Shelby,
I just took 3 years worth of movie tickets, pictures, and love notes off my bullitin board. Bitter sweet goodbyes are the worst kind. I'm happy for the first time in a very, very long time. But part of you will forever be part of who I am. Too many memories and I remember everything. I can't just shut my heart like a door. Another chapter in my memory box.
I'd like to thank you. I'd like to punch you right in the kisser as well.
You and I discovered all the terrible things about love and every beauiful thing at such a young age. I'm 20 now. I can't believe how I've gone from being 16 and so broken to older and more broken to...this. I've always cared. I probably always will care. But I'm Irish. We'll ignore anything until the tea pot runs dry or we lose a limb.
I don't think you realize that I've already mourned us the way you are now. Except when I mourned, I layed in bed next to you at night and cried while you slept soundly. I sought out lovers while trying to ignore my breaking heart. When something hurts, I like to distract myself with something that hurts worse. Distract myself from the emptiness you created inside our home and replace it with self disgust. I never said I was perfect. There are things I will never tell you, or anybody. There are many things I am not proud of. I feel responsible for your misery. Believe me, I do. My guilt eats at my heart sometimes, but I know the truth. You can't love somebody without loving yourself first and we went about it all wrong. In you, I thought I had all I would ever need. Until I found myself without you but still living that lie. Unhappiness cannot be measured by the number of times I layed awake at night crying next to you, begging you to hold me, love me, say anything. And thats when you were awake.
I loved you. I loved you more than I loved myself. But in losing you and loving you all at once, I found that I could love myself. When trying to be together made me crazy and exhausted, I held on. I thought that if I loved enough, loved more, stronger, harder, things would be okay. I live with the scars I choose and for now, thats what you'll be. I can't look back happily yet. It hurts too much.
She makes me happy. Happy like...the snow used to make me happy. Happy like...like I haven't ever been. She sees the broken parts in me and can show me the mirrored cracks in her own self. I don't need her to save me. I think I saved myself in leaving you. Her and I didn't happen behind your back. It happened by accident...Michelle says by fate. I found what I wasn't looking for.
I don't know how you can claim to love me still, this much, when you were unhappy too those last weeks. How did you treat me the way you did if you loved me? Because I can't even be mean to you. I hope you find what you're looking for. Some how, I don't think you'll find it in a woman. Find it in yourself. Be happy. Then love. That love will be worth keeping and saving and cherishing. I promise.
By the way. I read every word on here. And then I text your dad when it says you want to hurt yourself. I care. Don't doubt it. But I can't be your everything. I'd like to be your past. That one I can live with.
Always,
Amy