I'm a nostalgic person, and I love to be able to have physical things to look back on. I preferably love to look back on words. Letters. Thoughts, that I had or someone else had where they were vulnerable enough to share with me.
This past summer I wrote a beautifully written break up letter that encompassed just about all of my feelings at the end of the relationship. It was the good kind of break up, one where we both wanted the best for each other and there wasn't any bad blood. I was out with my closest friends one day and mentioned I had written a letter to him and they insisted on sharing it. I was hesitant because it was my feelings, thoughts and my personal writing. That's being vulnerable. I had one of them read it because I knew that if I were to, I'd start to choke up. It ended up making two or three of them cry. Now if only I'd known if it made him cry...because that was the point.
May 11, 2020
Today was our year and a half mark of being together. One and a half years of having someone to talk with, laugh with, make memories with and love with. It’s crazy to think how fast that year and a half went.
I promised myself that I would write a letter to you after the end of each school year. And here I am writing your second, and last, letter. Who knows if you’ll even read this one. Tonight, was hard, and it wasn’t how I planned for it to be. But, no one can perfectly plan the breakup with the person they love. I didn’t get to say everything that I wanted to, and I feel like I owe it to you and myself to say everything that was on my mind tonight.
For about 3 months I’d noticed a distancing in our relationship and for a long time I completely ignored it. I thought it was normal and we were just in a lull. After having gone on my family trip over spring break and being sent home after the university shut down, I had a lot of time to think. I came to realize that things were off with us and things like not talking for a week wasn’t normal and not caring that we didn’t talk wasn’t normal either. Again, I thought it was normal though because nothing was going on in our lives and what was there to really talk about. I got comfortable being home and not talking to you, or anyone in that case. I was sad for a long time, though. I was sad about us, and as days went on, I realized that it was the end of us. There were days when I really struggled to be happy and have purpose. I pretended to be happy with us because I thought you thought we were okay, but little did I know we were on the same page, as I found out tonight. I thought I was blindsiding you and I felt like an awful person. So, for 3 months I waited to move back down to the cities to break up with you and for 3 months my emotions towards you fluctuated so many times and I was confused if breaking up was the right thing to do. I wasn’t sure if I was thinking rationally and I started to ask friends for advice. Truthfully, I shouldn’t have been talking to anyone about us but you, and I regret that. I didn’t know if I should have talked to you or just broke up with you while at home. I wasn’t sure if I should wait until I moved or if I just needed to see you again to feel happy again. I just didn’t know. I wanted to see you when I came down to get all my things when I moved out of AOII, but I was scared. I was scared because I didn’t think we were in a great place and I wasn’t ready to talk about us in that way. It’s not that I couldn’t have come seen you that day, it’s that I didn’t want to.
You aren’t perfect. And neither am I. Like, I am nowhere near perfect. There were things that made me sad and frustrated with you. What started out as small things that I set aside, they ended up being a bigger problem. When we first started dating, I was so so amazed with you. I regularly thought to myself how lucky I was to be with someone like you. You had (and still have) everything going for you. I felt you had no flaws. As time went on, I started to realize slight differences between the two of us. I started to feel like I was more invested in our relationship than you were. I was bothered that you never really wanted to visit and see me and my family. My family means so much to me, and I wanted more than anything for them to meet you. I was the one getting to know your family, though, and I was the only one building relationships with them. I never got that from you. You were always too busy, and I noticed that every time. Do you know how embarrassing it is telling my parents over and over again you were too busy to come see them? Someone who isn’t even willing to drive 3 hours to see me and my family shouldn't be worth as much time are you were. Maybe that’s me just caring way too much, I don’t know. I also realize that we’re adults and drinking alcohol is only protocol when in college, ha, but you were awful most times you drank. You ruined a lot of my sorority events and I ended up walking home alone crying because you were too drunk, or you didn’t respect how much I wanted to drink, and you made me feel bad. There were many times when you would talk down to me when you drank, and I disregarded them because I didn’t want drinking to come between our relationship. But it did. My friends talked to me about it many times and I stuck up for you each time because I loved you and I knew you better than they did. I had to save your reputation each time so that they wouldn’t start to question you. I’m sure you’re thinking of all the things you disliked and hated about me too right now. I am not trying to make you feel like shit and make you think you were a horrible person. I am a better person because of you, and you have taught me so many things about myself I never knew. I am sorry if I didn’t make you feel like a better person. I tried to always be there for you, and I think I did a pretty good job. I tried not to be too clingy, too protective, too crazy or too controlling. I wanted you to be free and independent without having to feel “obligated” all the time. I just wanted to be perfect. Maybe too perfect.
I want you to know that despite those things that I felt came between us, I love you. I love you, and I will always love you. I have never loved someone as much as you and it pains me that I don’t get to love you in that way anymore. In the end, I wanted us to work more than anything in the world. More than I wanted those Bon Iver tickets. I truly, sincerely, truthfully thought you were “the one”. I thought I was going to marry you and I even told my mom that. I wanted to go through life with you until the very end. But I started to see you didn’t. You didn’t fight to be with me at the end, and that fucking sucked. Why didn’t you fight? Why didn’t I fight harder? Why did we give up? A lot of me doesn’t understand where we went wrong and I want to understand so badly. I gave you so much of me and in return I got a twenty minute “conversation” about how you agreed with me and that it would have never worked out. But I’m confused. You texted me this morning telling me how excited you were to see me and then you acted like you were never even in love with me to begin with in your room. You seemed unfazed. Did I really not mean that much to you? I went through all my options before tonight and breaking up with you was the very last option. I wanted anything else but to break up with you even if I acted and said otherwise. But it seemed like it was the only option I really had. I walked out of the door tonight without even looking back you and I walked back to my apartment, alone, and cried.
May 26, 2020
I think about you every day and wonder how you are. I wonder how that night went after I left. I wonder if you are happier now. I tell myself that I am, but sometimes I’m not so sure. I miss you. A lot. This isn’t how I envisioned this summer would go. I blame myself and this fucking pandemic. I wonder what kinds of things we would have gotten to do this summer together now that we’re so close and we don’t have school to worry about. I looked forward to the summer that we were both living on campus. We could have done that picnic that never happened last summer. I wonder if you miss me.
Working has been a way for me to stay distracted along with being with friends. I hate being alone because I start to think a lot, like I am doing now. I get caught up in my head thinking of all the memories we had. All the good ones. I think one of my favorite memories of us was last summer at your house on that super-hot day and your family and friends were there. We spent the whole day on the lake and had a few too many Moscow Mules. I remember being so happy. The night we went to Bon Iver was also one of the favorite memories with you. It was like a dream. I’ll remember that forever.
I guess I just keep thinking about how you’ve been since we broke up. It’s a rhetorical question but I do wonder. I just hope that you’re okay. I hope that if I see you (and I hope that I do) things won’t have to be weird. I wish the best for you, and maybe someday we will run into each other again and things will be different.
Your love will be safe with me,
The night we broke up was far too short. I had so much I hadn't been able to say and the only way I knew how to say it was by writing a letter. I am much better at getting feelings out on paper. The breakup also got harder as time went on, and that's why I made another entry on May 26. I sent it that night after saying your love will be safe with me which is almost the most meaningful part of the letter. He and I had a crazy love for Bon Iver, and that phrase comes from one of his songs. re:Stacks to be exact, but you wouldn't have known that.
This letter is one of the most personal things I'm putting out there. But if you're going to write a break-up letter, this is how. Make them cry, make it full of all of the best times you had, and make them rethink who they are and what they've done. Truth is, though, I still love this boy.
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