We End Up Together

This morning I had a little chat with my ex.  i’ve had a lot of time to think about this, so i thought it was a good time to tell him exactly what i know to be the truth.  in a very calm and reasonable voice, without getting upset (which is something that has taken me awhile to get to), i told him exactly what i thought about him.  

i told him that over the past month i have realized that he had never really loved me and that the only reason he wanted to be with me was so that he wouldn’t be alone.  i realized that for four years as he told me “i love you” every day, it was not so much of a caring gesture as it was him trying to convince himself to love me, because he didn’t think anyone else would love him.  i told him he had been doing this to girls his whole life.  his ex before me, who was my friend, and who he treated exactly the same as he treated me.  and i am sure the ex’s before that, though i did not know them so i can’t say.  i am willing to bet that with each one of us, he treated us exactly the same, and he never loved any of us.  because it is impossible to love someone, if you don’t even know who you are as a person.  

it is impossible to love someone when you can’t even make simple goals for yourself like graduating high school, getting a job that means something to you, planning for the future, wanting to have a family someday.  when you don’t want those things and don’t even want to think about them, it is impossible to love someone, because you don’t even know who YOU are as a person.  you can’t say that you know you want to be with a person forever when you don’t even know what forever means to you.  i have always known what i’ve wanted to do and what i have wanted to accomplish with my life. i have always been focused and determined, and what has kept me going through 22 years of depression, is knowing that i have a goal in mind.  knowing that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

people often use the cliche “no one will love you until you can love yourself.” my brother has told me this countless times, and i believed it for much of my life. i’ve dated a lot of jerks, a lot of people who i knew in my heart were no good for me, but i didn’t think i deserved better than how they treated me.  i have struggled with the concept of “loving myself” for my whole life.  and i have come to the conclusion that i think everyone falls victim to self-loathing and self-consciousness.  we all have things about ourselves that we wish we could change.  but i think loving yourself is knowing what you need in life to survive, and not ignoring it.  

for me, it was pursuing my education, and working towards my goal of becoming a counselor. and it was being with a man i loved for four years, because i thought it would lead to the future i wanted—2 kids, a house with a yard, a 401k, happily ever after shit.  when he left me, i thought that this meant i could no longer have my future. here i have invested four years of my life with this man, because i thought he was the answer to getting me towards my goals.  i thought we would share our lives together, and when he ended things, i thought that was the end of me.  but it wasn’t, and it’s not. 

it’s not the end for me, because i realized that no one can take away my dreams.  sure, we will never be married now. we will never have kids, the house with a yard, the 401k, happily ever after.  but just because it couldn’t happen with him, doesn’t mean it can’t happen with someone else.  i thought that if i couldn’t be with him that i couldn’t be.  but i just have to keep working towards my goals.  i just have to keep remembering that there IS a light at the end of the tunnel.  i have to keep reminding myself every single day that there will always be people out there trying to get in the way of my dreams, but it is my duty to work around them.

that’s not to say that i won’t still have my bad days.  that’s not to say that there won’t be days when i cry myself to sleep thinking of the life we could have had.  that’s not to say that it isn’t going to hurt me when i see him with other women.  that’s not to say that i wont still wish i was dead whenever i think about the four years i spent loving someone who never loved me back.

but i love myself enough now to remember what i want in life, and to know that all the things i’ve dreamed of can still happen, even without him.  when someone you love very much tells you they don’t want to be with you anymore, it is earth shattering.  but there is nothing you can do to keep the world from spinning.  the world will keep moving with or without you.  no one else can tell you what to do with your life.  no one else can decide what your goals should be.  it is something that you need to figure out on your own.  

it’s something you should figure out before you enter a serious relationship with someone again.

it’s been such a hard season and the bridges we burned might be all we had to keep us from drowning. but at least we had this time; and i’d like to think we’re better off for it. i’ll remember this. sometimes broken things make the best building supplies. and we’ll keep on building. hearts aren’t made of glass, they’re made of muscle and blood and something else. and they don’t so much as break as bend and tear. we have what it takes to keep it together; and move on.

any relationship that matters - a friendship, a family, a romance, a band - anything - is a perilous and fragile thing because along with all the amazing experiences and creations that can come from something so intimate and exhausting comes the possibility for things to crumble and shatter or whither and die. when that happens, it’s easy to forget what was precious amidst all the disaster. we should always carry our history with us but never let it bury us.

in the night it gets darker
than i ever thought it could
because you left me all alone
and i never thought you would

out of all the people in the world
i picked you out of the stack
i guess it was just foolishness
to think you loved me back

and somedays i wake up
and wonder why i am even here
when you feel nothing for me
after so many years

and somedays i wake up
and can’t get out of bed
thinking of all the forever plans
you put into my head

one day i won’t wake up
and i’ll be much happier dead
the only thing that is forever
is nothing that you said

the only thing i think about
is the pain that i feel now
i can’t apologize for who i am
i wouldn’t even know how

go on with your alligator tears
and play the victim of this game
you’ll find some other woman
and treat her exactly the same

you’ll never be happy
because you push real love away
we could have been happy
but you didn’t want to stay

one day you’ll wake up
and want to take it all back
but right now, regret
is something that you lack

i promise you this
you’ll never find a love like me
who will put up with your games
and still love you unconditionally

i promise you that
i am giving up on you now
i really am trying my best
i just don’t know how.