A Letter To An Aspiring Heartbreaker

To the person I thought you could never be,

I was broken and silent, loving but loveless. I was hanging on by a thread and piece by piece it was dwindling away. I was empty, my heart shattered and my spirit in shambles. I was on the edge of the ledge convinced that I would always be alone. I was half gone, scraping the earth for a piece of myself, scraping the world trying to find peace in myself. Happiness was a foreign concept to me, a distant feeling. I was on my last leg with nothing left to hold me up and falling with no one to catch me. I was everything and nothing at all, all at the same time. I had given up hope that anything could get better, that I would ever deserve better. I was certain that lonely hell was all I’d ever have to live in and there was nothing to hold on to.

And then somehow life found a way to reintroduce me to you.

I felt less broken every time I would hear your voice. Somehow the thread kept strengthening itself and putting back the thread that was weakening. I felt a sense of hope that I hadn’t in a very long time with each smile that crept on your face. The pieces of my heart moved to come back together with every passing freeze frame of each and every precious moment, my spirit followed suit. Each and every day I had you I took a step back from the edge of the ledge and little by little I stopped feeling alone. It seemed I found the pieces of myself with every breath that I breathed into loving you and peace within myself knowing that you loved me back. I didn’t feel the emptiness that had stayed with me for so long, long before you came. For the first time in a very long time happiness was second nature. I stopped feeling distant and disconnected. I fell in love with the world because of the beauty I realized it held just with you being in it. My world seemed complete. I felt I had finally found the one woman in the world who would catch me if ever she saw me falling. I felt like everything in the universe to someone who cared after so much time convincing myself I was anything but. I felt I’d finally found the love I had been so desperately seeking and thought I deserved. I felt like life was possible again and that in all of it I had found someone to share it with and I was so appreciative of that, cause I know that most people try all of their lives and never do.

And so I gave my all without hesitation, without selfishness, without expectation of ever being given the same.

With nothing but tape and glue left I put my ego in check and my pride on hold. I gave my uncertainties away and made them assurances. I put my doubt by the wayside and made complete confidence in it all my new mantra. I put the past where it belonged and I let go of all the things I held on to that I thought would taint my present. I sacrificed the remnants that were left from every heartbreak before you, found a way to become whole, and with everything I gave of everything in me that I could, everything I hadn’t ever been able to trust enough to give someone else before. I allowed myself to be vulnerable. I took a chance and a risk. I decided to love and be in love on purpose. With all my being I promised I’d give anything to make sure forever was set in stone. It didn’t matter to me that it seemed crazy to the people around me. It didn’t matter how unorthodox anyone saw my love as. I lived in the ambiance of it because with all of me I felt no one but you deserved it more. I gave the best of me when that was difficult for me to even see. I gave my heart, my mind, my spirit to dreaming up a reality with you that was possible even though it had always been deemed impossible. I lay myself open to the possibility that this kind of love could break me and being so honest and forthcoming with all that I had to give I trusted that even with the opportunity life would take complete advantage of that notion, no matter what may have come, it was worth it.

And with everything that life and love didn’t take I became determined to keep the commitment of my word, no matter what the cost.

I appreciated when things were good, and I always worked relentlessly to make them so. I hoped it would never get old, that it would never go away. Happiness was simple but I pushed hard to get to joy. I didn’t care what obstacle presented itself. Even without knowing how to overcome, I always found a way in the name of loving and being in love with you. I pushed past my insecurities and all of the things that made any sense if it weren’t for the betterment of how I felt for you and how I believed you felt for me. Tooth and nail, fist to the pavement, legs on fire, brain overworked with exhaustion, time limited, anxiety high, hurts cutting deeper each time I fought on the front lines for a love and life I believed in wholeheartedly. I ignored the negativity and the concerns of others who felt that they knew better than I did. I loved you for you and I loved you unconditionally. I woke up to that feeling every morning, basked in it every day, and thanked God for it every night. I thought more of you and your well-being than I did of myself. I loved you more than I loved myself. I loved you relentlessly. I loved you with purpose. I loved you with hope. I loved you with compassion. I loved you with unimaginable passion and every strength love could ever give me. I gave you my life and let it rest in your loves hands.

All I ever asked of you in return was to hold it with care, to treat it with respect, to appreciate it and love it back even if that love couldn’t be given back exactly the same. All I ever asked of you in return was honesty, integrity, trust, and willingness to forgive the mistakes that were bound to be made because I knew we would be no stranger to mistakes and no stranger to error. Patience for the times when things were hard, when time seemed limited most. Overall I just wanted consideration.

And for so long I sat content with the notion that as long as that love was honest there would be no way you could ever find it in you to hate.

But here I am.

Left alone with nothing and no one to turn to. Questioning all of the things that I was convinced I knew. Finding out I’ve been wrong when I thought I was so right. Heart in hand because you told me you couldn’t keep it. Mind in disarray because I can’t fathom where things found the time to go so left. Soul in tears because it feels like it’s been torn to pieces. Feeling like death and dying because I can’t picture defining a life without you or your love in it. Left wondering why I am so ready to do it all again without fear and understanding that I am the only one when I thought you were with me. Here I am in a state of being absolutely torn because I never thought that this pain would come to greet me, not from you. Feeling like hoping was really dreaming of what you already always knew would never be. Feeling betrayal to the highest levels because I would have never thought that you would be the person who would do this time.

And now my mind is flooded.

I can’t think straight for all of the things that are coming back to hurt and haunt me. All of the broken promises, half-truths. All of the deliberate aches and purposeful pains. All the back of my mind thoughts resurfacing. All of the I told you so’s. All of the advantages taken and sorrows pushed aside. All of the things I gave up in the name of love. All of the denials and things that felt threatening. All of the things I conquered just to keep it all together.

And here I am falling apart.

I have given up my entire life for you hoping one day you’d love me enough to do the same but all you’ve done and have ever planned to do is let me. You knew where this would lead and without warning you allowed me to happily believe it would be the opposite. You knew what you didn’t want but you let me dream about it all without warning me. I thought that I had known hurt until I realized this has been a one way street for quite some time and you didn’t even care enough to tell me. You didn’t have courtesy enough to give me an alternative before I fell way too deep. You didn’t care enough to try and stop me. For all the hurts I’ve known and all of the heartbreaks I’ve experienced because of those things alone this is by far the worst. You let me lose myself in you, letting me falling helplessly into a love that you knew you didn’t have the intention to ever be able to return.

And here I am broken.

Not for anger or regret. Not for resentment or blame but for the sorrow in the reality that even with all that has transpired and all the painful things that have come to attention.

But for the fact that I have had my love thrown back on my face. Thinking I had moved forward and that things were real all around. Now knowing it hasn’t meant much, I was never taken seriously, that I am someone you can so easily walk away from. Understanding my time isn’t something you valued or had compassion enough to care about cause you just let it run and run and run on. I trusted you with the most fragile part of me and with little to no effort you carelessly threw it away. You took everything when I had nothing. You didn’t consider the scars you knew were there. All this time I thought I was something to you, someone to you and now you’ve shown me that I’ve been nothing and no one at all. I was a decent person who never needed the promise of anything to give anything up. I would have done it all even if the circumstances weren’t in my favor. It seems now I know that, that has been the circumstance the entire time. I am just the last to know about it.

And now here I am disappointed, being left and walked away from with less than I came in with, less than nothing., a used up vessel of sadness where I thought happiness had finally fulfilled.

Here I am, asking where are you?