Heartbreak in relationships is a familiar theme.

Few of us have escaped with our heart unscathed by our romantic entanglements. In the wake of heart break, we may find ourselves feeling angry, desperately sad, confused or filled with regret.

I wrote this letter after a relationship ended abruptly.

Instead of looking for closure with someone who could not bring himself to say goodbye, I decided to create my own closure with this letter.

Oftentimes in life, we are denied answers to our questions, but we can choose to move on.

It can be helpful to write about our feelings or find another way to let go without expecting someone else to provide that closure for us. In processing our feelings about the situation and finding peace with it, we can learn to forgive and let go.

This letter is about me, moving on.

I hope that this can serve as an example of a way to grieve and then let go. While this letter won’t be sent, it is important to put my feelings into words.

Dear One,

It was my focus on you that made us special.

It was no accident that we were together. Of all the available choices, I chose you. I hope you felt honored to be the one I chose to spend my time getting to know. In the little time I had leftover from my responsibilities, I gifted my time to you. I held gently your every story, feeling blessed that you allowed me to see each small piece of you.

Did you know that the time I spent with you was a privilege, granted to few?

When I opened up and showed you my beating heart and all of its scars, did you realize that you were seeing something precious, something I usually hide away? How beautiful to be the one I whispered my fears and dreams.

When you called to make excuses not to see me, my heart sank. I was disappointed, and you said you didn’t mean to hurt me. I know that you were under stress, and I never wanted to be another source of pressure for you. Sometimes I wonder when you decided to stop responding to my messages. When you screened my calls, did you pause for a moment and think of me? Were you able to sleep without thoughts of me creeping in?

I wasn’t.

I have lived with disappointment. I have curled up at night with loneliness and woken up to diminished hope. I once lived years within the darkness of my own thoughts. I’ll never choose to live that way again.

Tonight, I will lay down to sleep and I will think of you. I’ll wrap myself in the memories because they’re all I have right now, and when I wake up restless in the night, I’ll think of you before I think of anything else. In the morning, your name will be on my tongue but I won’t say it.

I have mourned you enough now. It’s time to let you go. I’ll go to work and write my grocery list and do all the things that make up my life without your shadow weighing me down. I know now that I belong with someone who realizes that time with me is sacred. 

I will miss you, but I choose to move on. I treasured out time together and now it’s done. I’ve held on a long time. I have tried to rewrite our story, but the ending is fixed.

When I told you that I was intense and complicated, did you think I was exaggerating? Or did you think that you could handle anything, until you realized you couldn’t? I don’t blame you for leaving, if that’s what’s best for you, but I wish you’d had the courage to say goodbye.

I’m not angry, but I will leave you here. 

When I think of you, I will remind myself that you were never for me. We only encountered one another on our journey toward someone else.  

Eventually, when I think of you, I won’t feel the pain of our separation and will only remember the beauty of the moments we shared. I will think of you less and less, but I will always wish you well. I hope that you find one who can be dearest to you. I know that one day I will love someone with my whole heart again, the way that I love you.

I take courage in that and I choose to leave you now, only with gratitude that I knew you. 

~

Author: Crystal Jackson

Editor: Ashleigh Hitchcock; Travis May

Photo: flickr/Delphine Devos