It’s Time I Said Goodbye To You

I was driving to work  and saw how much the leaves had begun to change. Their vibrant reds and oranges, scattered on the ground and hanging on the branches. It made me realize I survived another season without you.

It’s been over a year since you broke my heart. And to be honest, I feel like a broken record for continuing to talk about you. The fact that you can still bring tears to my eyes on days when I’m so happy. How you can keep me up at night, unable to close my eyes, because memories of you still play in the back of my mind.

But I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to cry at the thought of your name. I don’t want to toss and turn holding the covers to my face. I want to bring my smile back that used to take up my whole face with how much it showed. I want to go back to sleeping peacefully.

To say I’ve grown this year without you by my side would be an understatement. I’ve changed so much for the better I don’t even recognize that girl in photos from a year ago. I wish I could have been able to tell her how much she would be better off without you, but she needed to hurt before she started to heal. My healing process is over now.

Yes, there have been many dark days where I didn’t want to make it to tomorrow. Times where I couldn’t see myself without you in my life. I thought about that girl who begged for you to stay. To not get in your car, drive away and never come back. But now I know it’s what was best. And as hard as it is to finally admit, us no longer being together was the best thing to happen to me.

I see myself in a new light now. Someone who knows her self-worth and won’t settle for anything less that what I deserve. A person who is courageous and takes each day at a time and goes after what she wants. I have you to thank for that. Because of you I know what I want and will never stop trying to find it even if it takes the rest of my life. I just knew that what I wanted wasn’t you, wasn’t us together. It doesn’t hurt the same way it did a year ago to say that.

I’ll never forget you and maybe I’ll never stop loving you. There’s still a tiny piece of my heart that you carry whether you know it or not.  Maybe it’s that part that’s weighing you down, I know the feeling, I lived that way for so long. But I finally released it and I can breathe again. I was the one who gave my heart to you and trusted you to keep it and hold it close. I guess we were both foolish for doing something we knew wouldn’t happen.

You were my first love. I can’t and wouldn’t change that. I don’t want to go back and erase every single memory of us we shared together. All the good times and even the bad ones too. Because whether we like it or not, there was a time when those moments were all that mattered and they made us into the people we are today. I can’t fix the past, but I can improve the present to make sure my future is brighter and better for me to never want to look back but take it with me and move on.

I won’t find someone just like you, I’ve come to realize that the hard way this year. Spending my time on dates and dating someone searching for something that reminded me of you. Only to break up with them and hurt them because they didn’t come close to you. I know now I need to stop comparing everyone to you. Because if I want a chance to find happiness and love again I need to know that the love you gave me was all you could offer. But that there will be someone else out there who can give me more and is willing to.

I know now that if I want to be happy, I need to let you go. I need to stop hanging on to something that used to be good. I don’t hate you, I could never. But I hate what you did, what you were capable of doing. I hope one day we can be in a room together and not walk past one another.

My only concern right now is myself, because I haven’t been the best person to me this past year. But it’s time I do that, starting with something I thought would always be hard.

It’s time I say goodbye to you. Because in order for me to truly love myself, I need to let you go. Holding onto you was slowly killing me inside and I don’t want to feel that way anymore.

So, this is me releasing you, you’re free from my grip. I can finally stand tall and uncurl my fingers.

I hope you understand.