My Only Regret Is It Took Me This Long To Say Goodbye

It was you who messed up, not me. It was you who left me without closure, without a leg to stand on. And it was your mistake, not mine.

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Amanda Bear / Unsplash

We can’t control who we want to be with. As much as logic and reason should play a factor in matters of the heart, we don’t have an off switch when it comes to romance.

No matter what we know is right, no matter how much we think we’re going to get hurt, when you’re in it, that’s where you are. You can’t force yourself out of something, you can’t undo wanting someone to love you back. Not even when it hurts you more to keep hoping.

And that’s the worst part about falling in love with someone like you. Because I knew what it was going to do be to and I did it anyway. Even though in the back of my mind, I knew that you would never change. I knew that I wasn’t going to be some acceptation for you. I knew that no matter what I said or did, you were never going to be ready for someone like me.

But the crazy part about it is that I just didn’t care.

I kept telling myself that you would come around. That you meant what you said. That you could never keep me waiting, never lie to me.

I don’t know why I expected you to do any different. I know that people change, but not people like you.

I built you up in my head. I thought that you were going to be there. That after everything, after the long chase, after hanging on your every word, after sleepless nights and grey mornings, I thought that it would finally pay off.

I thought that if I gave you enough time, you would see how perfect I was for you. And how good we would be together.

I was wrong.

All that wasted time and I still come up short. And you get to walk away like nothing happened. You get to keep playing pretend while I’m left trying to figure out what I could have done better.

But I want you to know something very important. Something that I’ve needed to say for a long time and something that I could never let you hear.

It was you who messed up, not me. It was you who left me without closure, without a leg to stand on. And it was your mistake, not mine.

I wanted so badly to be important to you. And there were times when I thought that I was. But those were just more lies coming effortlessly out of your mouth. Because you knew you had the upper hand and you used it against me every chance you got.

That hurt. You know that?

You can’t just walk around doing whatever you want and thinking that everyone will forgive you in time. Because believe me when I say that I won’t forget this. And I certainty what forgive it.

You may have deserved my kindness before, but whatever it was that I was trying to excuse you from, you don’t get that luxury anymore.

In fact, you don’t get anything from me anymore.

If you thought that we were going to be friends after you pushed me out of your life on purpose, you were very, very wrong.

I know that you’re used to getting your way. I know that you’re used to winning, to always coming out unscarred. But this time, I promise you that you’re going to regret ever leading me on in the first place.

Because that’s what you did. Plain and simple. You made me want you. You made me trust you. You made me venerable and small. And then you decided that you wanted something else.

Maybe you can live with doing something like that to someone else. But I never could.

I guess that was always the difference between me and you. I have a moral compass. A strong sense of what is right and what is so, so wrong. And you? You just think about you. What makes you happy, what you want. I don’t know how someone like you could ever be worthy of anyone else’s love.

You have to love yourself first. I don’t think you ever learned how to do that. I would tell you that I feel sorry for you, but the truth is, you don’t deserve my sympathy either.

If it’s one thing you taught me after all of this chaos, after all of this breaking, is that when we assume that someone has the same heart as us, we are almost always mistaken.

Maybe you’re capable of love but maybe you’re not. Whatever the truth is, I know that it won’t ever come out of your mouth. And I know that men like you, you’re always going to lose.

You’re always going to live in regret. To walk around in fear because you got hurt once. But guess what? That doesn’t mean that you get to treat everyone that comes around and tries to help you like shit.

It doesn’t mean that people are disposable because believe me they’re not. Not the good ones anyway. And I was good to you. I never had anything but love for you in my heart and all you did was take what you needed and throw everything else away.

You didn’t play fair but I guess that’s the way that things go sometimes. Maybe I had to learn the hard way for me to learn anything from you at all.

Even though I don’t really need another lesson in heartbreak, I guess that it’s the way it does sometimes.

My only regret is that it took me this long to figure you out that I meant nothing to you. That even when I thought we were making progress, that I was more than just a body to you, we were still in the same spot. You were still just waiting for me to get it through my head.

I don’t have too many regrets in my life. I always take it one step at a time, and then to hurl myself forwards. I don’t like looking back and thinking that I could have done something different, that I could done something better or easier.

I don’t like to live in the past because I think it makes for a weaker, more dull future.

So, if I could take anything back. If I could do anything differently, it would be all the time that I spent on you.

Every little thing that I thought about, every time you smiled in my direction and I had to catch my breath. Every time I promised myself that if I fought for this thing long enough, then it would be a good thing instead of bad. All of the little things I tried to do to make you happier, to brighten your day.

All of that was just wasted time. And time is the only thing that you can’t get back.

When I say that I regret you, it’s not so much you. It’s not so much that you used me, that all you ever did was confuse me and make me feel like I was an idiot for feeling the way I did. It goes much deeper than that.

Because when I think about you, all I think about is the affection and the love and the heart that I wasted. All those feelings, all that time that I can’t get back. I wish I could unlearn the way that I wanted to care about you but I did. I just have to take it one day and a time now and remind myself that I’m much better without you tagging along and making my life much more complicated than it needs to be.

That’s really all you did. Was try and convince me that I was better off waiting for you to love me back than I was looking for someone else. Or looking for myself for that matter.

Please, don’t take any of this as a compliment. You’re not the one that got away or the reason that I won’t ever be whole again. You were just a milestone, a lesson that was a blessing in disguise.

Without this affecting me as much as it did and sometimes still does, I would still be under your thumb. I would still be the silyl girl, waiting on the cool guy to give her a chase.

I don’t deserve to be an option for you. And I don’t deserve to be on the back burner.

Maybe one day when you grow up and you remember this and you think of me, maybe you’ll regret not taking the time.

Or maybe I’ll be the only one.

Who knows? And who cares at this point because I am tired of thinking of you at all. I’m tired of waiting for an explanation. I’m tired of begging and pleading. But most of all, I’m tired of trying to convince myself that you matter at all. TC mark


About the author

Josie Griffith

Josie Griffith is a blogger and lifestyle writer living in Baltimore, Maryland.