When a relationship falls apart, the aftermath that follows never comes with an instruction manual. It’s hard to know how to handle a heartbreak and such a big change. No show, movie or book easily reaches out with 10 magic tricks that would work, like grandmas’ remedy recipe for the aching heart.
I think ours came with a hand grenade as a complementary parting present after you already blew my heart to smithereens. Sometimes things fall apart to make room for better things. I think we fell apart to make room for sensible things. Think about it — not with our narcissistic viewpoint, instead with an open mind about what we really got to. I remember looking at you with so much love and affection and now when I see you, I cannot refrain myself from asking how you can fit all that stupidity into one single head? Was I a fool, did I never notice the idiocy that has always consumed you? For a self-absorbed person, you really did soak yourself into various concerning states. You meant a lot to me, and maybe that is the reason it took me this long to get to the way I feel now.
I would like to start by saying I am no longer sorry for giving up on you, instead I am sorry for not giving myself enough. You blamed so many external factors for the breakup. Even when those factors vanished, your blemished personality still stayed. We stayed up nights arguing, crying and fighting over the most baseless things, bickering away the most hateful expressions. I refuse to believe that was ever love, because love is kind, love is gentle, love is free of malice and hate, and above everything, love does not only take, but it also gives.
I mourned the death of a love that your heart could never even comprehend. But, this is not my hate filled letter to you — instead this is my extension of gratitude to you. Over the few months of endless crying and blaming myself for things I never should have, I realised the most important lesson. I realised the biggest mistake was not to love you more, but to love myself less. In giving you my everything, I forgot how to give myself anything. So, this letter is to the mistakes I made in the past by giving you the spotlight I so long deserved and now will claim. You cracked my heart, but oddly enough opened the way for light and growth to enter and allow me to discover who I really am. This self-love never came easy — I struggled with it when I saw the damage caused by ex-lovers and friends, the lack of self-respect the toxic relationship left me with and the leftover memories. Healing did not come overnight, neither did the most obvious things, and that was okay. All I really had to do was detach myself from the version of me that loved a self-created version of you and actually stand back to see who you truly were. It took each day, each moment to understand the most basic concept: if you could love yourself enough to be such a delusional hypocrite, I could at least love myself enough to let you out of my life easily.
I believe in love stories and I believe in good endings, but now I also do believe in meeting the right people and not just assuming people are right for you. There was a point where I was so tired of what you thought about me, or how less you thought of me, so here is something I think about — I thank you for leaving me, in order for me to find myself and give myself that I deserved all along. And that is all I ever want you to think of me. Because I do care about you and do want to see you grow, but I also want to keep my distance and not want to be involved. I must learn that just because I am beginning to be at more peace with myself and heal does not mean you’re any less toxic than you have always been. I am going to stay away from your half-meant apologies and self-absorbed truths — it’s bad enough you are the way you are.