An Open Letter to My First Love

First off I would like to say that this letter has been on my mind for a long time. I’ve been going over different ways to write it for a while, and I could never come up with anything good enough to explain what happened with us. We had a lot of laughs and many more tears. You meant everything to me. You were my rock, and you gave me many life lessons that I still use every day. Such as how to focus on the small things, and love the big things. How to fight for what I believe in, and stand up for others who are hurting, even if it hurts me too because being the bigger person is what you taught me to believe in.

I would like to thank you for teaching me my self-worth. If it weren’t for you I would never have found the confidence that I needed to continue to get up every morning. I wouldn’t look in the mirror and not be disgusted with what I looked like. No, I’m not saying that I relied on you for that confidence, but having someone tell me that I was beautiful enough times to make me believe it, especially when I wasn’t hearing it from other people, made a big difference.

I would also like to thank you for letting me go; for realizing that we were bad for each other. I fought for our relationship one-sidedly for far too long before I finally gave up. I took a step back and realized that being with you, though it was what I wanted, was not helping me grow as a person. And growing is what I needed to be doing. What you needed to be doing as well.

In our year and a half together you taught me many things that I didn’t necessarily want to learn on my own too. You taught me how much I could be pushed before I broke down. You taught me how to not let myself get treated. You taught me that the pedestal that you put me on was very fragile and it didn’t take me that long to fall over. You showed me that loving myself had to come first because most of the time it was not reciprocated and if I wanted to feel loved I had to do it for myself. You taught me that I was too immature to do anything for myself, and you made me grow up- that was the hardest lesson; and I wasn’t ready to learn it. I clung to my child-like behavior for as long as I could because it was taken away from me at an early age, and I was forced to grow up when my family exploded. Then to have you tell me that I was immature for you, that made me feel something else entirely.

The feeling that came over me when I finally broke down and said that I’m tired of being the only one fighting for our relationship, was utterly destroying to my self-esteem. Everything that you had built inside of me that let me think I was beautiful every day got shattered. I no longer believed it- I still don’t most days. Hearing it from other people reminds me of you and I hate that. A lot of things remind me of you, so I stay away from them. Like the cigarettes that you used to smoke, and the way your car felt in the summer. The feeling you left when you would reach over and grab my hand while we were on one of