Chapter 1: The Fifteen-Year Scrapyard

It is difficult. My God, no one warns you how hard it is to breathe again when you feel that the air has the density of lead and the edge of broken glass. There is a lot of talk about "starting over" as if it were a formality, a decision that is made on a Monday morning with a cup of coffee in hand. But this is not the case. Starting over means first picking up the pieces of yourself from the floor, realizing that you are completely alone in a quiet room, and facing the shattering certainty that you have nothing anymore. Or worse: to the cursed suspicion that, perhaps, you never had anything real.

It was fifteen years. Fifteen years of marriage that are now reduced to folders with signatures and notarial seals. Fifteen years of daily sacrifices, of depriving myself of luxuries, of new clothes, of travels, of mute whims, all with a single purpose in mind: to build a warm home. A refuge for our love, the foundation of our future. He thought of the "we" before the "I." I designed every corner of that house, I chose the curtains so that the exact light could enter, I cooked with love, I ironed his shirts so that he would go out into the world impeccable, taking care of his steps. And what happened?

Because of a minor woman I was discarded. Thus, with the coldness with which an old piece of furniture that gets in the way of the remodeling is thrown away. They threw me in the trash without looking back, without giving a single ounce of value to my sacrifices, to my twenties and thirties dedicated, to my entire life withered in their hands. Overnight, I went from being the life partner to being absolutely nothing.

That's when the real hell begins: the psychological attack on yourself. It is a silent torture that occurs at night, when the ceiling of the room seems to collapse. The questions assault you like daggers: Why wasn't I enough? What does she have on her skin that I don't have? Wasn't I worth it? Why didn't she stay with me? Why didn't she choose me? And the question that tears up the most flesh as it passes: Did he ever love me, or was I just a hygienic and useful stepping stone for him to fulfill his goals while I held him up the ladder regardless of my own feelings?

It hurts. Of course it hurts. The heart is not a literary metaphor; When your life is broken in this way, your chest feels physically torn. You feel the blood heavy, the muscle destroyed. A knife stuck in your stomach doesn't compare to the pain you experience when the man you grew up with looks you in the eye and tells you that he wants a divorce because he fell in love with a younger one.

Anthony sees no further than his own current blindness. She is not able to calculate that in fifteen years he will be an older adult full of gray hair, tired, and she will barely be in the prime of life. She's going to leave him for old, it's the law of nature. But today, that thought does not console me. Today there is only room for crying.

I cried on the kitchen floor. I weep now over my trembling hands, and I know perfectly well that I shall weep tomorrow. I cry because he didn't see me, because he became blind to my surrender. I cry for my lost years, even if I try to deceive myself by telling myself that they were for learning. But also, between tears, I cry because I know that I am going to make it through. When pain gives me a two-second respite, a rabid force tells me that I will come out of this pit. I still don't know how, I don't have a map, but I know I'll make it