After Breaking Up With You, I Now Feel Free

This morning I woke up, still feeling that familiar sting in my heart. But there was something in me that was unravelling. I feel relieved. I didn’t think I would say this after everything that has happened, but I feel free.

I’m no longer waiting for you to make plans about us, no longer waiting for you to decide on what you want out of us. No longer waiting for you to make up your mind. No longer waiting for a message or a call to come out of nowhere. No longer dreading for the lows to come after the temporary highs. I no longer have to choose my words carefully, afraid to bring out any unpleasant memory from your past. No longer walking on glass, worried you’ll get mad and for you to lash out. It’s as if a weight has been lifted off my chest.

No more crying myself to sleep wondering what I’m doing wrong, why after all these time, you still feel so distant, your walls so high, me loving you anyway.

I feel free… you walking away, relieved me of a decision I was having a hard time making – to walk away myself. For the past few months leading up to us falling apart, I have been beating myself up whether to stay or give up on you, to try harder and stay right by you or simply walk away before it destroys me.

It was a really tough choice, one I couldn’t bear facing. I was afraid of losing you, despite the fact that I was losing myself too. I no longer recognize myself. My personal boundaries, beliefs and values have gone out the window by tolerating what was happening between us. So you, deciding to end it once and for all was like freeing me from my own torment. It was painful, but liberating, a good kind of pain.

I have started to get to know myself even more. I have realized that I am someone who can love with all her heart, that I can be treated so poorly yet still find it in my heart to forgive and wish them the best. On the other hand, I also learned that everything has its limits, that no matter how much you care and love someone, you have to look after yourself as well. This means not putting yourself in a position where you know you are unhappy, your worth and self-respect being compromised, all for the sake of trying to understand and love someone. And it’s not being selfish but rather because you owe it to yourself.

You walking away have left a hole in my life, which I am now filling up with self-love I may have lost while loving you. I am now more aware of the things that actually make me happy, more aware of how fragile and strong I am all at the same time. I have discovered how much love I am capable of giving and that being at peace with my self is the first step towards healing. Yes you have hurt me, you have caused me pain, but it doesn’t define me as a person, it defines you. It doesn’t lessen my self worth and self-love but instead it showed me how I deserved so much better. I have come to understand that a painful experience doesn’t define me, but how I react to it does.

I have come to see myself as someone, who despite how betrayed and hurt she feels, can still walk away with grace and with her self respect intact.

I’m no longer thinking about what should have been, what could have been, if only you have put a little bit more effort or if I had been a little more patient. I’m no longer asking myself what if I had let things slide, what if I didn’t call out on your behaviour, what if I kept my mouth shut, could it have been different? I have stopped blaming myself for I realised that if you cared enough then you wouldn’t have just walked away leaving me helpless and hurt. I wanted to blame you as well, to tell you had you put in a little bit more effort, rather than disappearing when things get tough, then things could have turned out differently.

But I had to stop all the blame, stop analysing and turning things over and over, beating myself up for things that might have been. What’s done is done, and what good will it do to me trying to live in the past? It will only zap me of energy better spent elsewhere.

Since we fell apart, it has become my responsibility to make myself happy, to only focus on what makes me feel good and not dwell on negative thoughts, to find peace and clarity amidst the chaos of us, to re-focus my perspective on life and what I really want out of it. I have now come to that point where I realised that what we had may be broken, but certainly I am not.

I am whole before you, and I will continue to be whole after you.

As days, weeks and months pass by, I’m feeling a bit lighter, things are beginning to be a little bit brighter, I find myself laughing a little bit harder, just like before. You still cross my mind now and again, but it doesn’t consume me anymore, and it hurts a little less every time.

They say pain can make or break you, that it can change you into a completely different person. Maybe I am a different person now, but in a beautiful way. I’m turning into that person I was meant to be. Something inside me has changed. The pain has led me back to that person I was all along, someone full of love, strength and self-respect despite all the curveballs life has thrown at her feet. I may have lost you, but I ended up finding my way back to myself, and that is enough.