The horizon stretched on and on, gently curving like the hips of a shapely woman lying on her side. As I walked towards the frothy sea of the early dawn, it grew more enticing, the faint tinge of red giving it a erotic glow. I hugged myself to shield my body from the chill, the only thing which kept me grounded in the present reality. The sea had otherwise filled all my senses.

I was thrilled in a strange way. My world had just crashed all around me. Last night’s cataclysmic argument had shattered my world as I had built it in the last three years. A world built on expectations, dreams and optimism, on a stubborn refusal to see anything but roses and light in the future. I was determined to live a fairytale life with the perfect husband, having the perfect children, living the perfect dream. Anything which threatened to show me the flaws in my perfect plan, I blatantly ignored, refused to see or hear. And then the blow fell.

My dream house was built on a foundation of explosives. On dormant dissatisfactions, unrealized dreams, simmering frustrations; some mine and some his. It caught fire and exploded last night when I caught him with her. The feelings did not crash down on me like a giant wave, instead, they washed over me one by one, one merging into the next, each one bigger than the one before till the last one finally carried me away with it to cataclysm. First came shock ; it took time for the betrayal to register, then hurt, then anger, followed by the shame of rejection, of somehow losing some coveted prize. Next frustration swept over me, the frustration of failure, the failure to continue to live my false life, the failure to preserve the lie, the frustration of having to accept the long ignored truth. The final current which uprooted me was the realization that grief was yet to come.

It shook me to my core, I had yet to feel grief over losing the love that was supposed to have been the lifeblood of my existence, instead I had been overcome with frustration. The lie had been given to my beliefs. I had stopped caring for the man whose ring I wore on my fourth finger. Somewhere deep inside I had known it, it had terrified me and I had struggled to smother it. Yet the “accident” had dragged it  from the cellars of my soul and had slapped it on my face.

Momentarily, I had been forced to come face to face with the emptiness of my life. In the blush of new love I had given up all I had, my ambitions, my beliefs, my essence to be the perfect one for him. I had customized myself to suit his needs and to meet his expectations. I had killed myself to make him love me. I had thought the fibers of my individuality were weeds and had exterminated them from my being to organize the perfect garden of my soul to receive him, to convince him to stay.

And when the love no longer was new, it lost its magic to occupy me fully. I started to sense voids, gaping hollows which grew, kept on growing till they began to show on the outside. Then I patched them up with make believe. I started playing a game with myself and against myself. I lied to myself till I began to believe my lies. And I was happy.

It was not yesterday which did it in for “us”, it wasn’t. Yesterday was just an excuse, a safety valve in my pressure cooker. If the steam hadn’t been let out , it would have corroded me from inside.

As I felt the sand ooze between my toes, the horizon was looking redder and more enticing. I smiled and as the water lapped over my feet, rushed under my dress, danced all around me, I wanted to dance a victory dance.; a dance to celebrate my victory over myself, to celebrate my freedom to start living my life again.