Everything can change in a year

We drove up the snowy, winding road toward the cozy A-frame cabin. We were having fun doing carpool karaoke to cheesy pop songs, I remember laughing a lot and loving those car journeys. That was a year ago, and so much changed in a year.

Our annual visit to the log cabin was always my favorite time of year, me and my partner would spend a long weekend in that romantic getaway, we'd stay up all night and look at the stars, imagining stories about long-lost lovers and heroic battles, we'd talk into the night and for a while, nothing else mattered. I was happy when my parents gave me this cabin, they used to rent it out to people, but in their old age, they no longer wanted the responsibility and passed it on to me to look after, so each year me and my partner came here. This was the man I was going to marry, my best friend, my lover. Shortly after our last trip to the cabin, my life changed, I had kissed my partner in the morning before work and that was the last time I'd see him. He never came home, he just left and that was that. He didn't try to talk about things and as far as I knew, we were perfect together, but he wanted other things and another life that didn't include me, he had met someone else and just left like a coward.

So here I am, driving back to that cabin for the yearly trip because I can't let go, except this time, there are no songs in the car, no laughter, just a hollow silence. Pulling up to the cabin, it somehow seems different, before there was color, hope, and optimism and a positive future, now it looks drab, and even the birds seem quieter.

The snow sparkles and glistens, I stare at it unable to feel much, I think I've been numb for a while and that snow feels almost as cold as I do. When you spend so long in a relationship, it's like you become just one person, you do everything together, make plans together, eat together, sleep together, there are never just two people, you're like two sides of a coin, then suddenly they're gone and you're expected to function like it hasn't been that way for 10 years, you're expected to go on like half of you hasn't been ripped away. I never knew it was possible to feel grief from a relationship break-up, but it's worse than someone dying. If they died you can hope they're watching over you, and in a selfish way, if they died, you can go on knowing they loved you till the end. But having someone just walking away, you still remember the good memories, how it felt to feel whole and know that they're making new memories with someone else, that they hold someone else the way they held you, and know that they never truly loved you, you have to go on knowing it was a lie, an illusion that shattered so forceful, it ripped you apart on the way out.

Now I look at this cabin and can hear the faint echos of laughter, I can see the happy memories, and all the good memories are now cast in a shadow of the sadness that I've felt since he left and of the future he destroyed when he walked out the door.

I stand staring at the little cabin wondering what if he hadn't left, could we have had kids running around there at some point, throwing snowballs at one another and cooking festive dinners, and playing board games next to a roaring fire. It all seems so silly to think of things that won't ever happen, but I can't seem to help it. I've barely spoken to anyone in the past year and have isolated myself away from everyone, being close to someone now seems impossible. I walk around each day silently crying inside and yet so numb, and staring at this cabin now, I can relate to it. It's covered in the cold snow, and probably cold inside, it's also void of laughter, warmth, and joy, just like me. Part of me wants to embrace it, to light a fire and warm it up, but I can't bring myself to do it.

Instead, I walk to the boot of my car, I didn't bring bags or luggage, I didn't need them for this trip. Instead, I pull out the gasoline I brought and walk towards the cabin, I never came here with the intent to stay, I came with the intent to torch the place to the ground. As a look up at the cabin, I can't bring myself to do it, the cabin reminds me too much of myself at that moment and I realize I'd be punishing myself by destroying it, not him or his memory.

I can't help but cry, the tears feel warm against my face at this point, I fell to the ground at some point but the cold just seems too familiar, I'm angry that I let this happen to me, that I missed the signs or allowed myself to get caught up in a fantasy. I'm angry that I let a man close enough to be able to hurt me that way. I can feel the fracture throughout me of the heartbreak, and I don't know how to fix them or continue going, I feel like a ghost wandering through the world- so out of touch. But this cabin isn't to blame and torching it won't help. While I'm on my knees still shaking for the crying, I realize that I want to be in that cabin, with the fire lit embracing me, penetrating through the cold. I like the peace the cabin offers in its isolated location and the way it feels like an old friend. I slowly get to my feet and walk to the door, promising myself step by step that I'll heal. With each step, I slowly start letting go of the old and almost feel a spark of hope at the new, it's amazing how one little cabin because a catalyst of my change, that cold, lonely and isolated cabin made me realize that I'm not alone.