Author: Caitlin Perrone

You sat on my couch, as you had a thousand times before, and did not look me in the eyes once to tell me that you were ending our relationship. My heart broke in the most fantastic, earth-shattering way. My ears rang and the world fell silent. It was as if your words could deliver the same pain a punch to the gut would inflict.

I pleaded and cried and hugged you and pushed you, allowing you to see my broken heart, screaming out loud and crumbling under the weight of your gaze. Looking into your eyes, I tried to recognize the person standing in front of me. I didn’t. 

I didn’t know that person. Your eyes were frantic but not remorseful; sad, but not regretfully so. It was over and I could not process this truth: How could this person leave me? How could this person, whom I had loved and had loved me, pack his things in a bag and walk away from me?

I woke up the next day void of the sadness and brokenness that I thought I would feel. There were no tears. There were no pints of ice cream or empty bottles of wine that I had drowned myself in. I was not hit with pangs of anxiety or knots in my stomach. 

Where was the broken girl from just the night before, tossing her dignity into the wind as she banged an angry fist against the wall? Where was the girl who was brazenly pleading with a boy who was looking at her with dead eyes saying he didn’t love her anymore?

Our relationship was built on a series of compromises. I agreed to spend months in an almost-relationship that quietly dismantled my self-esteem and ignited insecurity and saw it as some kind of victory when we began dating seriously. 

I recognized your addictions and confronted you about them, to be received only by accusations, blame, and anger. 

I swallowed my uneasiness, instead choosing to believe that you knew what you were doing, and somehow trusting that your approach to sobriety was unorthodox but effective. I asked you to seek help for the demons that kept you awake at night and was ignored. I allowed you to cancel plans with me at the last minute and ruin events that I was looking forward to spending with you. 

I wrestled with empathy, understanding, conflict resolution, all while trying to convince myself that I loved you so much that I did not mind the back-bending I was doing for us.

I did mind, though- and I was the last one to know it. Since our first date, my self-esteem crumbled as I chiseled away pieces of myself in a frenzied need to be some kind of puzzle piece that would fit into your life. I was anxious about everything because nothing felt safe. 

I had compromised so much of myself for you and had nothing to show for it, no promises of a future, no promises for even the next weekend. I loved you recklessly and without abandonment, never realizing that you were incapable of loving me in the way I wanted you to. The hatred and resentment you have in your heart could never make room for me long enough that I could make a home there.

I woke up the next morning and did not weep in your absence. Instead, I heaved a long, surprising sigh of relief. 

The amount of anxiety I had built up trying and failing to somehow make you happy, was finally gone. I felt clean, light, and free. I cannot make someone happy if they do not feel happy within their own heart. I could not make you love yourself by pouring my love into you. I loved you hard and I loved you well, but if you cannot receive it then I refuse to give it.

I imagine there will be some days when I will feel traces of pain and grief from the death of our relationship. I will mourn the loss of the future with you I had once thought I wanted. There will be the sadness that is expected as with any loss and I will embrace it. I imagine there will be days when I feel the love I had for you make my heart swell in succession with its beating and I will miss you in every way there is to miss another. 

But I will no longer allow myself to be the martyr and sacrifice who I am. The greatest gift you ever gave me was walking away so that I could once again, look in the mirror and recognize, love, and admire the person staring back at me. 

“I want to take a break”

Possibly the most inexplicably hurtful words you can hear from the mouth of the person who once used that mouth to express their love for you. It is hurtful in ambiguity and vagueness. 

This man, who shares your love of politics and scary movies, has had a change of heart and needs time to think about what he wants and if you somehow can fit into that picture. It feels senseless and infuriating, frustrating at best. 

I told him I wasn’t good at breaks. Taking a break- the very thought of it- drives my anxiety through the roof. A break is a temporary break up, eventually leading up to the ultimate demise of your relationships. “No, I just need space, I need to think. Please.” I said yes and days later I tried to work things through with him. 

“I understand how you feel, can we please work through this?” He, again, would ask for space. Days later, we are in a stalemate in the parking lot of a Starbucks, me fighting for some communication, some clarity, some reassurance that we would be okay, and him still asking for space. 

I will not apologize for the honesty that brought us to this point. I will not apologize for calling the next day to apologize for drunkenly yelling into the phone how I couldn’t handle your behavior when that meant you not coming out to celebrate my birthday. 

I cannot apologize for having an emotional reaction to the thought of losing you when just the week before we were sharing a bowl and watching the sky, imagining shapes in the clouds on a beach somewhere. 

I will not apologize for saying that I would give you space and then taking it back several days later. I wanted so badly to give you what you said you needed. I wanted so badly to let you take your space to evaluate our relationship. I wanted to be that girl, but I’m not that girl. I believe in fighting a good fight. I believe in talking things out. I believe in communicating and honesty. I do not believe in silence and avoidance when there is so much to say, so much at stake. 

