Oh how I wish I could take that back. All of it. The pain and the agony. The desperation.
The humiliation you feel when you throw yourself out there, only to be rejected. And for what?
How did I allow you to hurt me so much that I wanted to crawl into a hole and die from the pain exploding from where my heart should have been.
In that moment, when you left as I gasped for air, I thought for sure I would never be able to get up off that floor. I laid there, crying and gasping for so long that I’m embarrassed to say.
You said you loved me, so how could you leave me like that? How could you twist me up so much that I needed you to untangle me?
How could you turn my face, the one you said so many times was the most beautiful face you had ever seen, into something completely unrecognizable?
Even to me, my own face a stranger? How could you take me from loving you to being desperate for you? From having you to needing you. From caring to obsession.
How could you do all of that, and then just leave me in a broken pile on the floor? I still don’t know, but I thank God that you did.
If you hadn’t left me, I might still be sobbing on that floor. I might still be chasing you for the love you said was mine, but shared around with whomever was convenient to you at the time.
If you hadn’t left me I might have had to show up at another family Christmas with a black eye that my lies do not explain when the truth is written so clearly on my face.
If you hadn’t left me I might have spent the rest of my life feeling like I wasn’t good enough, like I needed to fight for your attention.
If you hadn’t left me I might still be waiting for you to deliver on the promises you made.
See also: By Losing You I Gained So Much More
I’m ashamed and embarrassed to admit that I would never have left you. No matter how many times you left me on the floor, I would have begged you to come back.
No matter how many times you hit me, I would have found a way to blame myself. I wish that weren’t true, but the fact that you had to leave me proves that it is.
So, thank you. Thank you for letting me go and releasing me from the hold you had on me. It was the only thing you ever did for me and I am so, so grateful.
To this moment I can’t explain how I let you turn me into the person I saw in the mirror that day. I don’t know how I became such a cliché.
I wish I did, because I didn’t see that for myself. I didn’t see letting anyone have such power over me let alone that they would use that power to hurt me.
I didn’t see you coming until I watched you go, and that scares me because I think if it could happen to me once it could happen to me again.
But it won’t. I won’t let it because I know now the pain of loving you was much greater than the pain of losing you.
I know now that when you get past the rejection, and the desire to fight for something you shouldn’t have to fight for, when you finally let go of a person who brings you nothing but pain, it stings a bit but then the relief comes.
When you stop feeling the pain, you start to feel free and you start to find yourself again. It doesn’t take as long as you think it will when you’re still on the floor either.
So thanks. Thanks for leaving that day and never coming back. It was the best thing that could have happened to us and I am better off for it.
I would wish you all the best, but I wouldn’t mean it. I actually hope you’re drowning slowly somewhere in a cesspool of your own making, begging for a lifeline and no one that you haven’t broken is around to throw you one.
by Tia Grace
