1 year
It's been one year since I thought that I knew you, since I thought that I knew myself. One year of changes, discomfort, taking all that I could stand from missing you, recognizing when to walk away, when to stop looking back. It's been one year since the strongest, most emotionally taxing relationship I've ever had officially ended.
I don't know if you read these things I write about you, if you ever have, if they impact you the way that they impact me when I write them. But I want you to know: I don't do these things for you anymore. I write these things to centralize my thoughts, to force my feelings out of the hole they have created in my chest so that my body will have some time to mend itself. I write about you, still, because I feel things, viscerally, have always felt things this way, and the only thing that helps is to be honest, to be raw, to throw my innermost thoughts into the world so they don't take up so much space in me, physically, anymore.
It isn't necessary to talk more about the experiences we shared in a year and a half of knowing each other, so instead, I'd like to talk about what I have done for myself in the past year, how I have grown, and the fear I have developed of getting into another relationship of dependency and insecurity, like the one I was in with you.
But first, my therapist has suggested that I make a list the red flags that I ignored when I met and began getting emotionally involved with you. Let's begin with those.
1. You treated your mom with love, but also with a distance that scared me. You seemed to look at her as someone with more things to learn from you than things to teach you. You looked at her as someone that needed to be protected, which wasn't untrue, but I think you forgot that for most of your life, she was the one protecting you. And to forget that is to limit the respect you have for a person.
2. We spent too much time together, too fast. Quickly, every minute I didn't spend with you felt like a minute wasted.
3. I wasn't fully myself yet when I met you, and so I looked to you for guidance, because I wasn't sure how to be a full person without the support of a significant other to come home to.
4. For a while after we officially started dating, you refused to trust me. Everything I did seemed just below the amount of proof you needed to show that I loved you. Eventually that changed, but I've never been so questioned for my devotion, because if there is one thing I know for sure about myself it's that I choose the people that I love and I refuse to ever let them go.
5. You said early on that you would never be able to do a long distance relationship. That scared me because you also had no desire to ever leave San Francisco, and I have never believed that the Bay Area would be my final destination.
6. Sometimes you would get angry with me for having emotions. I don't think this was due to your inability to feel, but rather from your fear of being labeled as a bad person. You never seemed to understand that my being upset about something didn't automatically come as a punishment to you. Sometimes I just needed you to listen, needed you to let me feel. Sometimes you allowed that, but most times you did not.
7. When we broke up the first time, and I came back and saw you when we worked together, at the end of our shift, I had plans with my friend and you begged me to come to your house, because you needed me. Otherwise, you said, because you didn't like the way that you felt, you thought it'd be better if we never spoke again until you'd had time to get over me. I was terrified, and so I came to your side. It felt good to hug you, but like a scary precedent. My time wasn't valued the same way yours was. When I decided I needed things, you only rushed to my side when it was convenient.
When we broke up, it was a few days before Valentine's Day. I still loved you. I still hoped. I missed you with everything I had, but we hadn't ended things with a hard stop, and so it wasn't so difficult as it was the first time. Things finally did end with a hard stop a few months later, but by then you had become so distant and I had been dealing with so much stress from the situation that it felt like more of a relief than anything else. There's only so much emotional strife you can take before the feeling of exhaustion outweighs the desire to continue hoping. The last time I texted you I was at a concert, filled up with memories and sad for how alone I felt. And since then, I haven't heard from or reached out to you. And I haven't wanted to, which I think surprises me the most.
Because here's what happened when I finally let go of you: I found parts of myself that I had forgotten were important to me. I found an area of research I want to devote my life to, I found a school that I love, I have identified a career that I feel a passion for, one where I actually want to work my way up the career ladder. I don't want to place blame at either one of our feet alone, but our relationship crippled me, in a way. I forgot how to be independent, because I think inherently I love the feeling of comfort that comes from a stable relationship, the way doing nothing with someone else feels much better than doing nothing alone. Every choice I made, I made with you in mind. I know you said you did the same for me, and I do believe that. But ultimately, I think having that mindset is the wrong one, at least for a relationship to be emotionally healthy for me. I think what I want in an ideal relationship is the ability to make decisions for myself without the inherent fear that if I make the wrong one, the other person will leave. I want someone with whom it is difficult to make the wrong decision, because we are so often on the same page. We don't have to be the same person, we just have to understand each other, and understand where the other person is in their thinking, in their feeling, in their life. You and I, Dra, we never had that.
A part of me is still hurt, still a little angry, because the way things ended between us feels like an affront, like a comment on my character that I wasn't enough for you to want to stick around. But another part of me wants you to be happy, in whatever way it takes you to heal. And this part of me, it knows how I've outgrown you. I'm excited about the person I'm becoming, and it took losing you to find that person.
