TimesEternity

I have loved you in so many forms. For so many years. I have cheered you on through so many seasons. We have kept this burning across so many cities. States. Countries. Continents.

And I continue to hold on. Because maybe one day you will choose me.

I often think about the evening where we were lying on the leather couch together a few days after you moved in (the first time). I remember your exact words. Just three of them. “I feel loved.” I was holding you, we had worked a normal day, we were just on the couch kind of decompressing before doing whatever it is we planned to do that night. And you said that. “I feel loved.” That was one of those “ah-ha” moments for me. One of those where you’re like “THIS is what it’s all about.” I have a few of those with you, and that was one of them. I just remember thinking “I’m meant to love him.” It was so easy, it still is- loving you. It just feels like second nature to me. Muscle memory- like I’ve done it in every lifetime. Loving you feels so natural. Like a long exhale after a deep breath. Loving you feels like relief. Loving you feels like a calling, a purpose. I’ve always said this- loving you feels like everything else I’ve been through finally made sense. Like I was made for this, for you. Like I endured hell plus some, and I was at peace with it all because my life made sense now that I had you. I said three words back. “You are loved.” That’s it, and I squeezed you a little tighter. Moments like that sum up me and you. Moments like that are “us.” That easy love. That deep love. That safe love. That love that makes everything else make sense. That love that makes the whole world quiet, just for a second. I can see that evening. It’s like an out of body experience, looking at us on the couch together from above. I can hear it. I can hear your voice- I think about this so often because I’m afraid of forgetting what your voice sounds like. I can feel it. I can feel you in my arms and your warmth. I can feel our entire bodies pressed together on that couch, and even tighter when I squeezed you just a little. I can smell you, your cologne. Or what was left of it- it was after a whole day at work. I can taste the bit of salt on your neck after I kissed it. All of these things, all of these little moments and pieces of you, are engrained in my memory. Burned into my heart. Part of my blueprint. I couldn’t stop loving you even if I tried, even if I wanted to. Loving you is part of who I am.

You might think otherwise. You might doubt it. You questioned it. You didn’t believe it. You didn’t trust me- you still don’t. I am so sorry for whatever I did or whatever it is about me that makes you feel that way. But one thing I know for certain- I love you more than anything. I love you so deeply, I feel it in my bones. I have never loved like this before. And I have never once even thought of doing anything to risk it. I love you so much, that protecting you and our love was as easy and natural as breathing. It never once crossed my mind to do anything to hurt you, or to lose you. I can promise you that. And if you let me, I’d spend the rest of my life showing you.

I hate you and what you’ve done to us. How you’ve hurt me. I used to sit here and cry tears of joy because I loved you so much and felt so safe. There were times when we’d hang up the phone after a four hour phone call and I’d start sobbing because I loved you that much. I would lie in bed at night and cry myself to sleep because I needed you, and because I was so glad I finally found you. I used to thank God or the universe or whoever for making sure we made our way to one another. Because I was convinced this was the love that I finally deserved. This was the love I was made for. This was the love I had fought and bled for. And I thought it was finally mine.

I have always believed that I was made to love you- from the very start, and fine tuned throughout my life. Every experience I had, every tear I cried, every wall I was shoved into or floor I was knocked down on… made me who I was now. It had all been worth it, because it made me into YOURS.

And even more, you made me feel like you believed that too. Like you felt it, and like you wanted it. You made me feel seen and loved beyond my wildest dreams. My happy tears would fall because I never knew a love like this existed. And you made me believe it was ours.

I remember the exact day that those happy tears turned into pain. I was literally crying out for help because I didn’t want it anymore. I didn’t want a man I had to share. I was asking why you couldn’t just be mine. Screaming it. I hated everyone that ever told me we’d never be together… because they were right. And every tear after that was because of hurt. I would cry in my bed and be so angry at you, mad at you for letting it get to this point. Hating you for knowing I was hurting and not doing anything about it. I was mad at you for not being the man I thought you were- for not protecting me and my heart, for letting everyone else be right about you, for watching me cry and continuing to lie to me and tell me it hurt you too. If I ever knew I was hurting someone the way you were hurting me, and I loved them the way you said you loved me, there is nothing I wouldn’t do to fix it. That’s when I knew you didn’t love me. I don’t know how you watched me break, wiped my tears, and asked me to keep holding on.

I hate you for not being the man I loved and believed in. For not acting and doing the things THAT man would’ve done for me.

