Dear Boy,

Nearly a year of our life was spent together. While it might not seem like a huge milestone to many, it was a big deal to me. You were my first love and I thought we would be together forever. You knew me down to my favorite color. We shared all of our goals, fears, and life struggles. I knew that your favorite dog breed was pit bull. Your first car was so messed up that it would jerk to the left too hard when you turned. I knew that while you put up a big bad front, you were a scared boy.

You were so caught up in proving to me that you were a "man" you did just the opposite. I saw you very often lose your cool at the smallest things. I'm sorry became a reflex to you and not an actual apology. Your words became more hurtful and not well thought out. I heard the words, "I don't care" more than I heard "I love you" . You started to not be there for me during my darkest times in my own depression. Instead of understanding why I felt that way, you used it against my as a last resort in arguments. You put less thought into our dates and you decided to do things on your time and not mine. When it came to what I wanted to do, it suddenly did not matter because you were not getting your immediate way.

I loved you for almost a year. I loved all of your flaws for a year. I listened to you ramble about your car, (which to be fair needed to be sold, but you were too committed to just sell it.) and I loved every minute of it. I saw you excited about something you were passionate about and your passion ignited my own. I would talk to you about my passions, and you'd always come back with, "Life is not clinical, you can not fix everyone".

But you know, you were right when you said that. I can't fix everyone, and I tried to fix you the last few months of our relationship. I trusted your words, I knew that you knew better. I stopped listening to myself and I started to think like you. While I was so caught up in fixing you, I lost myself. A lot of blame for things were projected onto me and when I would try to talk to you about it, you just talked over me. "Everything isn't clinical".

I have to stop and ask myself often, were you just scared to let your guard down anymore? You realized that you actually loved me and that I was too good for you. You got bored of me and my commitment, and you wanted to find a way to get rid of me whether you realized it or not.

You broke me.

For three nights straight I sat on my bathroom floor alone and cried. I called you every night after we ended things, and you never answered me. When you did, it was suddenly my fault that I was depressed. "This is why I don't want to talk to you. You self-loathe and it hurts me" It hurts you? If it hurt you-you would have encouraged me and been there for me. You instead mocked me and made me feel even more self-conscious of my own battle with depression. Instead of taking immediate blame for the source of our break up, you played it off suddenly like it was my issue. You turned the tables on me so much that i almost believed everything was my fault.

While I admit I was wrong in some ways, I tried my best. I fell head over heels for you and when you talked about getting married, I got giddy. I knew that we would have a forever. Here I am now, without you, alone, and questioning my own self-worth. I pitted my self-worth so heavily in you I lost my own identity. Everything became about you. My life revolved around you, the scared entitled little boy. That is what I take blame for. Making my entire year about you, how I could make your day better. When I could see you, when I could go out with you. If you were sad, I was too. I was not my own person, and for that, I blame myself.

I still love you. My love for you is totally different now. My heart is more guarded than it ever was before. You were and forever will be my first love. Even though I don't want to admit it, you taught me a great lesson. Don't trust so easily. Someone who claims to love you might just be manipulating you into seeing a fake reality of the word love. While you are trying to give your all in a relationship, the other person might be getting bored.

As I move on, know this, I move on with life because it is a part of life. I move on because I loved and lost. Do I regret the year with you? Absolutely not. I was taught was infatuation feels like, I was taught what a mild form of love looks like, and I was given the chance to know what I want in a man- not a boy.