SOMETIMES

Leaving You

Everything told me to stay: Your hugs, your smile, your laugh, our banter, the 6hour long video and phone calls, the fights, the comfortable silence in between, the vulnerability, the intimacy. Everything screamed at me to stay, but I didn't. I left. I left you. 

Everyone told me I was being rash.

 Everyone told me how I'd remain single if all I kept doing was leave. 

Everyone pushed me to stay, regardless of what happened to me or what staying did to me...

One thing was certain: Sol must stay.

A woman stays with her man especially when it gets tough.  A woman perseveres, she holds on and she builds they said. A woman exercises patience and understanding, a woman moulds, a woman embraces, and she loves at all times, even in the mess. A woman forgives, a woman makes exceptions. All of this was drilled into my brain in multiple ways for as long as I can remember. 

Leaving, for a woman, was and is still to this day, considered to be an act of heartlessness and betrayal. It's a move of selfishness, a ploy to cover up our infidelity so that we can move onto our next victim, our next play. A predator is what you'd be called if you left. Only when your body hit the grave would you be called a woman again. When a woman stayed, she was respected and labelled as a true woman, a woman with substance and integrity, an emblem of womanhood and femininity in the society. What a joke! 

She was admirable, she was strong, she was a perfect example. Yes, her! The broken woman, the one with the fraying heart and shattered soul. That was the example, that was who we were pushed to be like and live like: a walking, talking corpse with no pulse, no heart and no soul. No thank you!

That's why I left you. I left you because I saw that woman and I didn't want to become her. I didn't want to be dismantled and destroyed like her. Unlike her, I wanted to live. Freely! Unlike her, I knew when to draw the curtains, no matter what anyone said, no matter how hard it would be. I showed my strength when I left. Staying was not strength to me. It never was. I wasn't going to give you the power to break me beyond what you already did. I wasn't going to let you finish the job. That's why I left. That's why I left you.

Leaving you, was the best decision I ever made.

Leaving you, saved my life.