This Is Me Choosing Myself Over You

The last thing I’d ever want to do is cause you pain. This time though, I have to do what’s best for me. Even if I’m not sure exactly what that is yet.

It would be so easy to get caught up in you. I know that. You know that too. We always have a way of going back and forth, laying our feelings down like cards on the table, hoping the hands we are dealt will do better this time around-only to find that the game has changed, or it’s long over. We were never good with timing. We never say our feelings, we scream them, we make sure they are echoing off the walls, ringing in our ears as loudly as they are in our hearts. We are not subtle. We are not gentle. I don’t believe we ever could be those things even if we tried.

And I’ve always been one to run back. I stay when I should go. I continue in circles, because it’s easier. Because I believe people change, they grow, and they learn. I’ve always been one to dole out multiple chances, thinking with just the right number I’ll find one that sticks.

It can’t be that way this time. But it has more to do with me than it does with you.

There are some things I just need to do now. Places I need to go, dreams I need to accomplish, life that I need to live- and for once, it needs to be just me. I have spent a lot of my life making decisions based on other people. Based on how it will affect their feelings. How it will affect our relationship. How I will handle being away or being distant. Now, for the first time in my life I’m making decisions for me, and it’s the most liberating feeling I’ve experienced. I don’t just want it—I need it. I need to live this life and have it be mine.

I have to do this part alone.

I won’t be able to forget you if I tried. It’s just impossible. We were never small glitches in each other’s lives. We were earth shattering. We were overwhelming in a way I could never fully encompass on a page. I won’t be able to forget who we were and what we wanted to be. So letting you walk away, knowing that you believe in us the way I did back then, is the hardest thing I’ve had to do in so long. It doesn’t feel like it’s the way things should be. Yet going back when I know my life is pulling me in an entirely different direction, a direction that is opposite to you, that doesn’t feel right either. All I know is that this time, I have to do what’s best for me. I have to take this route in my life and see where it leads, because I’m going to hate myself if I don’t. I’m going to live in regret, and I won’t do it. Not again.

I can’t promise you I’ll stay. I can’t promise you I’ll ever come back. But I do promise that forgetting you is the last thing I could ever do.

I’m doing what’s best for me, and I hope in time, you do what is best for you, too.