Dear You,

I don’t hate you. I never have and I never will. You made too much of a positive impact on my life for me to ever wish bad upon your life. I was in middle school when we began our two-year-long journey together, and I had—and still have—so much to learn about life and relationships. You taught me so many lessons and overall made me a better version of me. People say that relationships shouldn’t change you, but I truly believe that’s why God placed you particularly in my life: to change me for the better.

You brought out the adventurous side of me and asked me to try new things. You made me fall in love with normally insignificant things, like the way you gripped my hand a little tighter when we prayed together. Ordinarily I wouldn’t notice something so trivial, but I was so madly in love with you that I paid close attention to every detail of your being. Once I fell in love with you, I had an extra person to make happy other than myself. Being in a relationship is a demanding job, and I don’t think either of us knew what we were in store for. I fell hard and fast for you. I wanted more than anything to spend all my time with you and only you. I removed friends from my life to make time for us, and so did you.

Lesson learned: Make time for you, your significant other, friends, and family.

Now don’t get me wrong, I still made my own decisions and had my own opinions that were different from yours, but I let you control a very important aspect of my life: my happiness. I don’t say that in a demeaning sense; you never failed at making me happy. But the moment I allowed you to control my happiness was the moment I lost all sense of security. At this point in my life I honestly don’t believe that I could have lived without you. I had conditioned myself to believe that I could not be happy on my own. I didn’t even know how to make myself happy anymore, and that is so dangerous. I was in a vulnerable state, and I needed to escape quickly. As time went on, we began to drift from one another: the goodnight messages went from paragraphs long to single sentences. That sounds ignorant and childish, so call me paranoid; but I knew you like the back of my hand. Sometimes I literally thought we could read each other’s minds, because we were so in sync with one another. I knew the background story of every scar as if I were there when you received it. I knew and loved (and still do) every single family member as my own. I knew how to make you mad, but I also knew how to calm you down. You were truly my best friend, and I’ll forever be grateful for the memories we cherished together. But there comes a time when you realize that your happiness has to be your first priority and neither of us had put ourselves first in the past two years.

When we ended things, I had to learn to love myself all over again, but you helped make that an easier task; by loving me so greatly, I already knew what it was like to be loved. You taught me to never settle for less than I deserve. You were my tranquility in a chaotic world. You unknowingly taught me to strive for success. I thought all along that I wanted to make you proud of me, and I did, but I did it for myself, too. The day we broke up I cried and so did you, but neither of us have dwelled in sadness. I wanted so long for you to change your mind and be mine again, but I slowly realized that I have served my purpose in your life; and it’s sadly my turn to let you be you. I still want more than anything for you to be happy and successful in life, and I understand now that you can accomplish both without me by your side. I will always support you; and I will never approve of any future girlfriends, not because I will feel angst toward them, but because you will always be too good for them. I guess sometimes you just grow apart from people but that doesn’t make you love them any less.

Always,

Your Girl