You should know that cutting down a vine makes it grow back stronger.

I recall a similar story in the same book they used to defend their actions against me.

On Sunday, I learned what I already knew to be true: I was betrayed. It’s not that betrayal is ever easy, but if it’s on a spectrum, then this one burned particularly hot.

There is such a strange obsession with marriage, especially among the religious.

When I was dating in the church, I was seen as a bud about to bloom and always at risk of turning someone on. When I got engaged, men in the church started looking me in the eyes, no longer afraid of sending mixed messages since I had a man by my side. By the time I ended my engagement, I was damaged goods.

I think the evangelical perspective of women in marriage stems from the archaic mentality that we are just a part until another makes us whole (spoiler: you are already whole) and from the belief that women are easier handled when tamed and silent.

Not many people know what to do with a loose cannon, especially if she speaks.

When I broke off my engagement after months of toiling, I knew I chose to get off the train but I wasn’t yet ready to swim upstream. I was wounded and needed space to heal even though I was the one that pulled the trigger. Almost immediately, the mood in my community changed. It was as if people thought I was disrespecting the value of marriage, when in reality, it was the very respect I had for marriage that gave me the freedom to end my engagement.

It was like I knew a secret that I wasn’t supposed to have access to: Engagement is stressful, the buildup to marriage is a disaster, and wedding planning is a nightmare (especially with the wrong person). I blew their happy marriage stories out of the water and tainted their narrative that this was all supposed to be the happiest time of my life when I would ‘finally’ be awakened to the closest relationship resembling God (THAT IS SO MUCH PRESSURE, BTW).

But calling it off was only an ounce of the drama. I later learned that several of my ‘friends’ chose not to talk to me because they disapproved of how publicly I chose to process. They didn’t like how I was grieving.

They won’t like this blog.

But they were my friends. I knew I would lose my fiancé in the breakup, but I never calculated their loss into my plan. Couldn’t they see the truth behind my posts, that I was hurting and vulnerable? That I was seeking to understand myself and share my story, without slighting him? Instead of asking how I was doing, they did the cruel thing: silence.

Evidentially you are allowed to mourn, but only in private: ‘You did the brave thing, but don’t tell the world.’ ‘Little girls are watching you and might get the wrong idea.’ ‘You’ll probably regret posting about it.’ ‘You’re making this worse.’

I didn’t know that ending one relationship that a community holds in the highest regard would lead to the end of others. I lost more friends than I even knew I had! I don’t see myself as the victim, but as a shocked viewer watching it all unfold. I had onion layers of disbelief.

Talking about my reasons to walk away was so offensive to the institution that I decided to leave. I no longer wanted to be a part of a particular body that celebrated personas instead of epiphanies. My truth became a threat to their interpretations, protected by the masses and once accepted by me.

Their absence is now screaming louder than their friendship ever did.

On one hand, I wanted to be angry and spiteful: How could you be so wicked?

Then on the other hand, I wanted to thank them.

My severed branches are stronger now. This vine is stretching towards the sky with deeper roots, previously unaware that the ground I once inhabited was far too shallow for me.