This is how it feels to be Padme Amidala Skywalker:

After months and months of separation, you're used to sleeping alone now. The emptiness that exists in your bed is merely an echo of the emptiness that is in your heart, and most days you find yourself so consumed with your inner pain that the open spot in your bed where your husband is supposed to be is little more than an afterthought.

Much has changed since he left and you sometimes wonder what he would think of you now, if he saw you like this. You think he wouldn't be impressed, because now you are only a shadow of your former self; the only thing that really exists is just your outer shell. The former Padme is in there somewhere, of course, waiting patiently for the trauma of her loss to be over so she can come back out and take charge again, this time older, wiser. Harder.

You have always been a petite woman and you lost so much weight so fast that your friends in the Senate ask if you are in good health, if there is anything they can do for you. Your family, those rare times you return their call, beg you to come home and rest and you don't blame them for being concerned. When you look into the mirror, you don't even recognize yourself, so how can they?

To be fair, it is more than the loss of Anakin. His loss seems so… symbolic. Since he left, the Republic you love is crumbling at an accelerated rate and you know that you are watching its death throes. The Jedi are more and more haggard every time they come to the Senate. You always knew your husband was a great Jedi and a fierce warrior. It was one of the reasons you were adamant that he could not quit the Order. He needed an outlet for all his energy and his talents. Or so you thought. Now, after watching the events of the past few months unfold, you realize that you were wrong all along. Anakin did not need the Jedi. The Jedi needed him. Not being Force sensitive, the prophecy of the Chosen One had never really made sense to you, had never really concerned you. Now though – the decline his departure wrought was so rapid, so abrupt, that it eradicated any doubts you once had about this vague prophecy. It was like removing him had tipped over the first domino, and all anyone could do was watch the rest fall.

His departure had shaken you. He had sworn his love to you over and over again as he pursued you relentlessly, had made you believe in him so thoroughly that you hadn't fully believed you could take a breath in a galaxy that didn't have him in it. How many times during the war had he wanted to walk away? Had begged you to just go somewhere and leave everything else behind? On those nights where the war had seeped itself so deep into him that he felt suffocated by it, you put him back onto his path. The fact that he had given up on you – given up on us – had broken something inside of you that you had not even known had existed. The rejection shredded your heart and made bile rise in your throat every time he crept into your thoughts. You're angry. You're hurt. All you want is him to come home, right now, to take you up into his arms and make everything better. At the same time, you also want to strangle him. These two sides of you; the angry, vengeful Padme and the loving, forgiving Padme are constantly at war with each other, and you don't know how you're supposed to feel. To realize that he did not love you the way you had believed he did makes you question your worth and it's humiliating to know that when he left, he took not only your heart but the inner confidence that had always made you such a formidable opponent, as well. As the weeks and months drag on, you finally realize that he isn't coming back, and you break all over again. That was the worst part: that you have to hurt like this and you don't know how to make it stop because you're pretty sure there is only one person who can make it stop, and he doesn't want you anymore. You will never know his reasons, whether they were good or bad, and that was another wound that you doubt will ever really heal.

This is how it feels to be Padme Amidala Skywalker.