Our Kilonova Experience

The year is 2017, two neutron stars in a neighboring galaxy are noticed spiraling towards each other. The gradual closeness between these two heavenly bodies caused a distortion in space and time which generated ripples in the fabric of spacetime that were felt all the way back here on earth. The two stars; unaware of their shift towards each other, ended up colliding. They exploded into his huge, beautiful fireball, an event later referred to as a Kilonova, that could be seen burning brightly through the telescopic lens of everyone who managed to witness the event. The Kilonova possibly contained a massive amount of gold, platinum and uranium; elements which scientists believe are normally formed from explosions of this nature. Elements that add great value to our success and evolution here on earth.

There are still many questions that follow this astronomical event, such as what happened to the 95% of the neutron mass that did not explode? They would like to believe it became a black hole but it would be another number of years before we know for sure.

The year is 2017 and just like the Kilonova, our relationship explodes. Like the neutron stars, we had been in each other's lives for a very long time without being aware of it most of our earlier years. We grew up in the same town, 20 mins apart from each other. We shared mutual friends. We attended the same parties and visited the same places yet we were total strangers. It was until we migrated to the same country and social media, that we realized we had been orbiting each other for over 8 years, being distant friends without ever having the pleasure of shaking hands until we did. It was after this that the momentum would have picked up and we would move even closer together at a faster rate.

I would eventually find the demons you had accumulated and carted around. Although most remained harmless, it would be the ones you hid deep below your great masculine exterior that I would not overcome. Without permission I would make the decision that you needed saving and that I was going to be the hero in your story.

There was not a day I did not feel love for you and I would like to say that was the reason that I fought so hard but when I look back now, all I can see is blind ego and the fight for a title no one before me was able to win. We kept spinning dangerously close, with me enabling your addiction to lies and deceit by quieting the parts of me that were not accepting of your actions and disregarding my boundaries. My inability to spin out of orbit to escape this pull regarded my underlying need to leave as a weakness. We seemed to both believe that staying meant strength. It represented love. My mother left but what good did that do for my family? On the other hand your mother stayed, unhappily, but what good did that do for yours?

In trying to fulfill the duties of what I thought to be a committed partner, I forgot the visions and standards I once held myself to. Visions and standards I had wished to uphold for you but what were actually dropped to continue my fight for your freedom. I guess that was our explosive end. We got close to the truth like Icarus did to the sun burning our desires and hopes to a crisp before plummeting back to reality. Our truth being the poor knowledge we possessed of what healthy relationships were. Between our childhood wounds and the love we felt, there could find no common ground. We each replicated the part played by the parent we could not forgive which led to our relationship’s ultimate demise.

We may not have produced gold or uranium but we did put a stop to a toxicity that was getting out of hand. I see the world losing two bratty children to gain two grown individuals. Our ending wasn't marked by a blinding fireball of light as beautiful as the Kilanova’s, but instead, sadness and defeat and at the same time the wisdom we would need to carry on.

Unlike the stars in Kilonova, I managed to lose 95% of me from the experience, but what happened to the 5% you might ask? Well, I like to think it was used it to step clean shoes through new doors.