To my first love:
I don't hate you. I think, in the beginning, I tried, but I couldn't. I can't hate someone who used to mean everything to me. It's impossible.
I remember the day you fell out of love with me. We were kids back then. We were probably in over our heads, anyway. (At least, that's what I told myself in the years following when memories of us would trigger my heartstrings.) Our parents used to tell us we didn't know what love was – we were barely 15 years old. They were wrong about that, though, because even as much as we both hate to admit it, we loved one another. They also told us so much life was ahead of us; they were right about that. It's been years now, and we have both grown up and moved on with our lives. You were my first kiss, my first date and my first heartbreak all wrapped up into a whirlwind of almost a year.
At first, I still thought of you every day. Sometimes our song would come on the radio, and I would miss you. Sometimes your favorite TV show would come on, and I would miss you. Sometimes I would see you in the hallway at school, and I would miss you. Losing you meant losing all of you. You were more than a boyfriend; you were my best friend. When you left, all of you left. I didn't just lose my boyfriend; I lost my best friend, too.
The most painful part was I had to pretend I was OK with it all. I pretended for my friends, for my family, for you, and the saddest part, for myself. I eventually trained my brain to trick my heart into believing it was OK. Training my heart into believing it didn't deserve anyone if I didn't deserve you. I started to fill the hole in my heart with people who brought me pain. The old me would have been ashamed. I never thought I would get over you. No matter how many dates I went on or how many boyfriends I had, it didn't matter. You were my first love, and I didn't believe I could move on.
But one day I realized my heart deserved true love. It deserved someone who would fill my lungs with laughter, my cheeks with smiles and my lips with the words, "I love you." My heart didn't deserve unanswered questions, confusion or sadness. My brain wants me to be angry with you, but my heart doesn't follow. Using both my brain and my heart, I can only form my emotions into two words: Thank you.
Thank you for teaching me heartbreak. Teaching me how to cope, and how to love myself before anyone else. Thank you for loving me, even if it was just for a year. Thank you for teaching me how to be strong on my own, and how to be independent because when you left, that was my only option. Without your heartbreak, I wouldn't be who I am today, and out of all of this, that would have been the real tragedy.