You have lost me completely. And I hate you for it. You’ve picked someone else over me that you yourself have said you can’t love. Someone that you’ve said will never make you happy the way I have. You’ve thrown all of this away for something you have never been in love with or committed to from the start.

There is no coming back from this. I will never forgive you. I now see that you watched me fall apart over time, and you did nothing about it. You alone have always had the ability to make this right. And I told myself I would not have fallen in love with this man if he wasn’t capable of fixing something like this. I told myself I would not have fallen in love with you if I didn’t trust you with my whole being- from choosing where we sit in a restaurant to doing the right thing for us, and for me and my heart. I believed that the love we shared, the love I’d smile and cry over, was the love we were both meant for. And to me, that meant you would do anything to keep it.

I was wrong. There is never a day where you can tell me you love me again and that I will believe it. It will never be true.

The way I poured into you. The way I risked my heart for you. How I was ready to change the entire course of my life to be with you. The way I truly moved on from my dreams of having a family because being with you was the only dream that mattered. All of these pieces of me you have so gladly taken. All the while knowing you could never, and would never, give it back to me in return. You have single-handedly stripped me of a love I thought could only be described as destiny.

I meant everything I ever said to you. I truly believed all of those things. My heart belonged to you. I belonged to you. I thought I was made to love you. The way our bodies and souls fit so perfectly together, I wholeheartedly believed that meant it would last forever. I was sincere and honest with you. It was impossible for me to lie to you. I didn’t even think to look in another man’s direction because I thought I knew what love felt like. I would’ve done anything to keep it. And I thought you would too.

I was wrong.

I’ve been dreaming of you. I look for your car all the time. For you. Hoping one day we can see each other out and about, and smile at one another. My dreams of you have been anything but pleasant. The most recent one, you shot me. And not like a gunshot went off and I woke up. We were fighting, and I saw you pull a gun. I turned away and braced myself, and you shot me in the middle of my back. I fell forward onto the floor, and laid there on my chest. I remember thinking “I don’t know what it feels like to be shot, and I don’t feel any pain. I just feel warmth in my whole chest. Am I dying?” I was screaming for help. You stood over me and said “they’re not fucking coming,” and left the room. I didn’t even wake up yet, but I wanted to. It’s like I knew I was dreaming and was praying I woke up before I died. I don’t know what that means. I don’t know how I wake up from a dream like that and still love you. But I do. Not in the sense that I want to be with you again. But I just love you. As I’m healing (or trying to at least), I’ve come to appreciate the bond we had. Whether it was strictly a trauma bond or what, it was clearly strong enough to keep us coming back for more for almost 7 years. The things we’ve done to one another, yet still have always had some speck of love for each other. It’s not healthy or normal or made to last. But it was real, and at least something good came out of it.

I truly think I stuck in this long enough to become the villain. Maybe subconsciously I knew that the only way to get you to stop hurting me was to hurt you back beyond repair. I think I always knew that. I used to beg you to let me go, and I’d wonder what it would take to get you to finally do that. I knew what I was doing, and I knew it would hurt you. At the time I found joy in it partly because I knew it meant we’d finally be done with one another and maybe that much closer to peace. But when the dust settled, I felt awful. I still do. I am truly sorry. I’m sorry I’ve hurt you, in all the ways I have throughout the years. People tell me you’ve deserved it. It’s easy to say that and believe it considering the cheating, lies, and abuse. But I don’t feel like you deserved to hurt regardless of how you hurt me. Contrary to what you’ve said to me, I am not that evil. I tried to be. I thought hurting you would feel good. That it would feel right and justified. It didn’t, and it still doesn’t. And for that, I’m sorry.

Everyday I’m working towards forgiving you. I thought I had, then everything stirred up again and I realized I had only buried you, not forgiven you. Little by little, though, I do. Every other minute in the day I go from loving you to hating you. But I know one day, the hate will be gone and I will have only love for you. I hope to see you one day and only appreciate the love and laughs we shared. I often think about the times we’d be falling over in the kitchen laughing, trying not pee. Or in bed cracking up, while I hit your arm from laughing so hard. Or the games we’d play finishing each other’s sentences or trying to land on the same words- and not to mention how easily it was to do that. One day I will see you and see my old best friend, someone I truly grew up with. One day, all that will be left when I think of you will be love. It’s still there now, just mixed in with a bunch of other things. Loving you, and being hurt by you, changed me in stages. First I was weak, then I guess I became evil, thinking that was strength. I think the real strength is coming now. I feel myself becoming the woman I’m meant to be: loving, kind, accountable and self-aware, respectful and respectable. The last 7 years have felt like I’ve been knocked down over and over. And although I kept getting back up, I never quite figured out how to fix my footing and make sure it didn’t happen again. That’s happening now. So I just wanted to thank you.

