When I was 19 years old, I got my heart broken by the boy that I thought I was going to marry. I thought my entire world was over. Everything was different. I didn’t even feel like myself without him. It wasn’t the two of us anymore and I didn’t think that I could handle that. How could I possibly go on living my life knowing that the one person I loved more than anything wanted nothing to do with me anymore?

We were high school sweethearts. Our senior year, we even won homecoming king and queen. To be completely honest, I thought that he was going to be the person that I spent the rest of my life with-- and I was happy with that. But the day he broke up with me, my world was flipped upside down.

I know this all sounds pathetic, but heart break is no joke. It’s hard to readjust to living a life that you basically shared with someone else. It was hard enough losing him, but losing his family and his dog was hard, too. For some reason, part of me always thought that we had the perfect relationship…well, minus the constant fights, jealousy, and trust issues. This article is most certainly not to play the blame game and it’s not about throwing him under the bus, but it’s actually to thank him for breaking my heart. And there is absolutely no sarcasm intended in that. It may come as a surprise, but like most things in our life, there is always a lesson to be learned. And luckily for me, I learned many. I gained so much after our break up that I often wonder if we had stayed together, whether or not I would be as happy as I am today.

We started “talking” when we were fourteen years old. Little, baby, high school freshman who developed crushes on each other some point in the year. We started dating at our sophomore year homecoming dance and I was elated. Long story short, we experienced everything together in high school. Probably more than the average couple would face considering for two summers, I spent them in different countries and we obviously had to do the long distance relationship, which I learned, was definitely too hard for me. When it came time for college, I’ll be honest; I followed him to school which at first I thought was a mistake, but ended up being for the better.

When things ended between us, not only had I lost my boyfriend, I lost my best friend and that was way too hard for me to cope with. The first week of my sophomore year of college, I cried myself to sleep every night. I watched as he branched off and made new friends and eventually got a new girlfriend. But here I was--stuck. After weeks of countless phone calls home, begging my parents to let me transfer schools and them telling me no, I decided I would do something about it. I saw flyers all around school for sorority recruitment and my suitemates at the time convinced me to give it a try. I mean, it couldn’t hurt, right?

Soon after recruitment, I accepted a bid from Alpha Gamma Delta, which was easily one of the best decisions I had ever made. I instantly made friends with people whom I probably would have never met if the ex and I hadn’t broken up. I got out of my comfort zone. I did things that I hadn’t done while I was with him. I did better in school. I focused on myself. I found happiness again.

Because of the breakup, I realized a lot, as I’m sure he did. We were so young when we started dating and we had no idea what we were doing. And as crushed as I was, I am so thankful for the breakup because, like I stated before, I learned more than I ever could have imagined. I learned what I want out of life. I discovered that traveling is in my blood, and that isn’t something I could give up. I found that I have a passion for making and crafting things. I found myself reading more and doing things for myself. I didn’t have the fear of losing someone anymore. And I sure as hell didn’t have anything to be jealous about anymore. The breakup helped me grow up and become a better person than I was while we dated. And, I’m not saying that dating him made me a bad person; I’m just saying that I could’ve been better.

My breakup taught me that it’s okay to be happy without a significant other. It taught me that it’s okay to be happy that he is happy with someone new. My breakup allowed me to mature in ways that I never thought I could. Of course there are things that I regret, but there’s no turning back now and honestly that’s for the best. The most important lesson that my breakup taught me was that I needed to love myself before I could ever love someone else. I was dealing with so much self-hatred while he and I dated. I was self-conscious, and it reflected on our relationship and definitely added to the jealousy issues.

My breakup allowed me to put myself first for once and learn to love myself, and that is exactly what I needed as I embarked on a completely new chapter in my life that was all my own.

So honestly, thank you for breaking my heart and essentially making me the strong person I am today.