Mourning the Memories

Dear love, 

The night you slept in my room the first time you were wearing one of your white cotton shirts.

I woke up before you; my room was still dark, yet small speckles of light were coming through my blinds. There was just enough light for me to see the outline of your dark tattoos beneath your shirt and I laid there trying to figure out what shape they were. 

As I contemplated, my eyes wandered from your shirt to your sleeping face. Laying next to you, I memorized the curve of your pointed nose, your chin, and the curve of your lips, noticing how the top one jutted out the tiniest bit more than the lower one. I don’t know how long I spent memorizing your sleeping profile, but I only paused when a thought entered my mind. 

“What if this is the boy that I am going to marry?” The thought struck me by surprise and my heartbeat seemed to skip. The idea of marriage had never once crossed my mind with any of my past relationships. But as the thought expanded, our life together flashed before my eyes before I could stop it. 

These thoughts confused me and my mind raced uncontrollably. 

One thing was for certain though: This boy, who had come into my life at one of the most vulnerable and delicate times, meant something to me. The thought didn’t come lightly. In fact, the thought terrified me and I did not know what to do with it. 

A part of my heart was lost to you that day, but what I didn’t know at the time was that I was also losing myself. 

I think a part of me knew that I loved you from the beginning, although you try to deny that I even loved you at all. My love for you was the sneaky kind of love. It was always there, laying dormant, waiting for the right time to bubble up and explode. And eventually when it did rise to the surface, it wasn’t something I was ready for. I don’t think either of us were. But I won't apologize for loving you. 

I should have never had to beg to be shown the love you said you had for me. 

If you had truly loved me you would have shown it and I would have felt it. 

I should have left when I didn’t feel any. The pit in my stomach should have been a sign. 

But like many other women, I stayed with you because I thought you would change. 

The nights I spent waiting for you when you said you would come over. The times you said you’d do better, not for me, but for yourself. The times when you said you’d be there for me but you were nowhere to be found. 

These times should have made me realize. But the thing about you was that you had your hand wrapped around my brain so tightly that I was nothing more than a puppet to you. 

I think a part of you knew that you had me wrapped around your finger and you liked it. You reveled in the fact that I would stay with you even when you were not good for me. Not good to me. 

You wrote in your letter to me that you were sad that I could only think about the bad times I had with you. But the thing is, is that all I can do is remember the good times even when I don’t want to. 

Every night when I close my eyes I am forced to re-watch our happiest memories like a broken movie projector. 

The first time I met you flashes before my eyes, you coming into my room and accusing me of only wearing Brandy Melville and being surprised when I told you my shorts were thrifted. 

Laying in the hammock with you as crickets sang around us. 

Listening to music in my bed as we held each other into the late hours of the night. 

I could go on and on, but it’s not worth it to get stuck in the past. Because trust me I have, and once you’re stuck, it’s hard to pull yourself back out. 

You see, I never wanted to love you softly. I wanted to love you hard and fierce, but I couldn’t when I didn’t get anything in return. 

Now, sometimes I hear your voice in places where you aren’t there. 

“You have freckles on your nose.” I hear as I shop for parmesan at the grocery store. 

“There aren’t many things I care about more than I care about you.” I hear as I watch a movie with my sisters. 

“Sometimes it feels like I need you more than I need air.” I hear as I am out to dinner with my friends. 

I can’t escape you. 

But the thing about you is that you took and took and took and took, until there wasn’t anything left to take from me. Maybe you didn’t realize it, but I became a shell of the girl I used to be and you became the emotional rollercoaster I couldn’t escape from. We didn’t love each other the way that we wanted each other to, and for that I am sorry. 

All I can do is remember, and all you seem to do is try to forget. 

Now we are nothing more than villains in each other's stories. 

It didn’t have to end this way. 

But it did and now the only time I see you is when I close my eyes and the only time I talk to you is in my dreams, which is often. 

But now I hope you can understand that I cared about you. I cared about you so deeply that I was willing to stay even when it wasn’t healthy for either of us. 

I don’t know if I hate you. It would be easy to say I did and move on with my life but you said it perfectly: “losing you felt like losing a part of myself that I didn’t know I had.” 

But I’ll never know if you truly ever cared about me. If it was as meaningful to you as it was to me. My guess is no, and that is something that I am going to have to live with. The fact that I gave so much of myself to someone who genuinely didn’t care about me. I think that is what breaks my heart the most. Sometimes the biggest lessons learned are the ones that hurt the most. 

I hope one day, you find yourself. Because I think you lost yourself a long time ago. 

But I know I can’t be the one to help you search, even if a small part of me wants to. 

You need to do that yourself. Or else you’re going to be lost forever.