a letter to my ex
I've been watching videos of people being asked what they would say to their ex and it got me thinking. It's been a while since this relationship and it was the most impactful on who I am as a person and who I am in a relationship now. We've both moved on but if I had to, I think I would say...
When I think about my first love, I think about you. I think about the intensity and overwhelming feelings that came with the relationship we shared and called it love. We loved hard and fought even harder over things that were never that deep until our foundation became resentment. We said things that often changed our trajectory until our demise, I guess that's the power of words I had to learn. I won't pretend that I never loved you because I did but I loved you more than I loved myself. I loved you in a way that manifested in putting you above all--a disservice to myself and you. I realized you can love someone when you don't love yourself but at the cost of becoming a shell of the person you were when you don't choose yourself also. And there may be moments in life where I don't feel great about myself, I don't hate myself enough to put myself through anything similar.
There's a bitter truth in learning that love ends in heartbreak or death and there is no in between. I don't hate you anymore but for a period I had to and I don't know who you are as a person now but I hope you've changed in ways you could never change with me and are better for it. I know a version of you that others never will and that is the piece I carry that has become a part of me. If I had to do it again I would, but knowing in the back of my mind our expiration should have been sooner than it was because sometimes love is not enough. You hurt me in the worst ways and I accepted it, believing you were the love I deserved and so I never knew peace. I never knew boring. I would never know love where I would be happy doing taxes and laundry and in our worst fights we laugh in the middle of it.
In saying all this, the way we loved each other taught me all the ways to love better. I thought holding on meant the love was real but it was the fear that I didn't deserve more from someone. You hurt my ego, but it humbled me more.