Simply

"I want to be free, free to dance and free to sing. Free to live and love and free to be me."

I do not want to think that this season is a season of my life going to waste. I don't want to think that the tears that I am shedding for him are tears wasted. I don't want to think of the nights without sleep as senseless and foolish. I can't help that when I dream this is what I see:

I stare at him for a moment dumbfounded. I see a smile on his face that is not a smile that the real Andrew Michael Smith would have on his lips. It is a cruel smile, a plotting smile. Suddenly I find words again, and my voice is at a full shout. "How could you do this to us? Why would you ruin everything? Why would you throw it away?" I am hysterical. I want to grab him and shake him, shake that smirk off of his face. Instead he calmly allows the police to lead him away- for good. I cannot bear the thought of it. This was my fiancee, the one who I loved more than anyone else.

I wake up, in anguish from the reality of the pain I felt in my dream. In reality, its not Andrew throwing away the future. Its me.
I couldn't sleep last night. He is coming home tomorrow and all that I can think about is how good it will feel to hold him again. I can't hold him, though. He is no longer mine to hold. I think of all the moments we've shared together. I can feel the pain of the harder moments, our struggles that we shared together, or supported one another through. I remember moments of joy, of laughter. I remember sitting out on a dock almost three years ago...

I sat on the dock, looking into the water, kicking my feet back and forth. I couldn't believe this was happening. The boy next to me was almost painfully quiet. This is what I had hoped for all summer. I turned shyly to him and waited for him to speak. It was perhaps the most awkward silence I had ever endured, but I didn't mind waiting, because I knew once we started the conversation, it would be good. I remembered all the times over the summer I had tried to catch his eye, being ridiculously loud and obnoxious during swim time. Kat and Sasha would mention me to him, without any interest on his part. Now he was sitting beside me, telling me he liked me. I remember, as swim time ended and I jumped into the water to swim back, I was incredibly excited but apprehensive. I didn't have a boyfriend yet, but I finally had the assurance that he was interested in pursuing a relationship.

Now I sit here, alone in my dorm room, contemplating what ending this relationship was going to look like, feel like. And there is only one word that comes to mind:
Hell.

I don't want to spend my summer moping, or constantly torn up over the loss of this love, but I can't escape the feelings. I have invited tragedy to my door, and I can't turn it away now. I have to face the decision I made and still try to enjoy life even as I tear it apart. I must learn and find peace in the fact that God still loves me. He made me with complexity, and it is my complexity that calls me to make decisions like this. I can only hope that I am making my Savior proud, and not continuing to mess things up. I feel like nothing that I do is right, that there is no good that will come from this, but I am comforted that despite all this, He loves me for me. He created me to be Sanyelle. Simply, Sanyelle. Hopefully, I can grow and learn from this, and continue to be me, pursuing holiness and maturity, honoring Andrew in whatever way I can through this. Perhaps he will grow as well. I can only pray...