“I was so lost in the fact that we had our little family that I couldn’t see I was stifling my creativity, my passions, and my dreams so that it could be the two of us. I didn’t move to Charlotte. I didn’t go to grad school immediately. I stopped my career. I lied to myself.
Now that I am free. I am trying to move on. Everything single guy I give a chance too has subtle reminders of what you put me through. Joking comment? The criticism that cut to my core. You look good babe? A reminder that I was just a beauty caught in a honey trap before. Loving moment? When’s this all crashing down on me. A tiny disagreement? I disappear.
It happened today with a good guy. He critiqued me because I kept trying to solve his problems. Like I had to solve all ours. I’m quick on my toes you see, but he wanted to figure shit out himself. He snapped some words of anger at me in the most mild sense of the word and I am now hesitantly waiting fo disappear.
I was going to have thanksgiving dinner with him, but your ghosts still haunt me.”
“i’m in my bedroom at 10:37pm and my friends just left and i just gave myself a stick and poke tattoo and all i can think about is how the pain of the needle pricking my skin doesn’t fill me like the pain of you choking back tears, shivering on my bed, as you told me you needed to make the decision so you didn’t self destruct. but i’m so proud of you, and seeing you at that club in town at 2am was so good; your eyes were so twinkly and beautiful, your hair cut a little shorter, shaggier, homemade. and you grabbed my hand and told me immediately that you love me, and i told you i love you, too. and the guy standing behind me would have probably ended up in my bed that night if i hadn’t have seen you from across the room and remembered just how much i don’t want anyone else to touch me except you, how much i miss the way your skin feels when it’s touching mine; your hands, thin and delicate and yet the strongest surface i know, the strongest grip I’ve felt.
fuck, i miss you.
and i know i’m gonna see you and kiss you again because we both want that to happen. i would just love that time to be now, right fucking now, i want it to be right now. the rose coloured glasses provided such a crystalline vision into my future, and now it’s like i’m inhaling molasses without you. but we’ll reunite someday and that someday will be the best day, just not right now.”
the way we met made me sure you were the one for me. i saw you the night before, singing your heart out on the stage, and i thought about how i’d never seen so beautiful in my life. that night i prayed, i told God that i didn’t even know your name but you were already breaking my heart. after a million other heartbreaks, i knew that you were going to be next, and i promised God i wouldn’t get caught up in a fantasy. i never thought we’d ever speak.
i always say that i believe God has a sense of humor, and the next night proved that. we sat together, we walked up the hill together. now i think i’m in love with you. but it was one night, and now we’re in different states and i never even got your number.
God gave me everything, and i was too afraid to keep it. and for that i’m so, so sorry.
“last night, i started to go through my things and i found pieces of you that you left behind. without much hesitation, i tossed them and didn’t look back. and at first, it felt okay. like waking up unburdened by the demand of the day or the time or even just the alarm. but in the back of my mind, i knew it wasn’t the small trinkets you collected and gifted that i needed to face. i knew that if i was truly going to grab hold of proper excavation for the sake of a new year, i needed to open the box.
the one i tucked away at the bottom of my closet the night you left for the last time. the one with two years worth of letters and pictures and old movie stubs and concert bracelets and paper roses. i sat in the middle of my room where my bed used to be when you laid on it and held me on the days it felt either too much or simply not enough. and i read your words. i read your brokenness and your open wounds and your fears. i ingested your passion for me once more, and i wanted to cry.
but the tears that threatened to show face weren’t for you. it wasn’t that i missed you or that i wished you were kissing my hand instead of her lips. no, it was the fear of never waking up next to someone i love ever again. the wonder of whether or not words this heavy will ever be born for my eyes. the question of safety finding a home in my body.
because you woke me up to a whirlwind of unexpectations. you spun me into your perfect cobweb of everything you were afraid to lose. i lost myself in you. did you know that? i forgot everything that made my throat sing and instead, i spent two years in anxiety because no matter how deluded i gave myself permission to be, i was terrified of living a life you didn’t exist in. my worst bout of anxiety ensued from the moment you put your hands on my hips to the day you walked away. because the reality is you liked my body more than my heart for you. after all, we did start with a one night stand. and then one night became three and three became 3am phone calls and 3am became days in your truck. i said to choose me and you said okay.
