Every day of my life I was told the only person I could change was myself, and I believed that I understood that, until I met a boy I thought needed me. And I guess there is two sides to everyone, but sometimes he was exactly what I had dreamed about: a perfect other half who joked with my mother and always held the door, and enjoyed ice cream dates as much as I did. But the other half of the time he was someone else, and I couldn't pretend that that side wasn't there. That there was a side I thought I could have, and a side I thought I could share. But you couldn't love half of a person and let other people love the other half, so I had to leave. I thought that I could stop, that I would just wake up one morning and know that he was not it for me and I wouldn't love him. That love was not supposed to be this complicated at this young of an age. That if he loved me he would un-complicate it. But I never did because I still think of him whenever my mind starts to wander. I thought that as time passed my feelings would lessen until they were gone, but he was my newest bad habit and it took years to quit biting my nails.
People have told me life goes on when you lose people, and I am happy on my own because I was raised to be, because I would never let my world fall apart for someone and I was always too together to change that now. Before him I never needed anyone and after him I didn’t either, and you should never wait for someone who wouldn’t drop everything for you because everyone is too good for that, because even the worst people deserve to be loved.
But I am thankful, because he was great and without him I wouldn’t be me, and maybe he wouldn’t be him. I am thankful because I have great memories of things I have only ever done with him and I didn’t believe in love before this; I thought people settled, that you always ended up married to a man who makes sense; who could support you and your children and get you a dog and a white picket fence and that was all we could all hope for, but there was more than that.
And love overall was terrible but it still exists, it was terrible because love was holding his hand the entire journey up a mountain and watching someone else hold it the way down, love was breaking my back to hear him say the word to me, the one that meant everything and watching it still fall apart when he did. Love was hope that he won't let me fall, and love was the hurt when he did. I tried to form a man from a mold that he didn't fit into, tried to push him to change, to settle down, to love only to watch him do it all for someone who isn't me, and then I got to watch him leave after I thought we'd be fine after he finally finally finally said everything I'd been dying to hear. But that's how the world works, all my dreams came true in the most tragic of ways.
