Grieving is my becoming.
I grieve for who you were and becoming not for who you became. You became a stranger, someone I don’t even recognize as decent. Someone I would have never fallen in love with. But it isn’t up to me to change that. I spent most of our relationship trying to reassure you that I loved you because you needed to hear it. It exhausted me. It drained me. I did love you. I shouldn’t have to tell you that. I should’ve walked away a long time ago, I know that, but you saw your potential and I did too, and you kept telling me you’d grow and you loved me, and at the time that was enough for me. But then came the blame game and the shame of who I was, and that took me my storm. You began questioning me, and in turn, I began questioning myself and everything around me, and you couldn’t see how your actions and behavior were taking a toll on my mental health. You did nothing to overturn it. I tried leaving a couple of times because I knew my worth, but because I committed to you, I stayed and tried because deep down I did still see what I had fallen in love with.
But in the end, it wasn’t me who broke the commitment, it was you. It was the very fact that you just couldn’t handle this relationship and the emotions and responsibility that came with it, and so you turned to your avoidant side and shut off your empathy towards me and everything to do with me, and called it “healing.” You turned to someone else to try and make you feel better, feel like you were worthy, who gave you what you were searching for within yourself, and tried to justify it. You became a boy, not a human with decency or dignity.
Yes, I can say all this, but I also know we were narcissists towards each other. We were unhealthy for each other. We caused each other unnecessary pain and trauma by our lack of communication, inability to understand each other’s wants and dreams, inability to understand what truly makes us who we are, and pushed each other past the point of no return by criticizing each other’s insecurities. What happens when you pair two heavily anxious people together and put them in a relationship? You get a heavily toxic one.
It started as beautiful and romantic, a full moon, a pier walk, and endless talks about music and our desires. But, no less than two weeks later, the pain started. I broke when you broke up with me for the first time. I walked away crying that day because I felt something cosmic with you, and I felt seen and understood by someone for the first time in my life. So I fought for something I knew deep down could never work. We were from opposite sides of the tracks. Me from a privileged family who love me so, so much and who was given everything in life. You, from a life of survival which I would never know or understand, but would wish I had been. I saw it in you daily, that survival mode. You looked at life as how you needed to survive. I looked at it through the lens of how many opportunities there are. That was the biggest difference. I’ve always seen myself as having had to face a lot of darkness in my life. But your darkness was different.
I know I’ll be freer without this relationship. I’ll be free to make my own decisions. I’ll be able to focus on my path without question. I’ll be able to love my dog exactly for who she is. I won’t have to take criticism of all my faults and flaws anymore. I can embrace them because I know I am not perfect. I wouldn’t want to be anyway. I get to become the strong ass woman who I envisioned myself becoming. I was already strong when I met you. Now, since knowing you, I am even stronger. Every chip and every bruise left a mark of resilience on my body. You’ve become a scar, but not a tattoo. There’s a difference. You have become a memory of what it takes for someone to bloom out of toxicity and darkness. But I got that tattoo, not you. The only regret I have with that is that I didn’t put a daisy instead of a rose, but I didn’t get it because of you.
With you, I felt loved. I truly did. You showed me that I was capable of being loved, that someone could love me. You believed in me. Early on, you believed that anything was possible. We could accomplish so much together. We did what every couple does. We had dreams, we made plans, some of which we carried out. We had date nights, cuddle sessions, and trips out of state. We cooked meals together, celebrated holidays together, and celebrated our birthdays. We shared animals. You became my dog’s “papa,” and I am so grateful that she had that with you. Funnily enough, you taught me that what you want, you have to struggle and fight for, and it’s all about survival in the end, even though you couldn’t fight for us because we couldn’t keep surviving just to make each other unhappy.
If I knew it was going to end, which in hindsight I probably did, I probably still would have done it all over again. I don’t regret this relationship. It showed me the very raw pieces of human existence. It showed me my shadow self and what I need to work on. It allowed me to love my first person. It took me through darkness and showed me that I’m not alone in my pain, but that there are people there with me, even if we don’t talk about it. It allowed me to become more in tune with myself so that I can become the best authentic version of myself to exist.
I will always support you and who you became throughout our relationship. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for you. I will always cherish the time we had together. I will always believe in you. This does not make me weak. It makes me beautiful. I am grieving for the life we once dreamed of, even though it was never going to work out. I grieve for the past, I grieve for the simplicity that was us in the beginning, when no one knew. But time has gone on, and I’ve accepted where we are at, who we’ve become.
My grief is my becoming. I will become who I am truly meant to be by allowing myself to grieve, as I couldn’t always. I am becoming the best version of myself for allowing myself to love you wholeheartedly, even though I know in my heart we were bad for each other. I am allowing myself to bloom through all of this pain and let the fire burn inside. And thus, through all of this, I remain open-hearted and a true romantic. My grief is not a weakness, it is my becoming.
