FORGIVING

Dear You,

I’m not really sure what you are to me anymore. All I know is you're not what you used to be to me and that I needed to talk about it. Today I thought of bad things. I thought of how my parents thought I was bipolar when I was little and how maybe they were really right but maybe it’s just you. I thought of the boy I was seeing a little while ago and how I always said I loved him even when I wasn't sure I did. I said it more to convince myself that love what something I was capable of even though I didn't really love him and I’m still not sure if I could have. I thought about how it was only because my friends said it didn't make sense not to love someone you sleep with that much. They said you don't sleep with people you don't love. I wonder if they still think that, and if they still love the people they sleep with or if they're only saying they do to convince themselves of something they know isn't true. I thought of how things ended with him and how I told him I wasn't coming back and all all he said was “Thanks for calling.” and that was it and for the first time he didn't say he loved me before we hung up and how maybe the reason for that is because for the first time we were both being honest. I thought of someone I really did love and how he said he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me but now he's married and six months later on Christmas he came crashing back into my life and how when I was sick and having feverish nightmares and then I dreamt of him and suddenly everything was calm and I woke up and felt nothing but guilt and the kind of sadness that doesn't leave quick. I thought about his wife and how it could've been different and I could be there and she could be here far away on the phone listening to him say he misses her and he keeps looking at her pictures and how he likes them and how their breakup hurt and how he wishes she would have kissed him that day and how hearing her voice for the first time since then makes him nervous but he wasn't sure why, and she would agree even though she did know why. I thought about me as her and if I would know it was happening and how I would feel if I did. And I hurt all over again, and I will always love him, I might just say I don’t. And when thinking about these things wasn't enough anymore I thought about you. I thought about why people do horrible things to the people they say they love. I thought about how sometimes when I start to get close to someone I pull away because for a moment its you and I'm still scared. I thought about how when I was 18 you contacted us for the first time in 12 years and how my sister has always hated you and how she thought nothing of it and how I didn't hate you and how I shut down and cried for hours and my mom held me and she didn't understand it and I couldn't explain it to her or tell her because I didn't understand it either. I’m not mad at you. I don't hate you and I probably never will. I will always remember the other things, the good things, but I will always remember how you left, and the hurt that you left in place of yourself. I will always remember what you did. It will always hurt but I will not be angry or bitter, I will let it hurt and I will grow. I will let these things happen because you are not what you used to be to me, you are not my dad, you are just something that changed me, so instead of hate I will move on and love myself now even after you failed to.

Love Always,

Me