I Had To Let You Go Even Though I Wanted To Hold On

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It’s a weird thing what time can do. Just a few months ago, feels like yesterday, though,I was experiencing the kind of heart break I’d only read about before.

It was all-consuming and it infested every aspect of my life. I shut everybody else out: they were not you therefore they were not good enough. I tried to fake my way through the day, smiling when someone asked about you, “yeah, we’re still friends”only to fall apart in the night when there was nothing to distract me from the sadness.

Worst part was the feeling, the certainty, that this feeling would never pass. I was sure I’d carry the emptiness you left with me for the rest of my life. It felt impossible to imagine a day where you were not part of my life and I would be fine with it.

But that’s why time is a funny thing. Days passed, I was still in pain. Weeks went by, I was wondering if you still thought of me. Summer came and went as the months flew by and I still compared everyone I met to you. They were too quiet, I never had a dull moment with you. They felt distant, it was never awkward with you. They didn’t get my sarcasm, you’d take it and serve me right back.

But eventually, I did start to heal. It took a long time, longer than necessary, and I’ve got myself to blame for that. I didn’t realize at first how I was holding on to the anger and resentment I had towards you. It was my safe-blanket, it kept you in my life.

Because as much as I told myself I needed to, I wasn’t ready to let you go.

So I held on with all I got and I let the anger consume me until all that was left was a shadow of a girl that you once loved. What remained was someone who was putting her life on hold because she was living in the past. Someone who was never really present when hanging out with other important people in her life because she was living an alternate reality in her head.

I was too busy feeding my own broken heart to notice the suffering of a loved one, or I noticed, but didn’t have it in me to do anything about it. So I did what you did to me, I abandoned a person who loved me.

But time heals all wounds, as we’ve all heard. I’m not completely sure if that’s true. I will probably always carry our story with me, as a lesson, if nothing else. As cringe worthily cliche as it sounds, meeting you changed my life. It showed me I am in fact capable of loving someone, and perhaps more importantly, how to forgive.

After all this time of trying to force myself to let go and move on, it just kind of happened out of nowhere: I forgave both you and I for the mistakes we made and the pain we caused. What happened to us was not just on you, I’m to blame as well.

In hindsight, I think that was harder, to forgive myself. But I did, and now I can actually be grateful for the brief time I had with you. I realize you were the lesson I needed to learn so I wouldn’t make the same mistakes with the one that is actually better for me. I promise the next guy won’t have to second guess my feelings towards him because I will tell him. He will never feel like he’s an option, when in fact he’s the only one that matters.

As much as losing you hurt, I will be okay. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll meet again and this time around, we do it right. Or maybe one day I will meet a guy and he will be everything you were not. 

He loves running, you were more of a gym guy. He loves the outdoors, you never understood my love for hiking. He holds me when my feelings overwhelm me, you thought I was cold. However, I can’t shake this feeling that we will meet again but until then, I will keep on living my life. I will carry on making the best decisions for me. I’m not waiting for you, but if we get another chance, this time I won’t let you go.

I promise I will never regret you, I loved you and that will never go away.