The day you broke my heart I changed forever.

It wasn’t easy. It was actually really, really hard. It took longer than I thought. But I’ll never forget how it felt the day I woke up and realized that I wasn’t in love with you anymore either. What hurt me the most was that I lost someone I thought was my best friend.

We were the couple that made it through half of high school together and our first few years of college together. It makes me happy to say that I would never take back any of our memories together, nor do I wish I did life with anyone else the entire time I was able to call you mine.

There is not a second that goes where I regret any part of our relationship at all. We grew together, learned together, cried together, laughed together, and made it through a lot together. We taught each other things about ourselves that no one else could ever teach us.

In fact, I am happy that I got to do life with you for a while. I feel lucky that I got to encounter what it was like to be in love with someone. What we had was real and for that, I am forever grateful. Grateful that I got to experience what true love really was and happy that one day I’ll get to experience it with someone else, too.

You were a blessing in my life. You walked into my life at the perfect time, and although I didn’t see it at first, you walked out of my life at the perfect time, too.

All of that made it so much harder to forget you. It made it hurt even more to try to forget someone who gave me so much to remember. For a while, I thought you left me broken and unfixable. You were supposed to be there for me no matter what. You were supposed to be my person.

I didn’t want to wait for you to love me again, but I didn’t think there was another option. I didn’t realize that I deserved better, no matter how many people told me I did. You were my life for so long, and I had no idea how to let you go.

I didn’t think it would take me so long to get myself together, but it did. I’m not complaining though because I learned so much about myself in the process. I realized that I had been acting like someone that I wasn’t, even before we broke up. I needed to discover who I was and who I want to be and you weren’t helping. At all.

The day I realized that you weren’t the one for me, I promised myself that I wasn’t going to let the feeling of being “alone” consume me. I had to shake off that feeling and take a step back to look around me. It was as if the heartbreak made me blind to all the extremely wonderful things I had surrounding me.

There were so many people rooting for me and it took me a while to realize that. I gradually learned what it was like to be independent. I started to do things for myself. I started to put myself first.

I was happy and other people saw that in me and they were overjoyed to see how far I’ve come.

So, to the one who broke my heart first. Thank you.

Thank you for helping me grow into someone I never thought I could be and helping me whenever I may have needed it. Because of you, the only thing I am fully committed to is bettering myself each and every day.

I will never resent you nor will I ever hate you. But, I love who I am today, and I don't know if I would be able to say the same if we were still together.

If you were to ask me four months ago; "do you really think the two of you were meant to be together?" I would have answered without question, “yes, we’re just going through some things but we'll be okay”.

Now, my answer would be different.

“No. I don’t think we are meant to be with each other forever. I think at one point in our lives we were meant to be together. I think we were supposed to be together when we were and that is it. We grew together but forgot what it was like to grow without each other.

But I am okay with that, more than okay with that. We had so many good times that I will always cherish and at times miss. He was the first to ever make me feel beautiful, inside and out, and I was able to talk to him as a person and not feel judged or ridiculed. He taught me how to be confident.

Now and then I find myself crying, but not crying tears of sadness but tears of happiness. Tears because I will forever appreciate how you made me feel so special. Tears because I am special and you were the first person who helped me believe it. I know at one point I gave him all these same feelings, and if I didn’t...our relationship would have never made it past one year.

After a while, I realized that I was focusing so hard on what I wanted, and I lost sight of what I deserved. I lost who I was as an individual for some time, but I am proud to say that now I am better then I have ever been in the past.

I soon realized what I deserved and that has been the most powerful feeling in the world. You will always have a place in my heart, but not in my life.

It hurt to let go. It hurt like hell. But, as soon as a woman realizes her worth, she is unstoppable. There is nothing standing in my way anymore.