I shut the door behind me. I did not look back.

And you sat there. You did not say a single word. I don’t even know if you watched me take my last steps.

There comes a time when we begin to accept the disappointment. It becomes so normal that we forget what life is without it—the disappointment that is.

I let go.

My actions. Your actions. The love let go.

There is a part of me that wishes you stopped me, but a part of me is glad you didn’t.

It showed me who you are and what I mean to you.

It’s easy to get lost in empty promises. To find comfort in routine. You develop a sense of false security sleeping next to the same person every night.

I never had the courage to let go. I never had the strength to walk away for good.

It took me a long time to realize that I deserve more. I deserve better.

I deserve to be loved the way I do. A spontaneous and wild love filled with effortless affection and appreciation.

Kiss me. Kiss me with passion. I don’t care the time or the place.

I deserve small surprises and Valentine’s Day plans. I deserve red roses and boxes of chocolates. I deserve good morning texts and occasional check ups throughout my day.

You gave me none of these things.

I gave you everything.

You told me white lies. You told me you wanted a future with me. I believed you, but a piece of me questioned your intentions. I do not know if you were ready. I do not know if I was ready.

You made me feel like a second option. You made me feel like I was not good enough.

I am not made to chase. I am made to be pursued. I am special. I want someone to see me for me.

I believed the good outweighed the bad. I believed the happy outweighed the sad. I believed that a past could be forgotten and baggage could vanish.

Was my perception of reality distorted this whole time? Or am I a hopeless romantic who chose to only see potential?

I learned that baggage will forever rotate on the airport carousel. Though at times it may be unclaimed, it always returns to its owner. But I say this with a positive outlook. One’s past does not define who they are. It is simply waves rising and crashing. The past will only define you if you allow it to suck you into the whirlpool, if you allow it to spin you in circles and influence present decisions.

At times, I did feel myself being sucked into the sea. As did you. To some extent, this may have been our downfall. Although we both accepted our spontaneous trips lost in the water, we never expressed why we stepped on the sand, why the grains felt so comforting in between our toes.

It was a possible escape, the way the sun gracefully sizzled along the sea—maybe the past provided something the present did not, or maybe it opened our eyes to the prospering future. You made me lose myself. You made me lose sight of my goals and dreams. I lost my self-respect. I let you have the control.

I am not going to convince you to love me back. That is not love.

The both of us have made our fair share of mistakes. The both of us jeopardized our future. There is no pointing fingers.

Love is something built from respect and loyalty. Our love grew from rotten roots. Though it flourished into something beautiful, it is only as strong as its foundation.

Although I believe that mistakes do not define a person, every mistake takes something away from you. Small chips. Small chips that slowly add up. When the Winter weather casts its cloak of frosted coldness over the green beds, thorn roses begin to decay.

The thorns are strong.

Yet the petals fall slowly, and the withering stem gently falls down. I am a rose. Each petal. Each delicate petal fell so carefully with grace. Petal upon petal, they piled on top of each other. The pile grew until the flower was bare.

In the spring, the rose is born once again. It sprouts from healthy soil, ready to begin a new chapter.

Maybe our love will sprout and bud once again. Maybe this time will begin with a sense of appreciation, a breath of fresh air. But, for now we’ll go our separate ways. We will discover the meaning of happiness alone. I will discover my role as an individual.

I will be me without you.

If we are meant to be, it will tell over time. Five years from now, I hope to see you in a grocery store aisle, grabbing a pack of Mike’s Hard Peach Lemonade, and I hope I fall in love all over again.

I hope I see you and feel every emotion of the day I first met you—our first kiss, our first time having sex, our first road trip. I hope you remember our inside jokes and my quirks. I hope you smile and look at me the way you used to.

The way you looked at me when were young and oh-so dumb. The way you looked at me when you saw me brushing my teeth with my finger. The way you looked at me when you chased me and tackled me running up the stairs of your first apartment. The way you looked at me when you turned to kiss me for the first time.

I remember the song on the radio. I remember the way the red light reflected off the hood of your black car. I remember the way you carefully turned your head.

Our love may have reached its peak, it may have reached an end of an era. It may be the end or it may be the end of a new beginning.

Though we have had our ups and downs, I want you to be forever happy. I do not believe you were a waste of my time. I do not regret my memories with you. I choose to savor them.

There are many things I wish that I could change. The time I met you. How I met you. The circumstances. The pain. The hardship. And the tears.

I say that I do not care. I do not care if you find love with another human being.

It will break me inside.

I secretly hope that it is meaningless. I hope no future love of yours will compare to ours. But I will never hold you back.

Our paths have crossed and found love. Our paths have parted and kindled love.

But for now, I am letting myself let you go. You will forever be my first love. That is irreplaceable. You hold a key to my heart that no one will ever possess. To hate you is obscure.

To hate you for loving you, to hate you for allowing us to reach this point, to resent you for not realizing it was me all along.

To resent myself for giving up.

It is something I must live with.

I think it will always be you. It will forever be you.

This is not closure. This is not saying goodbye. I believe it is me expressing my pain and my empty heart. It is me trying accept the present and let you go.