and i know i told you that i loved you and i swear i meant every second of it. but there’s something you should know: my worst self came alive when you were inside me. i had a mental breakdown that brought my mother to her knees in prayer and her eyes to floods. i left cuts on an arm i swore i’d never hide ever again. i drowned in inebriation just to stop the shakes. i distanced myself from everyone who ever chose me because i wanted to make room for you. but what an incredible facade i kept up with you. i couldn’t bare to tell you how being “us” felt more like standing in the dark and hoping to God someone would light a match.
all because i liked the way you looked at me.
so you see, i’m not tossing this box because it hurts too much. i’m tossing it because i deserve the room your absence has given me. the space to find how completely worthy of peace i am. that i don’t have to rearrange my body just to make someone else fit—-they just will. but only if they’re meant to. only if loving them feels more like freedom than bondage. stillness rather than trembling desperation.
I am thankful that i loved you. just not as deeply as i am loving myself.”
35,000 feet up in the air, and you listed off all of the things you love about her, I wonder if you realize that those are all the things she and I have in common. You carried the ring around all week and I told you not to show me because I wanted her to see it first, but that was a lie, I just didn’t want to give myself hope that it could ever be for me. You didn’t get on your knee that week, or the week after, or the one after that, but when the day came months later, I was able to smile because I know she’s perfect for you, I guess I just wished I could have been too.
If you ever read this, I hope you know that I’m not jealous, angry, or heartbroken, I’m just a little dissapointed that life doesn’t work like it does in the movies.
You’d give me a sense of security, a Christian household with a white picket fence and a dog. We’d read our Bibles and smile thinking about the day we met as teenagers many years ago. We’d reminisce about the time you played my boyfriend in a church play, and how you held my hand and while you’d recite your lines and I stared into your eyes pretending that I was only acting. Laughter would permeate the house as we remembered all of the times I rolled my eyes at you, as you shoved a microphone in my hand and told me to sing, and how I secretly thanked you for constantly pushing me out of my comfort zones.
We’d also probably fight over the fact that you’ve always told me you want to be a dad, but I never want to be a mom. We’d bicker about me not being a very good pastors wife because I enjoy sitting in the back of the church, and that I should probably talk to more people. You’d most likely get tired of my eye rolling, and I’d get tired of your need to constantly have friends around and I’d hide in the room and you’d play your music loud and we’d both roll our eyes.
It all sounds great, but I really do wish you and her well. I hope she gives you lots of babies, I’m happy to one day call you both my pastors even when you both bug me to sit closer to the front of the church. I pray that for every time I roll my eyes, she gives you a hundred smiles more, and that she continues to dance to all of your favorite music with all of your friends.
In another life, I think I’d be her, but I’m finally coming to terms with this life that I have now.”
“Today is his birthday. He turns twenty-seven. We’ve know each other for almost half our lives now. Torn one another apart. Put one another back together.
I helped him pick the ring. I wrote an email about helping him plan the proposal, but I didn’t tell you I helped him pick the ring out too. It’s his birthday, he’s engaged, and I’m still alone.
I wished him happy birthday this morning and he wrote me back, You have such a special place in our hearts, he said. Like I’m dead or something. That makes me sound like I’m dead and I don’t know why other than I feel dead. I don’t even know how to write all this down. He’s gonna marry her, and it’s my fault. I had half my life to tell him how I really felt, and I never found the guts to do it. I wore his flannels and sweaters, read his books, made him tea, laughed with him, cried with him, everything. We’ve done it all together. We’ve sat in trees in the forest of his backyard, canoed down the river, eaten pasta on his rooftop. We’ve driven to his grandpa’s homestead, watched The Office while sitting in the same rocking chair, chased the moon. He put black-eyed susans in my hair. I trimmed his beard. We built a swing together. Fished. Climbed. Learned. Sang. But he never picked me. I never asked him too.
“It’s been eight months. Eight months means I should be entirely over you by now. Eight months means you shouldn’t cross my mind. Eight months means that I shouldn’t catch myself checking if the blue car that pulled onto my street is yours. But I still do. Don’t get me wrong, I’m over you. We weren’t compatible, you didn’t love me right, and I was the worst version of myself when I was around you. But this is the time of year where everyone has someone they’re planning on kissing at midnight on New Years Eve. And this is the time of the year for thinking remisicence and nostalgia. So, though it’s actually been a good year, I’m still busy remembering the way you left me 8 months ago and never looked back. Not once.