I don't know if you read these things I write about you, if you ever have, if they impact you the way that they impact me when I write them. But I want you to know: I don't do these things for you anymore. I write these things to centralize my thoughts, to force my feelings out of the hole they have created in my chest so that my body will have some time to mend itself. I write about you, still, because I feel things, viscerally, have always felt things this way, and the only thing that helps is to be honest, to be raw, to throw my innermost thoughts into the world so they don't take up so much space in me, physically, anymore.
It isn't necessary to talk more about the experiences we shared in a year and a half of knowing each other, so instead, I'd like to talk about what I have done for myself in the past year, how I have grown, and the fear I have developed of getting into another relationship of dependency and insecurity, like the one I was in with you.
But first, my therapist has suggested that I make a list the red flags that I ignored when I met and began getting emotionally involved with you. Let's begin with those.
1. You treated your mom with love, but also with a distance that scared me. You seemed to look at her as someone with more things to learn from you than things to teach you. You looked at her as someone that needed to be protected, which wasn't untrue, but I think you forgot that for most of your life, she was the one protecting you. And to forget that is to limit the respect you have for a person.
2. We spent too much time together, too fast. Quickly, every minute I didn't spend with you felt like a minute wasted.
3. I wasn't fully myself yet when I met you, and so I looked to you for guidance, because I wasn't sure how to be a full person without the support of a significant other to come home to.
4. For a while after we officially started dating, you refused to trust me. Everything I did seemed just below the amount of proof you needed to show that I loved you. Eventually that changed, but I've never been so questioned for my devotion, because if there is one thing I know for sure about myself it's that I choose the people that I love and I refuse to ever let them go.
5. You said early on that you would never be able to do a long distance relationship. That scared me because you also had no desire to ever leave San Francisco, and I have never believed that the Bay Area would be my final destination.
6. Sometimes you would get angry with me for having emotions. I don't think this was due to your inability to feel, but rather from your fear of being labeled as a bad person. You never seemed to understand that my being upset about something didn't automatically come as a punishment to you. Sometimes I just needed you to listen, needed you to let me feel. Sometimes you allowed that, but most times you did not.
7. When we broke up the first time, and I came back and saw you when we worked together, at the end of our shift, I had plans with my friend and you begged me to come to your house, because you needed me. Otherwise, you said, because you didn't like the way that you felt, you thought it'd be better if we never spoke again until you'd had time to get over me. I was terrified, and so I came to your side. It felt good to hug you, but like a scary precedent. My time wasn't valued the same way yours was. When I decided I needed things, you only rushed to my side when it was convenient.
When we broke up, it was a few days before Valentine's Day. I still loved you. I still hoped. I missed you with everything I had, but we hadn't ended things with a hard stop, and so it wasn't so difficult as it was the first time. Things finally did end with a hard stop a few months later, but by then you had become so distant and I had been dealing with so much stress from the situation that it felt like more of a relief than anything else. There's only so much emotional strife you can take before the feeling of exhaustion outweighs the desire to continue hoping. The last time I texted you I was at a concert, filled up with memories and sad for how alone I felt. And since then, I haven't heard from or reached out to you. And I haven't wanted to, which I think surprises me the most.
Because here's what happened when I finally let go of you: I found parts of myself that I had forgotten were important to me. I found an area of research I want to devote my life to, I found a school that I love, I have identified a career that I feel a passion for, one where I actually want to work my way up the career ladder. I don't want to place blame at either one of our feet alone, but our relationship crippled me, in a way. I forgot how to be independent, because I think inherently I love the feeling of comfort that comes from a stable relationship, the way doing nothing with someone else feels much better than doing nothing alone. Every choice I made, I made with you in mind. I know you said you did the same for me, and I do believe that. But ultimately, I think having that mindset is the wrong one, at least for a relationship to be emotionally healthy for me. I think what I want in an ideal relationship is the ability to make decisions for myself without the inherent fear that if I make the wrong one, the other person will leave. I want someone with whom it is difficult to make the wrong decision, because we are so often on the same page. We don't have to be the same person, we just have to understand each other, and understand where the other person is in their thinking, in their feeling, in their life. You and I, Dra, we never had that.
A part of me is still hurt, still a little angry, because the way things ended between us feels like an affront, like a comment on my character that I wasn't enough for you to want to stick around. But another part of me wants you to be happy, in whatever way it takes you to heal. And this part of me, it knows how I've outgrown you. I'm excited about the person I'm becoming, and it took losing you to find that person.
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