Reflecting back on a four year relationship is emotional.  Times were good, times were bad, times were happy and times were sad.  Learning to love another person while not fully loving yourself is difficult and usually leads to failure in some capacity.

As time passed on we grew apart, we forgot how to love each other, we didn’t put ourselves first believing that we could bring the other happiness.  This is where things went wrong, putting another before yourself.  In a relationship you must remain equal and to remain equal you must continue to love yourself.  When you can’t let your own love in, you can’t accept love from another.

This is the beginning of the healing process for me.  I’ve had very little time to process this and have yet to see my old partner in person.  Tomorrow we will meet again and things will be different.  We will be the same people,  but have separate goals and dreams, we will not look at each other the way we used to, we will not hold hands or say I love you, we will be strangers living in the same world.

I can say that I could have tried harder, but I did try.  I tried in a way I thought would work, not in a way that was beneficial to my partner.  This is the first lesson, learn to listen.  Learn to accept that things do not always work the way you think they will.  Learn to respect what others are trying to tell you.  Learn to make adjustments and sacrifices for those you care about without sacrificing what you need.  Allow yourself growth, even if it’s in a way that is unfamiliar to you.  Open not only your heart but your mind to growth, although it may be scary it may be the best thing for you.

There will be many lessons to come from this experience and I am going to do my best to be open to them.  I hope to take what I’ve learned and find peace with myself.  Peace that I did what I could with what I had at the time and in knowing that was the best I could do in the moment.