And that’s what still gets me after all this time. One day, you’re holding my hand in your car, kissing me at stoplights, and calling me baby, and the next day you’re driving me home and saying, “I don’t feel the same anymore, but we can still be friends.” And then after that, after I spent an evening that should have been fun ugly crying in the passenger seat of your car, wrapping arm around your neck and never wanting to let go as I miserably refused to step out of your car, after that you were absolutely gone.
You should know that I don’t want you back, I just want to know that I ever meant anything to you. Because you should know that walking away like that makes a girl feel disposable and forgettable and I’m praying you don’t make the next one feel like that. I deserved better. But maybe I’ll pass you someday in this too small town and I won’t speak a word of any of this to you. I’ll smile, say hi, and walk away. Because now it’s my turn. Now, I can.
Here I am, eight months later, still thinking of you on occasion, but stronger than I could have ever believed. Happy holiday season— from the parts of me that are forgiving and kind, I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I hope you choose to walk into it better.”
“There’s no way someone is still thinking of that email from two plus years ago, right? I wrote “We Keep Locking Eyes” in September of 2016. Here is the truth about that email. I had a tremendous amount of fun with the boy from that email. He is charming, and no, I still will never forget his laugh. It was also a time period in which I was dealing with an insane amount of anxiety. He and I never talked about anything serious. It was fun for a few months, and then that got to be exhausting because we all know that life can get serious, and part of having companions is being able to confide in them. So here’s what really happened.
I continued to let him be the boy in my bed for a few months, and I continued to go on Tinder dates with other people because I was certain he would never love me. I was also certain I deserved to be treated better. We were at a bar one night, and I started a cake fight. After we were sufficiently drunk and covered in cake, he asked if I was coming home with him. I told him no, and said I wanted something more serious from my relationships. There is a lot I don’t clearly recall from this conversation. I hope that he remembers it but I can’t make any guarantees on either of our parts. I remember he told me I disregard other peoples’ feelings. I remember feeling surprised because as far as I was concerned, he had never tried to talk to me about having any feelings for me. He said he hopes I find what I’m looking for. I went home and cried and was pissed that the entire duration of our relationship felt like a big miscommunication.
In retrospect, here’s what I realized. Not communicating doesn’t equate to a miscommunication. If I wanted something more serious, I should have told him. I didn’t tell him because I didn’t think he was grown up enough to want the same things. If he wanted something more serious or felt slighted that I was blatantly seeing other people, he should have told me. He didn’t, and I don’t know why. Maybe he knew I would have been unapologetic about dating around or maybe he just never wanted anything more serious. I still see him once or twice a year. Last time I saw him, we played drinking games with our friends, and bought each other beers. Then I went home. I’ll always have a big, dumb crush on him, but I need to be with someone who doesn’t run from problems or shy away from uncomfortable conversations. I hear through the grape vine that he’s kind of growing up, but he seems just the same those one or two times a year. I hope he finds someone who can clearly communicate their expectations to him. I won’t go into the details of my life apart from this story, but I am a lot healthier than I was two years ago. I am a lot more assertive about what I want. I’m having completely different battles and trying to tackle them without getting drunk too often or napping in the middle of the day. I’m dating someone, and it seems to be going well.
I don’t think this is the romantic story anyone wanted, but it’s the truth. Maybe it is romantic in that I finally started to prioritize myself. I stopped overanalyzing every dumb text. I’m not sure where my current relationship is headed. If I am single again, I’ll approach it a lot differently than totally romanticizing someone who was just fun and charming. Just fun and charming is just fun and charming. It isn’t enough.”
“You’re about to go on your first date post-us and I know I will tear through her Instagram for pieces of you, and I know I will compare every piece of myself to her and wonder if you walked her to her door and if she tried to kiss you and if you let her.”
“I wish I could be like you. I wish this water bottle was a bottle of Jack like the one you press against your lips to drown me out. I wish it would burn my throat, burning out the memories of you. I wish I could be like you and move on so easily.”
