I Think I’m Finally Ready To Let You Go

I woke up this morning and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t check my phone for your messages. I didn’t even think to text you. I woke up this morning and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t think of you at all.

Getting over you wasn’t the dramatic moment I expected it to be. Instead, it felt like reaching the end of a book I loved reading and realizing that, honestly, it was just okay. There was no happy ending, and there was no sad ending; there was just an ending. And so I put it back on the shelf and walked away.

Maybe that’s how you know you’ve fallen out of love: I spent so many years underlining your sentences and dog-earing your pages, but in the end I didn’t feel the need to reread your passages or explore your hidden meanings. I just wanted to move on to something better.

It’s funny, because once upon a time, I thought nothing could be better. I wanted nothing but to keep breathing you in, to memorize you like my favorite lines of poetry. We were a saga, an epic, a story so much bigger than ourselves. I could have read it over and over again; I imagined reciting it to our children by heart.

And it’s funny because I think back to all those beautiful moments between us and realize they’re still just as beautiful — nothing can take away the magic of our time spent together. When I remember them, something still crackles deep inside me. Sometimes I think I’m still in love with the person you were then. Maybe I’m in love with you, too. But I just don’t like you anymore. I’m not sure how to.

I guess you can only be hurt so many times before you have to start acknowledging that you got the scars somewhere. You can only take so many tumultuous ups-and-downs before you don’t even feel the motion sickness anymore — you just feel nothing at all. And I guess that’s what happened with me and you. We were star-crossed lovers, but we were our own downfall. At some point it just gets too hard to keep fighting, especially when you start to lose sight of what you’re fighting for.

So I think I’m finally ready to let you go. And for the first time in a long time, I’m okay.