If you read this and feel hate, I hope you don’t feel inclined to respond. Because I guess the self righteous part of me hopes you’re healing too, and becoming the man I’ve always known you can be. My ego would feel too bruised if you were still hateful. But then again, it’s not about my ego anymore. And you will probably hate me for some time. After all, it did take me 7 years to get to this point. But I do hope now, or even one day, you feel the way I do. Maybe even just an ounce. I love and respect you and what we had. I’m grateful. I’m proud of what we experienced- not always proud about what we did and how we did it- but proud nonetheless. I’m happy when I think of the laughs I shared with my once-best friend. And I am sad that it came to end. But I am also so understanding of why it wasn’t built to last, and accepting of why all the bad happened the way it did.

Our relationship is the defining relationship of my life. That doesn’t mean it was meant to be forever. Our relationship, and you, have shaped me more than anything or anyone has or ever will. I am becoming the woman I was intended to be. Nothing will shake me again, and that’s all credit to the strength I’ve gained from the life I shared with you. Thank you.

I think about you everyday. I miss you everyday.

Then he told me you texted him and asked if we were married yet. And I got sick to my stomach. Put aside the ways in which I’ve wasted years of my life on him. I’ve accepted and acknowledged my stupidity and part in that cycle. What made me sick was the thought that maybe all these years, you valued your relationship with him more than you did anything you shared with me. I used to try to convince myself that you kept him in your life as a doorway to me. I used to try to convince myself that was what I did with him. But the reality is, I kept him around because I wanted to. Because he meant something to me. So that has to be why you keep him around too, right? It must be because you actually value him and his friendship. And that kills me. Because if I ever had to choose between you two, I’d pick you. But I don’t think you’d pick me. I know you wouldn’t, because you never have. I tell myself it’s because you can’t. But I know even if you could, you wouldn’t.

I miss you. I miss your voice. Your face. Your jokes. God I miss your laugh. I miss my best friend.

I feel lost without you. You were viciously honest with me when I needed it the most, and especially when I didn’t.

I love you, and I’ve been struggling to let you go. I haven’t been able to let myself unlove you. And I really don’t want to, but I know I have to.

I can’t do this anymore. I can’t continue to fight for the love of a man that simply doesn’t have it in them anymore. You told me you don’t care, and I have to believe you this time. I have to. Last summer you stood in that very same spot in the front yard and said you don’t care about me or how I feel, and the next day you were in bed with someone else. I have to believe you. You’ve shown me time and time again that you don’t. You said it to me. I can’t be stupid enough to think you don’t mean it. I know you don’t care. I know you don’t love me. And that’s ok. I forgive you. For everything you did, and everything you didn’t do. I forgive you.

“Come back.” That’s all you had to say. I would’ve turned around and been in your arms. You had to say two words and I would’ve known there was still something here. Something worth fighting for. And you couldn’t say those two words. Instead you told me you don’t care. I believe you.

Thank you for the last six and a half years. I’ve said I want to forget them, but I know that’s a lie. I’d want to relive them over and over again, just so we could get it right. Thank you for everything you’ve taught me, good and bad. Thank you for being my best friend and laughing with me until our abs hurt and we had tears in our eyes. I wish those were the only memories. And even though they’re not, I will still hold onto the good ones. You’ve set an incredibly high bar for what I look for in a man. No one can make me laugh like you do. No one can hold me like you do. No one can rub me and love on me like you. But maybe that’s the point. All of those memories belong to you. All of those parts in my heart are yours, and always will be. And maybe I will find someone to create more, different, and better memories with. I think that’s the point. I don’t want to find someone to replace you, because I know I never will. All of these memories are yours, and all of those pieces of me belong to you.

Two words. I just needed to know you still wanted me. But thank you for not lying. Thank you for being honest with me, and telling me you don’t care or want me. You will never know how much that means to me. Thank you for not making me come back and love a man that didn’t love me back. Thank you for letting me go.

I will never say another bad thing about you. Your memory and our love deserves better than that. It may have ended, but it was something special. Very few people will feel that kind of love, that kind of passion. In between all of the hurt and heartache, there was a love between us that no one could comprehend. I am still in awe of it. Because I didn’t understand it myself. I just knew it kept me from letting go. And I know I never fully will let go.