We just become harder to break. We just become stronger.
I think I miss you but I can’t entirely be sure. I can’t be sure if it’s you I miss, or if it’s the idea of being with you that I miss. You can’t blame me either. We had a good run and I know that even you would admit to that. There was a time in our relationship wherein I really thought we had a genuine shot at going all the way. I really thought that we had the potential to be that couple that all other relationships aspire to be. I thought that we had enough love and commitment in one another to be able to take on the challenges and problems that come with romance. There was a time wherein I thought that you and I had something special; and I’m sure that you thought the same as well.
But it gets to a point wherein we just have to start accepting that the past has to remain where it is in the past. I can’t possibly go on living the healthy life that I want for myself if I keep on looking back at what we one were; at what we could have been together had we tried just a little harder. I have to let go of all the what if questions that have continued to plague me ever since we broke up. I have to put my heart at rest because the strain of having to pore ever every single thing that was wrong in our relationship is slowly killing me.
I’m now at a point in my life where I’m slowly starting to detach myself from the grand ideas of fate and destiny. I’m slowly distancing myself from the notion that everything happens for a reason. I’m slowly starting to believe that maybe things just happen, and there’s no point in trying to figure out some higher purpose to these events. It’s all a matter of taking them as they come, learning from them, and then moving on.
Maybe that’s what life is really about. Maybe we shape the moments in our lives; but also, maybe the moments in our lives shape us in return. Maybe we are both to blame for the way our relationship ended. And maybe we will both go about our individual lives as fragments of the people we once were; the people we were when we were together. Because inevitably, we left huge chunks of ourselves in the past; the part of ourselves that were emotionally invested in our love. And because we are forced to abandon those parts of ourselves, we were forced to learn the pain that comes with loss; the heartache that comes with dreams unfulfilled; the disappointment that comes with expectations unmet.
But perhaps, moving forward, these were necessary feelings and emotions that we had to experience for ourselves as we face the rest of our lives no longer together, but as individuals. As we go embark on our separate paths, we have only our memories to take with us and the lessons that come attached with those memories. So I’m not necessarily letting go of these memories. I’m not letting them go because that would mean that I would have to let go of the lessons that accompany them as well. I’m keeping them with me, but I won’t let them bog me down the way that I had allowed them to in the past.
A lot of people tell me that in order for me to move on and get over, I need to let go. I have grown to just develop a profound philosophical disagreement with those people. I don’t need to let you go in order for me to move on and get over you; I just need to learn from everything that you once were to me so that I can become a bigger, better, and stronger emotional creature. I don’t have to lighten the load, I just have to become strong enough to take on the heavier loads as they come into my life.
It’s not about things getting easier. It’s about me getting stronger. That’s what I have most come to learn from you leaving me; from our relationship blowing up into smoke. Heartbreak never gets easier. Disappointment doesn’t become simpler as we get older. We just become harder to break. We just become stronger. We just learn to deal with things better. And that’s what I really have come to learn this year; and I never would have come to these profound realizations had it not been for you. You were the beautiful letdown that I desperately needed to grow. You were the beautiful tragedy that I needed to cry for. You were the unfortunate lesson that I needed to learn. And I thank you for that.
