Open Letter to My Ex Who Is Not My Ex

Hello J,

Congratulations.

You have a hold on me no one before you (or after you) will ever be able to achieve.

You know that feeling? When you jump into a pool at the deep end? When you friends convince you to do it with them, promising they won't let go of your hand? But then, during those brief seconds as you're in the water, they let go and all of a sudden, you feel like you're drowning... But it's not a bad feeling. You're not dying, but you don't feel alive either. It's completely silent. Deafening. This is the calm before the storm. Then you float up and your head emerges from the water, and you gasp for air, while struggling to keep your head above water and kicking furiously so you don't drown. That's how it felt to love you. For that one moment, I forgot how temporary everyone is in your life, despite childish promises and fake compliments. I forgot that at any second, everything you've ever built can be destroyed.

Congratulations.

I guess that's what you wanted.

You know, I envy you. I envy the way you can swagger into people's lives, then disappear in a second. I envy the way you don't care for anyone, not even someone you claimed to love. To leave someone high and dry without a word, drop someone and leave ensuring they could never contact you again. I wish I had your guts. I wish I could not value my relationships with people the way you don't. But I'm stuck being the exact opposite. Always being the one who gets the short end of the stick.

One year and five months later and you are still the last thing I think of before I sleep and the first when I wake up.

I spent days after you left clutching my phone and convincing myself everyone else was wrong about you. I spent three days reblogging sad poems about break ups even though we were never together. I drowned my thoughts with music; because what better way to heal than to bathe your broken heart in sad songs?

I spent a lot of my time invisioning you strolling back into my life and explaining that it was all a mistake. I would forgive you and everything would go back to the way it was.

But this is false.

This is not you.

This is a glorified version of you that I have envisioned in my mind, with characteristics you will never possess. This is the version of you I'm in love with.

The real you would never admit to being wrong. The real you would never have left in the first place. You would never have led me on for a year, or made me think I had a chance. I ignored the way you spoke to other women even though I knew it was with the same charm and flirt that you used with me. Most of all, the real you, left me. The real you confessed to loving me and then vanished the next day.

I made so many excuses for you but today that stops.

On this day, I have found out that you are engaged and preparing for marriage.

On this day, I let go of everything I felt and feel for you. I will stop looking for you in other men and begin to look for better.

I often wonder who people think of when they pour their hearts out through poems, songs, stories and letters.

Congratulations, asshole. This one is yours.