Letter to an Ex

Dear Ex-Boyfriend,

It hurts.  It hurts that I love you so much and we can’t be together.  I can’t imagine not having you in my life.  I’ve tried doing that ‘we’re together or we’re nothing’ concept, but it never really seems to work out for us.  There is always something that draws us back together.  Which would inevitable lead to another fight, another break-up and then another make-up.  After our final break-up, I wrote a line in my diary.  " Our love kills us. Its like a drug we are both addicted to."  That seemed to stay true even after we stopped the dating cycle.  We just replaced the dating with being friends.  The fighting and making up still continued.  We’ve managed to end that cycle.  For over a year, we’ve been fight-free.  Yet like true addicts, we take one day at time.

I’m glad we’ve managed to keep the cycle at bay.  I have no desire to restart any of it.  But I ache on the inside.  As much as I miss you, I think its better that I’m moving further away.  It would be too painful to live so close to you, so close to all our memories, our spots.  Its still painful, tear inducing to listen to our songs. There are too many nights when the only thing I want is you near me.  When my grandfathers died, all I wanted was you there.  No one else.

I know we will never be together again.  We can’t and my head knows this.  It has been five years since I got that email.  The final email of our official romantic relationship.  After five years, shouldn’t my heart have caught up with my head?  It’s long since accepted its other losses.  But it refuses to let go of you.

I want you to be happy.  I want you to find a girl who makes you happy, who you can make happy.  I know you never felt like you made me happy.  I want you to have the dream we have in common.  A house, a home, a family.  Yet, there is a tiny part of me that is dreading that day.  I know when it comes I’ll lose you.  Even in the tiniest portion, I’ll lose you.  You can’t have a healthy and happy relationship with someone while you and I are us.  And I will step back.  I do want you to be happy.

I wish I could change the things about you and me that are keeping us from having what I so desperately want.  Yet I know that those changes need to happen within ourselves, apart from each other if we were to ever make it.  I know that we have both moved forward.  I know that I haven’t moved on, only forward.

This is why it hurts so much to love you.  Because I do love you.  I’m sorry it took so long for me to be able to say that.  I know how long you waited for me to be able to say those words.  To understand the difference between being in love and to just love.  To love you so much that I hate you for it.  Then hate myself for hating you, because I don’t really hate you.

We can’t be together.  We won’t be together.  Maybe I’m wanting what I don’t have.  But I love you so much, I’m not going to send this letter.  I know how much it would hurt you.  The last thing I want to do is purposely hurt you.  So here it shall sit.  For all to see. 

Except you.