I don’t know which hurts more – the dreams or the reality.

Everything hurts. I mean everything…
Walking through crowded hallways hurts. Being alone kills.
Talking to friends who are happily married hurts. Looking at friends who have babies kills.
Visiting people in their homes hurts. Knowing that my house of dreams turned into the house of shattered dreams kills.
My own age hurts. 25 years and all I have to show for it is a broken marriage. And an even more broken heart.
I swear even walking by an optical shop hurts. The pair of spectacles he was to get me... My new-found health insurance, long-awaited, but so short-lived…

But what hurts most of all these days is lying awake at nights and wondering. Wondering what destroyed our marriage – the dreams or the reality. Or the incongruous contrast between the two. I always thought I had too many dreams. Talking to him during our engagement proved me wrong. He gave me dreams I hadn’t dared to possess. Together, we created visions of married life that even my writer’s imagination could not have constructed alone.

Now, I don’t know which hurts more. The thought of the backyard by the lake that we never picnicked on. Or the memory of the cold autumn night I walked around the backyard knowing that I was married to a man who didn’t care enough to come after me. Knowing that I could go no further than this backyard in an attempt to show my frustration.

I don’t know which will haunt me more. The rooms that we were supposed to dwell in. The nursery that was to be, the study which was to be mine, the dining table he was to laughingly chase me around… Or the fact that we did sit at that table during our worst fights. That some of my tears have stained the glass forever. The thought that we sat there on that last night trying to salvage our marriage, and failed.

I don’t know what I’ve shed more tears over. The promises he made. That I’d never have to travel alone again. All the trips we were going to make, the ever-continuing honeymoon. That I’d never have to lug baggage as long as he was with me. Or what really happened. The time I carried my heavy bag slowly, painfully trudging after him at the airport, while he ignored my plight because he was angry and wanted to punish me. Punish me for something I had never done. Or the time he showed me how much he loved me, cared for me, and would protect me by turning his car around midway en route to Midway, because the roads were slick and slow, and suggesting that I rent a car from the airport and drive home by myself, in a relatively new city, in the night, in one of the worse areas of town, in a blizzard.

What I do know now is how it feels to hurt. To ache. To grieve.

To all those people who have known me, Nada Quraishi - the girl who didn’t cry, the strong daughter, the indomitable sister, the indefatigable friend... Know that I was defeated. By the dreams. And by the reality.