When I Step Into The Shoes Of Those Who’ve Hurt Me

1.

You were the first person to ever make me feel not good enough. I thought your inability to be with me had everything to do with me, my flaws, the things about me that just so happened to be your pet peeves. I thought your inability to be with me was due to my inability to be your idea of perfect. And I didn’t want to be perfect, I never have, but I wanted to be whatever your idea of perfection was. I wanted to be your perfect.

Because back then you were what mattered. And now I realize there are more important things in life than trying to make the people who clearly don’t care about you change their mind. I never could’ve changed your mind, even if I did become your idea of perfection you weren’t ready for love, not then, and especially not mine.

2.

You were the first person I had to pretend to not care about. The first, ‘let’s keep this casual,’ I had to fake being okay with. Because I thought since we actually got along, since we could carry a conversation, make each other laugh, and enjoyed each other’s company, I thought, or I hoped, that I was more to you than just a body and a face. I thought maybe you saw a person, I thought maybe you saw me. I was very wrong.

You were the first person I had to fake not wanting more from, but you weren’t the first person I was wrong about.

I think that’s how I fooled myself into thinking I was okay. But the truth is you hurt me. And I don’t care if you take my hurt as weakness, or deem me pathetic because in your mind we were nothing. I think it takes strength to admit that your nothing made me feel like crap. And technically you didn’t leave, and I think the fact that you were still around, but not fully there in the way I wanted you to be was maybe what hurt the most. I’m not sure. I just know I wanted more than what you were willing to give, but I pretended it was enough. Pretending sucks. It hurts.

3.

You were the first person to make me feel stupid. Maybe you had it all planned out from the very beginning because I must’ve seemed so hopeful to you, the girl who would give herself away because she trusted you wouldn’t take that for granted, or worse, take advantage. You took advantage of the situation, of the world we both found ourselves in, of the time and space we shared that unfortunately made me think we were meant for something bigger.

If I had known that you were waiting for me to hand you my vulnerability on a silver platter before you made what you thought was a discreet escape, I would’ve never given it to you in the first place. You must’ve thought disappearing made it easier on me, or maybe that’s what you tell yourself because you can’t admit that you were afraid to dish out rejection.

Maybe it’s better we both didn’t have to deal with that. Rejection. There’s no right answer to who feels more pain, the rejectee or the rejector, but at least we both feel something, because disappearing is only the easy way out for one of us. The other one gets the short end of the stick.

4.

You were the first one to make me feel regret for a person. I knew what regret felt like before you, but I felt it for things I had done, you made me feel it for something entirely different. I know it’s not good to live with regret, or at least that’s what everyone tells me, but to me it’s not necessarily that I’m living with it, it’s just a feeling that I get whenever I think of you.

Because I regret the way I let you into my life so easily. I regret introducing you to my parents, to my friends, I regret even letting you get to see that side of me. The side of me I show when I’m around the people I love most, the people who make me feel at home. And I regret thinking that you could potentially become one of them.

I regret sharing a part of my life with you that you quite frankly didn’t deserve. Because a person like you doesn’t even deserve to meet a girl like me, let alone share a par of your life with her. And now I’m discovering that I have a lot of resentment towards you, but the truth is I’ll always have resentment towards you because you were a piece of shit, and that is exactly how I’ll always remember you. I can’t step into the feet of your shoes because I’m too disgusted to try them on.

5.

You’re the first person to make me feel what real love is, and you’re the first person I’ve ever said it to romantically. You did what every other person who hurt me couldn’t, you loved me for me, for everything that I was and everything that I am, and everything that I’ll continue to be. You accept me, you (somehow) understand me, you love me and I love you, and it’s not simple, but it’s right.