You have been my very best friend for a long, long time now. So long that every memory I hold near and dear to my heart has bits and pieces of you in it. You have been around for break ups, graduations, family struggles, and everything in between. You were around to pick me up whenever I fell, you held my hand when I was crying. You were always there, and I never thought that a day would go by when I felt like you weren't there for me.

"I fell in love the way that you fall asleep. Slowly and then all at once"

That is how I fell in love with you. There were so many hidden feelings bubbling up beneath the surface, so many emotions that I had no clue existed until you brought them out of me. Looking at you was like looking into my future. I used to be so afraid that everyone in my life would leave me, and you were the first person to make me feel completely at ease. I was never scared that you would walk out of my life, never scared that you would look at me any differently than you were in that moment. Until now, that is.

I am trying to come to terms with how you feel. Trying to understand that you can love me and not want to be together. I am trying so very hard to understand you in the ways that I've been able to before. I just don't think I'll be able to understand this one. You were my first big, storybook love that I thought I would be with forever. We always came back to each other, always fought so hard for us. And I thought that we would never stop fighting.

But this, this doesn't feel like we've stopped fighting. It just feels like we don't have something to fight for. Our love is not gone, just different, I think. I don't know how to get it back, or if you even want it back. What I do know, however, is that I have learned so much from you. You have taught me every single thing that I know about love, you have written so many pages of story in my life. You have loved me when it was hard to love myself and you have saved me in every way possible. I don't mean to sound cheesy, but it's true. You saved me from myself when I was my worst enemy. You saved me from stupid relationships that didn't mean anything. And, most importantly, you saved me from the overwhelming thought that I would never find love.

I am no longer afraid that I won't find love in this cruel, twisted, hate-filled world that we live in. I have different fears now. You have made me afraid to go outside and live my life. You have made me afraid to lay in bed alone. You have made me afraid to wear my favorite dress, the one that you loved so much. I am so afraid of going out and doing the things that we used to do together. I'm afraid to sit around and watch my favorite shows and movies because they were your favorite too. All of the songs I listen to remind me of you, and I'm afraid. I'm afraid to live my life without you - afraid that I don't even know how to do that.

Now that we are working on moving on, I know that I am going to need to re learn how to be by myself. I need to teach myself how to be happy with who I am - happy with the person I am without you in my life. I need to learn how to live in a world where we are not friends. I'm terrified that I'm not going to be any good at. I know that I am going to miss you in everything that I do. Every small victory, every twisty road, every sad song - I'm going to think of you. You are always the first person that I go to with my good and bad news. The person that I text first thing in the morning and the person that I want to call right before I go to bed. You have been the person that I tell about my day for years now, and it is unfathomable to think that I won't be able to do that anymore.

You have been my entire world for years. Now I have to live in a different world - a world that you have not touched. Everyone keeps saying that everything will get better in time, that I will be happier someday. I'm terrified that they're all wrong. Or worse, terrified that they might be right. Sure, everything being okay would be great...but I'm so, so scared of a life and a future without you. I hate the idea of someone else being yours, doing the things that we used to do together with you. And more so, I'm terrified of someone else loving me. Someone who isn't you, someone who could never possibly be you. I am terrified to take this fear that I have now with me everywhere that I go for the rest of my life. I feel awful for anyone else that might come into my life, not knowing what has happened or how passionately that I have loved before. I'm scared that I won't be able to love someone else the way that I have loved you, that I'll have to be responsible for someone else's heartbreak.

I know that I have to let you go - that, in some twisted universe, this is what is best for us right now. I know that to really let go of you, I can't hold on to any hope that you are going to change your mind. I have to convince myself that my life is going to be better now, though I don't know how that is even possible. I'll admit, it's hard to imagine living a life where I am not in love with you. I feel as though some part of me will always love you...and a part of me will always hate that. I hate that I love you so much, and yet I am so thankful for every moment leading up to this one. I am thankful that you made your way into my life and my heart. Thankful for our first date, thankful for our first kiss, for all of the shows that we binge watched together, for all of the restaurants that we discovered, all of it. I wouldn't trade a single second with you for anything in the entire world. You were my first great love, and no one will ever be able to take that away from you.

Maybe I don't really know how to get over you quite yet. I don't know how to begin letting go of you and all of our memories. I have no idea how to move on from what we had or how to be okay again, but I know that I need to try. I need to get up every single day, get dressed, make myself feel good again. I need to go outside and bask in the sunshine, talk to people who care about me. I need to experience life the way that it is when you aren't around, and I need to be okay with who I am when I'm not with you. I have changed so much in the years that we have been together. A part of me thinks that the person that I was before I met you is long gone. I can only hope that there is a stronger version of that girl somewhere deep within me, and I hope that I can find her soon.

I hope that you find some piece of the happiness we shared, and I hope that one day I can stand in front of you without my heart aching to be with you. One day we will be able to see each other and be completely okay with where we are in life - at least, that is what everyone else keeps saying. Only time will tell, and I suppose now is as good a time as any to start trying to let go of what we used to be. I wish you the best of luck in everything that you do in life. I love you with all of my heart, never forget that. As much as I love you, I am learning that it just hurts too much to be in love with you. Being in love with you is not what I need at this point in my life. And perhaps I am not what you need. We don't need each other, and once we can see that and actually believe it, we might be better people in the future. We can do this. We can let go and we can move on and try to be happy. Someday we will come back into each other's lives. And we will be better off for what we are doing right now. Here's to us and our bright, happy futures.