I’m Letting You Go — Not Because I Want To, But Because I Have To

You’re always popping up. In places that you’ve never been. In my midnight dreams. In my poems and writing. In casual conversations. In my unspoken words.

You’re always popping in and out of my life. Always so eager to show up when it’s not expected. Always ready to mess with my heart. But now I think it’s over. Finally. The pulling and the pushing and the pulling some more — is over.

I can breathe now. For a while there, I couldn’t. I couldn’t comprehend that we had an ending. Because if it’s true love, it always finds a way to live, right? And if it were meant to be, it would be.

But we aren’t.

What we had was special. What we had was something that I will never forget. But what we had is long gone. What we had is done. I don’t know why it took me so long for that to latch onto my heart. I don’t know why it took me so long to accept that fate isn’t in the stars for us. Fate isn’t on our side. Maybe it never was.

Maybe I had to take so much time missing you, for it to really hit me. Maybe I had to take so much time writing about you, to get you out of my system. To get the idea of you and me out of my head and my brain and my fingers.

Maybe I had to cry my eyes out for you, for so long, in order to finally get to this stage. This stage of acceptance. This stage of now knowing, that it’s done.

And truthfully, it’s been over for so long. You knew it. I tried to not believe it. But I believe it now.

I probably won’t ever see you again. You live across the world. You live in an entirely different world than what you and I used to live in when we were together. You’re different. You’re not the same ‘you’ that I used to love.

And that’s how I know now, that it’s truly done. Because you are not the same. And I am not the same. You are not my best friend anymore. You aren’t even a friend, as you said, you can’t be there for me anymore.

As I read those words, I gulped in my pride, and hit the block button. I sucked in the hurt and the lonely and I erased our history. At least the history that I could see.

I blocked the pictures, the Instagram posts, the music page. I couldn’t just see you as a ‘friend’ online, and be okay. So, I took you digitally out of my life.

I didn’t want to. I just had to. I had to let you go. To let the hope go. To let the pain flow out of me. I had to take control of my destiny that will never be with you. I had to let go of the past.

I wish we could have been friends. We tried. We gave it a go. But, it wasn’t enough for me. It wasn’t fulfilling. It just broke me and over and over again. It hurt too much to talk to you and not remember how to unsay ‘I love you’.

So, if you’re reading this…I’m sorry I had to block you. I’m sorry I cut you off. But you’re happy. And finally, I want to be happy too. Without the past always getting in the way. Without you always showing up, pulling me back all the way in.

And now, I know that I deserve to find someone who won’t break my heart. And now, I know one day, I will unblock you and see your wedding pictures, and you’ll see mine and I won’t feel a thing.