fear that someday I would find what I found on April 5th. I stayed because I thought...if I leave, and I mean as much as he says...that will put him over - then it will be my fault he's gone. So I gave him everything I possibly could in hopes that someday all the darkness would leave him and he could be the man he wanted to be.

Today...four months after his death, I have come to a point in my life where I'm open to the idea of falling for someone. The guy I like is amazing...we find out something new about each other everyday, and he makes me feel special. But I'm terrified. He's a man of God, and is not afraid to admit he believes...but I can't help but let my mind wander toward the thought that what if someday I do let my guard down and let him in...and he's gone. I am so absolutely terrified of ever witnessing anything again as horrific as that night...and I know I can't live in fear for the rest of my life, but I just want to hit the refresh button on my memory so it doesn't come out to haunt me.

I watched a video on Facebook just now...it was of a bunch of real and very tragic car crashes...one clip was a girl sitting on a wall and her boyfriend was standing in front of her. I won't go into details, but he died in front of her, and she was left paralyzed. I was watching the video thinking about how I can drive safer to make sure I stay away from such a horrible situation, until that clip came on and it brought back all those thoughts I used to have of "Wow...I can't even imagine how I'd be if my boyfriend passed away so suddenly." I used to think that with any guy I was with...and then it happened.

I want to be happy, and I don't want to push everyone away from me...because whether something comes out of this new crush or not, he's a good man and I don't want to be the single driving force to ruin a possibility. I never realized how dominant this fear is until I had the chance to just sit and think...and then, it made me pray that God takes that away...because I hope that even Ryan in heaven wants to see me have the life I've always dreamed of.