I thought I knew what love was, what love is supposed to feel like. I’d never felt it, but I’ve seen movies. I’ve read books, I had an idea. I’d always classified myself as a hopeless romantic who’s never been in love. But I looked forward to it, since I was a kid I dreamed of having a partner in life.

Getting older, I watched everyone around me settle down and fall in love. I was always the single one in the group, I had this idea in my head of what love should be and if it didn’t feel perfect, I’d move on. No point in wasting anyone’s time. I got used to being alone. So used to it, I decided I liked it better this way. I listen to my friends complain about how horrible their relationships are and I just thought there were more important things in life, so as badly as I wanted to be in love, I put it on the back burner. I focused on myself. I became independent, self-sufficient, and found my real dreams, things I wanted to do in life, they were much easier to focus on without a partner.

When they said you’ll find love when you stop looking for it, they weren’t kidding. You came completely out of the blue. One day you were just some guy I’d seen at a few bonfires with friends, and the next thing I knew we were at the beach, trying to get each other wet and covered in sand. You were suddenly my best friend.

Everything I did had you in it. Any break I got from work I spent texting you, any decision I had to make I got your opinion on first. Sleeping was so much easier now that I had you to fall asleep with. It’s like I got everything I ever wanted in you. I felt like I was in a cheesy romance movie, and I never wanted it to end.

But it was too good to be true. You were too good to be true.

Ignoring my gut instinct will forever be my biggest regret. I don’t understand how a love like ours, a love so pure and spontaneous, could be built on lies. I don’t get how the one person I depended on for everything, could be so far from who I thought they were. I’m confused, how I could be so naïve to believe my first love would be my forever love.

Don’t ever doubt how much I loved you, though. I loved you like a fish loves water, like you were everywhere, and I couldn’t survive without you.

When you take a fish out of water, it doesn’t understand what’s happening, it’s just gasping for air, confused why it’s suddenly suffocating. That’s what happened when I lost you. I didn’t get it, how someone who claims to love you so much could just walk away so easily. It didn’t make sense.

The world is cruel in that way. The universe is constantly moving, and the night I fell for you the stars aligned perfectly, watching me finally receive everything I’d ever dreamed of, knowing they’d soon come undone, and with them, my entire life. They watched me find my greatest joy, waiting for me to finally feel my greatest loss. The greatest heartbreak is the one you desperately tried to prevent. That was you.

Maybe you weren’t meant to be the love of my life, as much as I want you to be. Maybe it’s better we don’t talk, even when it feels like there’s so much left to be said. Maybe you were simply a lesson in my life. A brutal, sadistic, harsh lesson, to never put too much trust in a single person again.

You taught me to depend on myself, in the most heartless way possible. Losing you, ripped me apart, piece by piece, until all was left was the shell of the girl I was.

I was an entire universe as you found me, and a burned down, abandoned town as you left me. You took all that you could, and left me broken, the bitter taste of heartbreak flooding in. You gave me no choice to rebuild.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was I. Recreating everything you destroyed wasn’t an option, I had to create a new world for myself, I had to create a new me. I had to wipe every trace left of you, and start new. I turned the scraps you left, into skyscrapers, I built walls around the deepest part of me so no one could destroy me the way you did again.

I was built on a new foundation this time. I was built on the ruins you left, I was stronger, more protected, this time. No one can get in through the locked gates, the key to myself is hidden where nobody could ever find it.

My self peace is now my only priority. You cannot take that from me again. You may have been able to manipulate the gullible, innocent, young girl I once was, but you don’t know the first thing about the woman I am now. I had to change, I had to grow, I had to lose a few things about myself along the way.

When creating a new life for yourself, you have to let go of the old one, as painful as it is. You have to be willing to lose the good as well as the bad, to finally get something better. That’s what I had to do. A fresh start, a fresh heart, one that couldn’t be tainted with your dirty hands.

The most beautiful thing I’ve experienced was my becoming. For so long I thought it was you, you were all I had in life, but it turns out it has always been me. At the end of the day, I have nobody but myself to get me up the next day. I found something worth living for in myself, my dreams, and my successes.

You gave that to me. So thank you.

I never thought I’d thank you for breaking my heart, for destroying my soul. But I am thankful. I’m thankful for the lessons, for the fresh start, for the new me I wouldn’t have, if I didn’t lose you.

Thank you for teaching me how to tell when I’m being lied to. Thank you for teaching me not everyone’s intentions are as pure as mine. Thank you for teaching me I can survive, through the hardest parts of life, the lowest lows, I can thrive.

Thank you for giving that to me, and thank you for ensuring no one else will ever get as much of me as you did.