I’ve recently been fortunate enough to get to know someone with a broken heart. This someone is one of the most kind-hearted and thoughtful people I’ve had the opportunity to meet. He is quick to do for others before himself ,and does not blink twice while doing it. He can make you laugh when you do not have the desire to even smile, and always knows how to make your heart feel happy. However, he is doing all of this with a broken heart. A broken heart that I thought I could fix.

I thought that I had knocked down those walls he had so desperately built up and that I was changing him and allowing him to see what good there can be in the world and how, in the midst of so much hate, there is always someone giving love. I attempted to be that person for him, and I tried my best to not just tell him what love could be, but show him as well. I had given him so much of me in such a short amount of time and I quickly felt how emotionally drained I was becoming. I wanted nothing more than to keep going and help him, but when one little disagreement spiraled out of control, I just gave up.

I listened to the tiredness of my own heart and let all my insecurities win and I just let him go. I was confused and I did not quite understand why I was giving up because I knew how special he was. I knew who he was and the amount that his heart had to offer. I did not know why I was so quick to let go, and it is not until now that I understand that what I was doing would never be enough for him and it all came down to something quite simple. I was trying to love someone with a beat up heart when I, myself, was broken inside. I became emotionally drained quickly because I was not capable of giving him any more of me. I wanted so badly to be the one that mended his heart and came to his aid all the while ignoring the signs my own heart was giving me. It was crying out for help and I dismissed it the same way I thought others had done previously. I did to him what I blamed on so many before him and I could not have been more wrong for doing that. I did not know that he was not the problem; I was.

For those of you that know me, you know that my heart has been through some tough times. I have endured a lot of cuts and bruises, and I always blamed it on the person I was with at the time. It was easier for me to cast the fault on someone else for hurting me than owning up to the fact that I was hurting myself this whole time. I was not taking the proper care for my heart that it needed even though I claimed I was.

I told those around me that I was “okay” or that it “didn’t bother me that much”, which was all a lie. Deep down, I knew I was not okay and that it all bothered me. I was constantly in question of my self worth, and instead of finding it within me, I looked for validation in someone else’s eyes. I searched for them to give me the approval I desperately wanted. The only thing was I did not need the approval from them; I needed the approval from myself. I needed to stop worrying about what they thought of me and what I could do for them, and I needed to start worrying about what I could do to help my heart. I look back on all of the individuals I accused of hurting me (some of which actually did hurt me and are not faultless) and I want to say sorry, specifically to the most recent person I attempted to love. I wanted to be enough for you when I was not even enough for myself.

I want to be able to tell all of you that I changed in the just in time and that he and I are okay. I want to be able to say I mended all of the cuts we had on our hearts and can go on from here. I want to so badly to tell you that I restored his faith in love and in women again and that his heart is happy.

Unfortunately, life does not always end with the guy and girl together, or with two broken hearts being patched up and whole again. Life sometimes shows us it is too late to go back and fix it and that you have to live with the choices you made. It shows us that sometimes it cannot be fixed at all and that you just need to dust yourself off and move forward. I think that is the hardest part of all of this. That I know what has happened in the past and if I could just go back and change it or take the time I needed in the beginning to mend my own heart, maybe there would not be a guy out there with a broken heart that I hurt even more. Maybe I would have been able to show him that, yeah, feelings and emotions are scary but so are a lot of other things in this crazy world. Feelings and emotions can put you through a lot of pain but that sometimes, there are people worth feeling them for.