I always expected that one day I would get my heart broken, movies and television almost guaranteed that for me. I figured that one day I’d do the whole “crying into a bowl of ice cream while watching the Sleepless in Seattle” break up routine, but it didn’t happen that way. Then again, I always expected the person responsible for said heartbreak would be a boyfriend who did some sort of shady deceitful and menacing thing before breaking up with me, but that didn’t really happen either. No, my heartbreak wasn’t anything that I pictured because my relationship wasn’t anything I’d picture, in fact it wasn’t a “relationship” at all.

I still find it mildly ironic that my greatest heartbreak came not from a solidified relationship, but from you, my almost relationship. Even typing that out feels ridiculous, phony even. There was no Facebook relationship reverting back to “single” and let’s face it, the only people who use the “it’s complicated” status are middle aged women engaging in an affair with their co-worker or quirky middle-schoolers in 2011. Truthfully, I think that would’ve been a much easier pill to swallow, the end of an actual relationship. With an actual relationship, people understand why you’re sad, they know why you’re crying and they always have advice, (often useless advice) about how you can get over it. With you, I couldn’t tell anyone. How would I? “Oh, yeah that guy that I kissed and told all of my deepest darkest secrets to but never actually had a solidified relationship with? Yeah, he really did a number on me! How? Well he completely disregarded my feelings and treated me like I didn’t matter to him which really hurt me even though he wasn’t socially or morally obligated to, and even though we weren’t in a real relationship, I still would’ve liked actual closure.” No thanks, I’d like to skip that non-beneficial conversation. However, maybe having that conversation would’ve made it a little bit easier. Instead, I just pretended everything was fine and went about my life like I would any other day. I went to parties and school and I ate dinner with my family on Sunday nights, but I was by no means okay. I wanted desperately to talk to my mother, to tell my friends that everything was not fine, but I didn’t. I would’ve rather eliminated the risk of a lecture from my mother about how “this generation’s idea of a relationship is simply embarrassing” and I wanted to avoid the silent stare of disapproval from my friends. This, I believe, is exactly why the healing process took far longer than I could’ve ever imagined. For so long, I convinced myself that I not only had no right to be hurt because the relationship wasn’t an actual relationship, but I also convinced myself that it was better to never let anyone see how much it actually hurt me to lose you.

I let myself believe that all of the time we spent dancing on the line of almost a relationship, all of the long conversations, the times I was with you when I told everyone I was somewhere else, all of the obscure jokes I made that you laughed at without hesitation, really meant nothing because you never passed me a note that said “will you be my girlfriend check yes or no” and we never had the cringe-worthy “it’s not you, it’s me” conversation. So, in order to allow myself some closure here is what I would say in that conversation if given the chance:

It was mostly you. You were pretty manipulative and you used your charm to your advantage. I deserved better, but I regret nothing. I don’t regret letting you in. I don’t regret all of the memories, all of the moments I never told anyone about. You were my great love, even if we were just kids. I wouldn’t give those hours of crying into my pillow and sitting in the dark after faking smiles every day for anything. Through you and through the loss of you, in spite of the lack of closure, I found myself becoming a different person, a better one. I may struggle with trust and you may play a part in that, but I stand on my own, I’m more rational, I don’t need you and I never needed you regardless of how badly I once thought I did. It took so long to be okay again, actually okay but I finally got there without your help. I may have needed closure or thought I did, but I managed without it. I’m grateful for the time we had, regardless of the lack of labels. I’ve let go of the anger I felt towards you, as much as I possibly could, at least, and I have forgiven you even if you refuse to supply an apology. You were my great love without Valentine’s day gifts, the nerve-racking parent-meets-boyfriend interaction, or the Facebook relationship status shift. You were a necessary component in my life at the time, but great loves pass all the time. I regret nothing about our non-relationship, relationship because it has brought me to where I am today, it has brought me to the relationship I have now and the life I live now. I do, however, wish I’d have told someone about you when it was happening. I wish I’d let go of the fear of judgment and let someone know about my great love instead of playing it off like you were just another guy because you weren’t, that is my one and only regret, I did not do that love justice and I did not do myself justice.

Great loves never look the same, my great love certainly didn't and I discredited it for that reason. You were never mine, but I was yours. That's not how I pictured it going at all, but I'm glad that it played out this way, I can't imagine life without that great love.