My Ex
Tags: Love, Heartbreak

Everyone experiences love at some point in their life. Whether that be with a man or woman. Love effects all people differently. I met the love of my life in 8th grade. We started off as acquaintances and quickly escalated into something more. We had an adolescent relationship in 9th grade, but then broke up. I stayed infatuated with him for a long time. We would “hook up” on and off throughout high-school. It was an unhealthy relationship, but it made me happy. I’ve had a lot of hardships in my life, and throughout all of hardships he was a constant person I could lean on.

Freshman year of college we started dating again. This time it was more serious. We were adults. I fell madly in love with him. I realized that before it was just infatuation, not love, but through our relationship my feelings drastically changed. I was head-over-heels in love with him. We imagined our future together and spent every minute we could together. I told him everything, there were no filters between us. But like every relationship, we had problems. I didn’t realize they were that extreme until it was too late.

We dated for about 7 months before he ended things with me. I saw it coming for about a week. He was distant, wasn’t quick to respond to texts, and just wasn’t putting in effort. Then he told me he couldn’t do it anymore. No specific reason, he said, “he had too much going on.”

I’ll never forget that day. The day he ended things, the day he left me. I went to sleep in tears and cried into my pillow. I blamed myself for him leaving. I kept thinking, “if only I said this” or “if only I did this.” Every day after I would glance at my phone waiting for a text from him, telling me that he still loved me, but deep down I knew that we were over. For the first few months I couldn’t get him out of my mind for a second. He was all I could think about. Everything reminded me of him. Anytime anything in my life changed, no matter how small, I wanted to run and tell him, but I couldn’t. I lost the person I told my secrets to, I lost the one person who would listen to me when no one else would. As each day goes by, I don’t think of him as much anymore. I slowly am forgetting the things he would say or do.

He was the first person I loved, like truly loved. I woke up thinking of him, and fell asleep thinking about him, and I thought about him the whole day. Our relationship might be dead, but I still get those stupid butterflies when I think I might see him. His eyes still haunt me like a song stuck in my head. No matter how hard I try I can’t completely get rid of these feelings for him. I see ghosts of him in the faces of people I pass by. Maybe one day I’ll let the memories of him die and I’ll undo the knot that has us tied to each-other.

He’s with someone else now. I want him to be happy, even though I feel like I’m dying. Because when you truly love someone you want them to be happy. You don’t want them suffering. I’ve realized that he was the love of my life. I was not his. I wish I was. But he loves her. I don’t think I will ever love someone the way I loved him. I will never be in an all-consuming relationship ever again. I hope he feels for her the way I feel for him.

I hope he’s happy, even if his happiness ends up killing me.