You don’t have to forgive someone who hurt you. You don’t have to pretend like the pain doesn’t exist or the reminders don’t come rushing back in every time you see them. You don’t have to forgive someone who knew exactly what you feared and deliberately brought those fears to life. You don’t have to forgive someone who chose to make your life harder.

You don’t have to forgive someone who promised to make you happy or put you first but their actions constantly proved otherwise. You don’t have to forgive someone who took your love or kindness or silence for granted and you don’t have to forgive someone who didn’t value your presence in their life. You don’t have to forgive someone who couldn’t make you trust them.

You don’t have to forgive someone who stifled your personality or your spontaneity or your honesty. You don’t have to forgive someone who judged you instead of trying to understand you. You don’t have to forgive someone who made you feel like you have to change yourself to be worthy of their love and you don’t have to forgive someone who repeatedly made you doubt yourself.

You don’t have to forgive someone who only appreciated you after you left or walked away. You don’t have to forgive someone who had to lose you to realize what you meant to them. You don’t have to forgive someone who chose not to fight for you when they had the chance. You don’t have to forgive someone who made you miserable for months or someone who made you feel alone.

But you do need to forgive yourself. You need to forgive yourself for the wrong choices, for believing the hearts that fooled you and for sticking around hoping that things would change. You need to forgive yourself for the times you forgot what you truly wanted or deserved or the times you let someone get away with hurting you. You need to forgive yourself for knowing better but falling for the games or the sweet nothings or the empty promises.

You need to forgive yourself for all the times you said yes when you should have said no. You need to forgive yourself because that’s truly the person worth forgiving. You need to forgive yourself because if you don’t, you’ll never heal and you deserve to heal because while forgiving yourself doesn’t really change the past, it changes the future and it changes your relationship with yourself.