Christmas Eve night and I’m completely alone. My life wasn’t supposed to turn out this way. I should be home sharing the holiday evening with my wife and son, looking forward to going to bed with my wife at my side and whispering “Merry Christmas” to each other before sharing a kiss. Instead, I’m alone.

You see, it is times like the holidays that really remind me of the cost of having bipolar disorder. It’s a high price indeed. This entire holiday season, I have been dreading every moment. I miss my wife so terribly I cannot describe it with words. While the memories of Christmases past run through my mind, it only serves as a stark reminder of how much I have lost thanks to having a disease I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy.

I cannot describe the pain. I truly, honestly cannot describe it. All of my hopes and dreams and plans gone. About right now, I should be sitting on the sofa holding her while watching “A Christmas Story” on DVD. I should be cuddled up on the sofa with my wife in my arms giving thanks to God for bringing us together and allowing us to share yet another Christmas together. Instead, I’m alone…heartbroken.

How else am I SUPPOSED to feel? How would anyone else feel without the person they love more than anything else on this earth on Christmas Eve? How would anyone else feel knowing that they are without the love of their lives? How would YOU feel?

Tonight is the 452nd night I’ve spent alone…and the pain of each and every one of them is all I can feel. Not many people I know have spent more than 450 nights crying themselves to sleep, but I have. Every. Single. Night.

I’ve prayed, I’ve despaired, I’ve suffered. I have wished and begged and held onto hope. I’ve made desperate pleas to God Almighty, and I’ve also tried to make deals with the devil himself. I’ve tried putting my fate in the hands of a higher power, and I have tried taking control of my future. I have prayed for God to ease her pain and to help show her that I truly love her. I have prayed to God to help her open her heart to forgiveness and to help her see that it was the DISEASE and NOT the man that said and did those things. No matter what I have done, all I hear is a deafening silence as a reply.

I know working through things would be painful for us both, but not as painful I would think as throwing away a love that was real and true and pure. I never expected her to just come back and all would be forgiven. I expected to have to work, to earn the honor of calling her my wife again. All I know is that I’d be willing to do absolutely anything to earn that honor again. Anything. Including giving up my very life for her.

A preacher told me “God gave us his only son and allowed him to be put to death. Jesus died on the cross so that our sins would be forgiven.”

That’s all nice and dandy, but what the hell about me? Where is the forgiveness of MY sins? Sins I never intended to commit. God made me, right? God loves me right? If God is such the all-knowing and ever-loving person his reputation says he’s supposed to be, then why the fuck did he make me with bipolar disorder? Why would someone who is supposed to love me cause me to have a disease that would eventually ruin everything I ever loved or cared about? Why have I been made to suffer so? What purpose could it possibly serve?

So I’m just supposed to move on with my life like everyone tells me I should? That’s easy to say when you don’t truly love someone. I’d rather die than have to live the rest of my life without my wife. Without her, I am incomplete.

She was everything good and pure in this world. She was kind and gentle…loving and caring. She was the soft warm blanket I counted on to keep me warm on cold and rainy nights, and without her, my soul is slowly dying.

That is what it feels like. My soul slowly bleeding to death.

I loved her from the moment I saw her standing there all those years ago. I know the things I did hurt her. I know the things I said were cruel. I also know that if I didn’t have bipolar disorder, NONE of them would have even happened. If I didn’t have bipolar disorder, I’d still have my wife.

So, what do I want for Christmas? The same thing I’ve wished for on each of the 452 nights I’ve spent alone…I wish that she finds peace. I wish she can find forgiveness for me. I wish to hold my wife, if just for one more time.

My wife…the woman I’ve loved more than anything for the past 14 years. And I’d do ANYTHING to have a second chance to prove it.