All I Need To Remember Is That I Am Enough

I don’t know why I’m writing this. That’s a lie. I do. I have this crazy idea that if I get all my thoughts out, write them down, type them out, that somehow I’ll feel better. I’m hoping that’s true, because I’m broken, and raw and falling apart on the inside. I’m being dramatic, but I’ve never hurt like this before. I’ve never felt this strongly about someone before. You were the first for me. You were my first love, and my first real heartbreak. I’ve had my heart broken before, but not like this, not like you.

I know that I’m the one that walked away. I know that I’m the one who ended it. It doesn’t seem fair that the one who does the leaving is the one who is hurting the most. Honestly, I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t know how bad you’re hurting. We aren’t talking. It would be too hard for me to hear your voice, too hard to see your face, too hard for you to act like everything is normal between us when both of us know that its not. When you walked past my store the other day, I almost lost it. You looked right in the door and saw me, and I saw you. You looked so sad, and I know that my face was a mirror of yours. All of the pain and heartbreak we caused each other written in our expressions. The pain of me asking you to not speak to me for a while manifesting itself all over your face. I was so flustered I almost dropped the clothes in my hands and started crying in front of my customer, but I’m stronger than that. At least, I try to be.

What makes everything worse is that I know you’re hurting too. And I’m the one that caused it. Not the initial hurt. That was her. The secondary hurt. The hurt you weren’t expecting after everything you’ve already been through. You’ve worked so hard to protect yourself, and your little one. I worked hard to protect you too. But I couldn’t anymore. I needed to protect myself. I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t wait for you the way to needed me to. You couldn’t be with me the way I needed you to. Chalk it up to bad timing. It doesn’t seem fair that two people, who seem to be made for each other like we were, find each other in such a state as we did. I was ready and you weren’t. It’s as simple as that. Believe me when I say, I wanted to. More than anything I’ve ever wanted, I wanted to be with you. You kept apologizing for hurting me like you did, and you should. 7 months was a long time to wait for something that was never going to happen. I was patient, and understanding. I gave you space when I felt you needed it and time to heal from what you went through, but it wasn’t enough. I have to remind myself that it wasn’t me who wasn’t enough. I am enough.

I was never interested in dating anyone but you. You knew that. You sensed it without me having to say a word. You were never afraid to lose me. What you didn’t know is that I’m not the type of girl you’re used to. I don’t need to be with anyone. It was never going to be someone else that took me away from you; it was always going to be me, walking away on my own. Standing up for myself in a way that I never had before, a way I didn’t know I was capable of.

The one thing I have to keep reminding myself in all of this is that its not that you don’t care about me. It’s not that you don’t enjoy spending time with me. But you don’t love me in the way that I loved you. You just aren’t ready, and I can’t blame you for that. Sometimes I want to hurt her. For putting you and the little one through what she did. For walking out like she did. For hurting you in a way that I promised myself I wouldn’t do. But I did. I’m sorry I did.

I meant it when I said I loved you. I wasn’t even hurt when you didn’t say it back. I knew you wouldn’t, but I had to say it anyways. I needed you to know. I needed you to know why I couldn’t stay. How strongly I felt for you and why it hurt me so bad to leave. Sitting on your lap on your couch, both of our faces covered in tears, both of us savoring the last moments with each other, you held me tighter than you ever have before. For an hour you held me while I cried into your shoulder, neither one of us wanting to let the other go.

The girls say it isn’t over. And maybe it isn’t, but I refuse to let myself listen to them. My mom says there is someone else out there for me but I refuse to listen to her too. I refuse to get my hopes up for you again, only to be let down, crushed again by the knowledge that you aren’t ready. You aren’t ready to be with me in the way that I want you, the way that I need you, to be with me. But I also refuse to let you go.

I’ll heal. It will take time, but I’ll heal. My biggest fears are 1. That I’ll heal and move on and be happy and then you’ll decide to come back, and claim what you missed out on, and I’ll hurt you again and 2. That I don’t heal, and you don’t come back, and I’m left a broken mess while you move on to someone else. Someone better.

You made me feel like I wasn’t enough. Despite your emphatic “It not you, its me” I still feel like there is something about me that’s missing. Something that I can do or find or change about myself that would somehow change your mind but there is nothing.

I am good enough, smart enough, funny enough, to be loved. Even to be loved by you (under better circumstances).

I’ll be fine, eventually. As I know you will be too. Whether it is with me or someone else, I sincerely hope you are happy, and that your little one is happy too.

All I have to remember is, I am enough.