I’m not angry and I’m not holding grudges. I am gracefully letting go. It’s been a few months since you’ve left, taking half of me with you. When you knew I needed you the most, you didn’t hesitate to close doors behind you. No, I do not regret the four years of my life spent on you because even if it was a bad experience, it was still an experience. Everyone that knows our story wants me to be mad at you and to hate you… I think I should too, but I’ve decided that even you deserve to be happy.

I stuck by you year after year, mistake after mistake. Years of mental, and unfortunately physical, abuse and you still saw me as nothing more than a doormat. We are all one decision away from a totally different life and you made one for me that I’m surprisingly happy with. I lost myself in you; in us. It was toxic and anyone will tell you that. It was a lot different behind closed doors; we weren’t what we seemed. I put my trust in you... I gave you all I had and you took it for granted. I spent so many consecutive nights trying to understand how you could be so cruel to someone who only wanted to love you. The worst part is, you knew I was hurting and you acted as if you weren’t just the one to break apart what I was so desperately trying to hold together. You were a reckless soul… You did as you pleased not thinking of what or who you destroyed in your path. It was me. You destroyed me.

Where did it go? All the love we had? I hurt so bad, so long, and felt so many things at once that I ended up just feeling empty. I started to think that maybe we feel so empty because we leave pieces of ourselves in everything we used to love. That being said, I think I loved you so much that a pretty big piece of me is still with you.

This was a one sided love, this was me breaking myself every day to make you happy and yet somehow it STILL was not enough for you. I looked at you as if you had put the stars in my skies and you still only looked down on me. And everyone keeps telling me that they know I’m going to come running back to you, but I think they’re wrong. After years of you telling me that I was nothing, that no one was going to love me or voluntarily want to be with me, I’ve found worth in myself and I like my freedom this time.

I spent so long basing my decisions on how it would affect you; how you would react. I’m finding things out about myself without you that I really want to keep. With you, I wasn’t allowed to be my own person or to think on my own, I wasn’t allowed to have friends and meet new people. I was stuck with you and didn’t think it would ever change. I didn’t think I had an option to walk away. You never really realize how toxic someone is until you breathe fresher air.

In a way, I have you to thank you for shattering every last piece of me. Because of you, I was able to build myself all over again. But this time, I got to be whoever I wanted. I was so consumed in you and what I thought was our perfect love story that I forgot to be my own person. The more of you I threw away, the more of myself I found. Then, after months of silence, I realized that we’re better at being strangers than we were anything else.

Yes, I will always remember you and our time shared together. And yes, I still find myself thinking about you from time to time... But I’m not sad about it. I can see the progress I’ve made since we went our separate ways and I never want to go back to being the person I was with you. I no longer spend nights wondering why you don’t love me anymore and I wonder why I didn’t love myself more when I needed it. Though, on occasion, I still wonder how you could say those three simple words and then take them back so quickly.

I’m not sure yet if I’ll ever find a way to fill the voids you left inside of me, but I know that even with these empty spaces, I’m happier now than I ever was with you. There are bigger and better things coming soon in my life that you weren’t meant to be a part of.

So thank you for helping to shape me into what I’ve become today. And thank you for pushing me into having the courage to do what I never thought I could. Please do not come looking for me when you get lonely and start to think that you miss me. And I know you will because, gosh, you can’t stand seeing me happy. I wanted it to be you and me in the end so bad, I think I realized a long time ago it wasn’t and that’s why I held on so tight. As much as I miss you, the old you, the monster you’ve become is not something I can handle.

I hope you accomplish all you set out to do, and I hope you meet someone who makes you want to change. And I’m sorry I couldn’t be that for you. Enough for you. Again, this is me moving on, this is me gracefully letting go. I wish you the best, and please don’t ruin your next lover like you ruined me.

Goodbye to my first love.