Open Letter to the Ex.

I’m warning you guys now, this one is LONG. This letter marks one of the last times I plan on addressing this person and this relationship, and I decided to do it publicly so that I would have a way of holding myself accountable for seeking and obtaining the closure that I desire here. And I pray that the X comes across this post, or that someone directs you to it, so that you can finally grasp a clearer understanding of where I am mentally and emotionally right now.

Dear X:

Last night was a frightening experience for all involved... and I must say that your actions, while intended to get people’s attention, were quite dangerous, selfish, and damaging to the ultimate goal that you were HOPING to achieve a s it relates to me/us. I’ve told you a number of times in the past few weeks that I would be lying if I said to you that I don’t still have feelings for you. I do. But what I haven’t been able to tell you is exactly why I can’t fully wrap myself around the idea of us ever really trying to make “us” work again.

It angers me sometimes when I look back at our 10 months together. I don’t believe in playing the blame game, because ultimately everything that we go through in our lives stems from a cause and effect pattern, in which WE OURSELVES hold the highest stake of influence. With that said, I look at a lot of the things that I gave up and sacrificed, a lot of the tradeoffs made on behalf of this relationship, and it angers me that I enabled myself to make these decisions for something that slipped through my fingers. I allowed my grades to suffer for one of the first times ever, having fallen under the spell of love. Had never failed a class in my entire life, but I don’t blame you for that.... I blame myself. I gave up one of my dreams of being a House Arrest 2 member for our relationship, because of the effect that I saw the process was taking on our relationship. Again, I don’t blame you for that..... I blame myself. I alienated family, friends, and working relationships.... I drew myself away from my own religious affiliations.... I compromised a lot of the virtues and values that I’ve held strongly to, and found myself in a few situations that I vowed I would NEVER allow to happen to me..... none of these things I blame on you. But they’re all a part of the learning process associated with our relationship.

Another thing that bothers me about our relationship is that I feel there were a lot of obvious signs that I missed, things that I should have definitely paid attention to, warnings that I should have heeded. You constantly telling me that you don’t really know what it is that you want right now, you not really knowing where you see “us” being in the future, the day to day contradictions see-sawing between your deep and never-before-experienced love for me and your confused state of indifference, the drunken revelation that “I’m not what you want at this point in your life, but I’m what you need” ......all these things painted a picture of type of person you really are. Only when I stepped back from the damaging last few weeks of our relationship was I able to watch it all come into focus. The person that you truly are is being revealed to me more and more, with each passing conversation we have. I’ve grown increasingly unimpressed, and turned-off even, by your glaring materialism and superficiality. I’ve become frustrated by the immense gap between our levels of intellect.... one can only speak on Beyonce, fashion, and music for so long. I’m saddened by the amount of stock you place in what others say, think, and do. I’m uninterested in the social lifestyle that you choose to lead and the company you prefer to keep, simply because I feel that I’m in a place right now where I’m rising above such riff-raff and triviality. I seek something much more substantive and intellectually alluring.

When I hear you say that you’re still in love with me and you still want to be with me, at this point, it makes me feel physically uneasy. You kinda hit the nail on the head during one of the last conversations we had when you said that one of the main things you took from our relationship was me always saying: “When you really love someone and when you’re really determined to make things work, the idea of walking away or giving up doesn’t even exist to you.” After everything that we went through, after ALL of the things that I dealt with, put up with, turned my cheek to, looked past, made excuses for.... I never left you. I never turned my back on you. I was always willing to work through everything, no matter how big or small, and no matter how stupid I felt about allowing myself to put up with it.... because I loved you, and I was willing to put in the work and do whatever it took to make us work. But YOU were still the one, EVEN while being in the wrong, who gave up on us. To give up so much of yourself to something / someone, to allow yourself to endure soooooo much, only to turn around and see that all the fighting and struggling meant nothing... it’s a pretty painful and discouraging treatment to have to handle. And I had to work through that. I had to pull myself through the pain of yet another failed relationship, constantly questioning myself, wondering what it is about me that continues to attract hopeless guys, wondering what it is about me that compels dudes to step out on me. And much to my surprise, I made it over that hump. It took you a little longer to come to terms with the reality of the breakup, but now here you are where I was 3 months ago. And while I can relate to what you’re feeling, I don’t have sympathy for you because YOU GAVE UP ON US. That’s one of the most dangerous things you can do to me in a relationship, right up there with lying, not communicating, and cheating. And I think we were 3 for 3 when it came to those, too. I guess at this point, I’m pretty much grossly disenchanted by the fact that YOU threw in the towel. I’m well along the way to being over us. I still have feelings for you, and probably will for a long time, but I can confidently say that I’m not in love with you anymore.

I know I wasn’t the perfect boyfriend. But I know I was one of the best things that ever happened to you. You’ve let me know this time and time again, before and after the breakup. And I’m so glad to have been able to make such an impact, to show you what you deserve to have and what could be, so you know now what you should and shouldn’t be looking for, what you should and shouldn’t entertain. I wish you the absolute best in your future, you are a dreamer and a visionary and I know that you’ll continue to follow your passions in life. I truly hope that you can gather the pieces and pull it together mentally and emotionally to make it through whatever it is that you’re going through right now, so you can begin your journey down the road toward moving on and getting over. I thank you for the time spent together, and I thank you for all of the lessons and experiences, both good and bad, because they have helped and will continue to help shape and mold the person I strive to become.

Sincerely,

Me.