Dear God,

Or whoever is listening tonight... I want to say a prayer, I need to say a prayer.

I need to make a wish.

I am not the strong girl I used to be. I am not the brave, confident, put-together girl that everyone sees me as. I am just me. I am a girl who makes mistakes, who fights too often for things that mean too little. I am a girl who cares with her whole heart for the one who doesn't care about me at all. I'm a tragic mess, a combination of a beautiful soul and a heart full of fear.

I grew weak and let someone else define what happiness meant for me. I grew old and wise through my many months of thinking and rehashing out the past. I allowed myself to fall immensely in love but didn't know how to help myself pick up the pieces when it all came crashing down.

I chase the dreams in circles that I know are not mine. I watch my fantasy life play out in my head as a movie whose ending I will never see. I wish on shooting stars for the life that I know is not mine to live. Life is a fairy tale for some and for others, it's just a tragedy.

I don't want to live the life of tragedy. I want to create my own fairy tale. Perhaps it will not be the fairy tale that I always dreamed of growing up but it will be my fairy tale. And I'll be the author of the story. I'll try to watch it play out over and over in my head as I slowly turn my dreams into a reality. My new dreams.

I'll count the stars at night like I always have but this time, I'll do it alone and I'll do it for me. I'll think of my old dreams often and sometimes when I'm really lonely, I'll believe that the stars are watching my old dreams with me. I'll believe that those stars are my old dreams and for a small instant of time, the world will stand still with me that night and together, with the stars, I will live out my fantasy in my mind.

I will tell the four walls that enclose all of my secrets that it's time to create some new secrets of these new dreams. Or perhaps, these new dreams can be shared aloud. Perhaps these new dreams can be the inspiration for someone else to encourage their own new dreams. My four walls, the stars and I can remember the old dreams in the still of the silence at night while everyone else talks about the new ones.

It will take patience and strength and courage and every fiber of my being to let this go. But there will always be that part of me that wishes for the second chance. The part of me that prays that my original dreams haven't been completely discarded. That hope still prevails.

Until that day, I pray for the patience to allow time to heal my wounds. I pray for the patience to allow time to bring me to the places where I belong. I pray to be genuinely happy for him in whatever endeavor he so chooses to take on.

I am raw and I am open and this is me. I wish for the courage to let go of what I cannot change. I pray for the grace to let him go and live his life the way he wants to live it, even if it means that I'm not by his side. I wish that the memories will always stay but the heartache... I hope that disappears. But mostly, I pray and I wish for patience. I wish for the patience to allow time to pass without hurting myself and him even more. And I pray for strength. I pray for the strength to stop making his life worse because of what I want.

Amen.