My Love –
Well. Here we are. After a year together, you are going back to your ex-fiancee. I’m not surprised. I’m not angry. I am very deeply hurt. But I wouldn’t take back anything in the past year.
The last year for me was wonderful. It was stressful, it was challenging, it was expensive, it was an opportunity to see myself in a different light and as a different person. When you came back to me, I was broken. My father had just died, my ex had abandoned me. I was spinning out of control, and so were you. But you made it better because at least we were spinning together. You showed me that I wasn’t a bad person, that I was capable of love. You showed me that I was wanted, even if I was broken and flawed and imperfect. You taught me how to dream again. You reminded me that I should want more than what I have and that I deserve more, too. You made loving fun. You made my life better.
Even so, things didn’t work out between us. I’m still stuck in this place in my head where I expect my partners to be perfect, and I expect myself to be perfect in my relationships, and if I’m not, I give up. It’s a hard habit to break. I get caught up in the fictions of insecurities in my mind, and I don’t know how to talk about them to the people I love the most. I can be mean. Cruel. I’m good at that. So are you.
I’m trying to grow up. I’m trying to learn that love isn’t always easy, but I still don’t know how hard it should be before I give up. Should I have given up after you ignored me on my birthday? Should I have given up after you kicked me in the face? Should I have given up when you stopped paying me back all the money you owe me? I didn’t give up, I just faltered and kept going. Perhaps the faltering was what did it. Death by a thousand cuts.
I tried to tell you what I wanted. After you taught me how to want better for myself, I started to want better for us, too. But you didn’t hear me. Maybe I didn’t say it loudly enough. I wanted to conquer the world together. I wanted to be big and beautiful together. I wanted to feast at the table of life with you, forever. I wanted us to love each other, everywhere and anywhere, for as long as we could.
But we’re not going to do that. Are we? There were too many bad days and temper tantrums. There wasn’t enough money and enough time. We didn’t talk to each other enough about things like that. Things that mattered. Every time I faltered, we grew further and further apart. So far apart that you are now back with your ex.
And now where will I go. What will I do. I’ll work out, eat healthy, lose some weight. Move to a different city. Dye my hair. Reactivate all my dating apps. Look for pieces of you in new people that I meet. Rewatch our sex videos every night until I stop crying.
I want to hold onto the little pieces of you that made me fall in love with you over and over again. Grabbing onto you in the middle of the night – you were such a good little spoon. Holding hands while we watched TV in bed and did nothing all day. Talking about music and playing new songs for each other as we drove around in my car. Meandering around Target. Talking trash about white people and Berkeley drivers. Your stupid little dances. Your grumpy face when you were waking up. My head on your chest. The way you would jump and shout at every fight scene in any movie we watched. Listening to you talk about sports even though I was never really listening. And, of course, the sex.
I gave you the best that I could give you, and it was wonderful. I will always cherish this year we spent together. You will always be beautiful to me, even if it’s just a memory. You can go be ugly with someone else now.
