I started smoking again. Not like the pack I buy when I’m drunk just to have one cigarette and then toss out the other 19 several months later, after I find them sitting at the bottom of a switched out purse. No. It’s been 3 days and I’m down to 6 left.

My 10 yo told me I smelled like my chain-smoking grandmother’s house today. I should probably stop. But I also lied. I told he and his younger brother that it was just one cigarette and that I was only smoking because –

9: Because of him.

I stopped midsentence, unprepared for the straightforward comment from my baby. He wasn’t wrong. Lost in the graveness of that moment, I closed my eyes and concentrated on my breathing. I felt myself breaking. I couldn’t. Not in front of my boys. Especially not over someone they had only known maybe a month or so. It was too late. My heart had sped up, my cheeks felt flush and heated, slowly water creased my lids yet somehow fell with a quickness and often.

“Yes”, I barely muttered. “Because of him.”

As I wept, I explained the way of adults. Of how love is not always enough. Sometimes people have problems they need to sort through before they can be with someone else. I told them how you weren’t a bad person, you were smart, funny – Jesus, I was all of a sudden your PR rep. I told them that we loved each other, yes. We did. We loved each other and it made us both sad to not be together but that now was not a good time.

Then I saw my youngest boy, sitting next to me, silent but bothered, face pained, his own eyes welling up. Listening, nodding his head to indicate he understood, even if maybe he didn’t completely. Too young to understand the intricacies of addiction, but not too young to know his mother was heartbroken.

“Oh, no. No, love. Don’t cry.” I pulled him to me, still small enough to curl himself as close as he could without it being awkward, he did just that. “Oh baby, momma loves you so much. Don’t you worry about me, I’m okay. I’m only crying right now because love is sad sometimes. But that’s okay. I’m gonna be okay. This is just one sad day. And it had to happen, my love. I want to be the best momma I can be and I can’t do that if I’m with someone who has extra big problems. It’s okay. I’m okay.”

It’s okay. I’m okay.

It’s okay. I’m okay.

I know that this pain is temporary. All lost love is temporary. In some rare cases, it may linger. A faint echo of a familiar lullaby yet the name still cannot be placed. I also know that you will join a handful of names which the wind will whisper to me, like clockwork as it usually does, right before a storm. I know I’ll be nostalgic, maybe even a sharp stab of bittersweet sentimentality to cause me to flinch. I know that it hurts to let you go, but holding on will do so much more harm. I have been so afraid to walk away for fear of the loss, but to keep you has already proved much more detrimental.

I have been weighted and sunken, a cheap facsimile on autopilot has taken my place. No one knows where to find me, not even myself.

So, I’ve chosen to go searching for where I may have gone. Unfortunately, this is a rescue mission of One. I only hope one day that maybe you come looking for me, too.

After you have found yourself.