And here you are standing, in tears, at my door. I don’t know what to tell you, I’ve heard this one before. You’re a sad song… A sad song waiting to happen… I could give in and let you get to me. But I can’t live with leaving, stuck on repeat. You’re a sad song. ~ Mike Ryan, Sad Song
Baby, you’re a sad song. You made love feel like a battle, one that I couldn’t win. I gave it my all for the last time and I’ve never battled my own ego and pride for another person like I did with you. No one else was ever worth it but to me, you were. I was so afraid of looking like a fool. My anxiety kept telling me I was going to hate myself for being this vulnerable with you. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. I encourage others to give him as many chances as your heart will allow you to because one day, your heart finally lets go of hope and comes to terms with who he is, not who you hoped for him to be. Suddenly, he’s not the same man you fell in love with. Imagine that, my anxiety was wrong…
This time, it’s completely different. I gave you my all. I didn’t hold back a single part of myself. I don’t hate myself one bit for it. It gave me the closure I have needed for the last two years. I am no longer tearing myself apart for what I didn’t do. I am no longer blaming my shortcomings for the failure of our relationship. This time baby, it was all you. To those of you who want to know how I don’t blame myself for this, it’s because you can never blame yourself for loving and believing in someone too much or too hard. That’s your gift. One that very few have. To be able to look at the person who hurt you and still love and believe in them. In a world that can sometimes be cruel, it’s a gift to be delicate to those who have hurt you. Can you really blame yourself now?
If you think I’m here to tell you walking away from him was the easiest thing I have done, then don’t read any more. Because I am here to tell you that it is possible to shatter your own heart.
I have endured some of my darkest days trying to believe that I made the right choice to love myself more. There were days I didn’t even see light at the end of the tunnel. But whether we like it or not, each new day rises before us. I was exhausted from fighting a war in my head every single day. If that’s not exhausting, I don’t know what is. I continued to break my own heart, firstly by leaving him and secondly by not believing that I did in fact deserve more.
I tried to numb the pain and I can’t count off the top of my head how many times I prayed for my heart to stop loving him. I was doing whatever it would take to get him off my mind. Some things I’m not even proud of. The only way to get through is to remember: I love him but I love me more. There is a fine line in a relationship, one which most women blur with their love. It’s the reality of compromising for one another or compromising yourself. If you find yourself compromising more of yourself and your needs in a relationship, you need to love yourself more and walk away from that man. So break your own heart, fill yourself up with tragedy, and then put the pieces back together.
A man who truly loves you will not let you compromise anyone or yourself. You might have to settle with feeling ‘okay’ for a while, maybe even months, but one day, you’re going to start to feel fine. After that, you’re going to realize you’ve opened yourself up to all that life has to offer you. Each person our heart decides is special enough to let in has a purpose and they leave us with something that changes who we are forever. So thank you baby for giving me the chance to completely love myself enough to walk away from anything or anyone who doesn’t deserve the kind of love I have to offer.
Don’t reach for my hand baby because I just can’t do this. I will just end up in the middle of a sad song.
by Charley Nicole