You Helped Me Grow Into The Woman I Am Proud Of Being By Walking Away

The other day, I turned on the TV and the first thing I heard was, “I’ll be there for you…” from Friends. My mind jumped to 10 months ago when we were snuggled in your bed, singing along the theme song to another episode.

It’s usually around this time of year when you have always popped back out of the blue to see how I was doing. But I haven’t heard from you yet. And the year is almost over. So I guess this is good-bye for good.

I hope if you find this, you won’t show it to your friends so the whole group can have a big laugh. In spite of that possibility, I hope you find this anyway.

When I ran into you a couple months ago, I marched right past you like you were a stranger. And you didn’t do anything to stop me. You gave me that mocking grin you used to flash me when you thought I was acting ridiculous.

I even waited to see if you would text me like that last time when we bumped into each other, but you never did. So I guess this is really goodbye for good.

You were always ready to talk to me when I didn’t even realize how much I was dying to talk to you. I didn’t feel so ugly anymore when you kissed me in those early mornings with bags under my eyes. You said you would always be there if I needed you when most of my friends were disappearing. You saw me for me, where many others in the past didn’t have a clue who that was yet, claimed to “like” me anyways.

But when I asked you how you felt about me, you said: “I don’t know.” You told me you needed to be with yourself and spend time with your friends. So instead of pouting over what could have been, I decided to do the same.

Luckily, there was a new boy who came along and saw something in me that you didn’t. It made me realize that I was not so undesirable after all. Sure I didn’t feel the same back, but I didn’t brush him off without a second thought the way you did to me. I treated him in a way that did not make him question his self-worth.

You taught me how to treat people right.

Your absence created all this extra time for me to start writing again, painting again and even be a loser, and go back to reading again. I went back to doing everything I stopped so I could be closer to you, fully aware that you hadn’t changed a single thing in your life to get anywhere with me.

I was slowly becoming the woman I thought I already was.

I decided to be a part of the world I was tired of watching from behind a window. I went out of my way to be the kind of person that I actually think you once were, because why else would I have fallen for you? Which makes me wonder how having me in your life has changed you for the better or worse.

You turned me into an amazing woman after I forgave myself for all the things I had done when I was a girl. I forgave myself for wanting a boy that “sort of” wanted me or “almost” wanted me.

Instead, I focused on the thing that was for certain: you will always be the boy who definitely had something I wanted, but was missing everything that I needed.

The less and less I saw you, the more clearly I could see a better future without you. When I couldn’t hear your voice anymore, I finally found my own that the thoughts of you had muffled down.

I am not bitter that you couldn’t see in me, whatever it was that I had seen in you. But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t there. The girls in your past couldn’t make out that special thing about you either but there I was, staring at it so clearly. And one day, someone else will stare at me just the same.

Remember the passion you had in yourself before everyone made you believe you no longer needed it. Prove to me that I was right when I told my friends you are capable of loving a girl, even if that girl couldn’t be me.

One day, I will hold hands with a person who is not unsure of why he needs to have his arms around me in public, when he had already done it so many times in his room. Someone who makes time to be next to me instead of stealing a couple of seconds out of his day to scroll up my name on his phone. Someone who kisses me and waits for me to let go first, just like you used to, but holds on to me anyway.

I don’t plan on saying “f*ck it” and missing out on the chance of finding a person who will see that treating me right is not a chore but a desire.

I don’t want to stop hoping that I can find that person … even if that person couldn’t be you.