I will not apologize for not walking away. I will not apologize for trying to channel my anger and resentment into a cool “I’ll be okay with whatever happens” and then having an emotional reaction to watching you take my things from your car and forced into the back of mine. I will not apologize for standing in the parking lot of a Starbucks, afraid to leave but also just as afraid to stay. 

I will not apologize for showing up and fighting for our relationship.  I will not apologize for begging, pleading with you to just talk to me about what changed, what happened, can we work through this together? I will not apologize for again, allowing you to take more space, unaware of what kind of clarity an additional two days would bring you. 

No, I will not apologize for any of that. 

What I will apologize for is unintentionally hurting your feelings. I will apologize for any misunderstandings or miscommunications. I can apologize for allowing my fear and anger to overwhelm my love for you, and ultimately cloud my judgement. I genuinely, honestly, from the bottom of my heart, apologize if I ever made you feel anything less than loved or like you are anything less than a remarkable, wonderful, beautiful person. 

In this moment, days away from our agreed upon date to talk, I am, once again, weary of what you will say to me when you are ready to talk. I wonder if you will remember how much I love you and have faith in our ability to overcome challenges, or if you will listen to the voice inside of your head that has convinced you that I am no longer enough for you. I will think of the ways in which I could have done better, been better.

And then I remember all of the nights that I stroked your back as you drifted off to sleep. I will think of how I brought a small arsenal of cold medicines and tissues to your house when you had a cold. I will think of how I sat you down and spoke to you, for the first time, and opened up to you about the ways I have been hurt in the past.  And I will remember how you held my hand each time and let me know that I was more beautiful than before. I will remember making you coffee in the mornings and putting apple cider vinegar on your back when the sun burned your delicate skin. 

I will remember the box of letters I wrote to you, applicable for any emotion and to be opened when you are feeling down, scared, or angry, and how I brought them over to you after you had had a bad week. I will remember thousands of phone conversations where you didn't know how to go on and I reminded you why you were still fighting. 

I will remember telling you how proud I was of you for your strength to overcome demons that many continue to seek comfort in.I think of how much I loved you in the best of these moments and how I love you still, with an ending nearly imminent. 

I am a human being and not a puzzle piece. In this way, I cannot pretend that I do not have flaws and sometimes say things I don’t mean. I recognize that you, too, are a human being and a little rough around the edges. I loved these edges to pieces until there were cutting me out and you were driving away. 

I believe that relationships are hard work. We’re not supposed to be mean to each other, but hey, sometimes it happens. But in these moments of uncertainty, where I have once again found my place in this limbo, I can honorably stand by the decisions I have made. They were not made out of disrespect for you, but rather respect for our relationship.

Love shows up. And I showed up. I showed up knowing that you might hate me for it. I showed up knowing that you needed more avoidance, more silence. But I showed up, aware of how my presence may in fact drive you away further. But I wouldn’t be who I am if I went out without a fight, without doing what I could to fight for something I still believe in. I am still here, and I will show up when you are ready to talk to me. 

You can call me a fighter or a drama queen. But I prefer the term “warrior”, because warriors fight for matters they believe in, they fight with passion and purpose and conviction. 

The wait continues and for now, I can only have faith that you will remember the beautiful bond that we have, the wonderful life we share, and the spiritual connection we have. I can only hope that when I inevitably hear from you, you will be on the other side, asking me if I want a salmon-avocado roll for dinner. 

It is just as likely that you will tell me it’s over for good, our relationship is dead, please box my things up and leave them on my front door. And I will try to handle it gracefully and elegantly, but my heart with be breaking a million times over with the loss of a man I found a home in and a future I was excited for. 

I have a hand-written letter that I keep in my tote bag dated January 12, 2013. I don't reread it often, but I see it every day. I see his scribble on old notebook paper that is beginning to rip at the edges from years of being carried around, mixed with the new parts of my life that did not exist when that letter was written.

The letter, essentially a love letter filled with false apologies and non-promises that he wrote while sitting in my driveway on a night I had refused to see him because he had hit me for the first time the week before, haunts me like a nightmarish reminder of the girl I used to be.

Afraid, insecure, and emotionally manipulated, I accepted the letter against my inner judgment and allowed the monster back into my life. His cycle of withdrawal, abuse, and then winning me back in passionate, intense displays of love became our norm for over two years.

It was predictable and familiar. I could predict the events before they ensued, finding a sick pleasure in the absolute certainty of our relationship. I was being abused in my own home and I allowed it to happen because the highs that would follow were unlike any other. It felt like I was winning and it took me a long time to see how I was actually losing.

Years later, the residual effects of that relationship still come to the surface. In a new relationship, I often find myself reminiscent of the anticipation of knowing what is coming next. My new relationship is healthy- we are honest, we communicate, we admit to each other when we're wrong and apologize when apologies are due. 

We are not perfect human beings and sometimes we are less-than perfect with each other, but the way back is smoother. There are no highs followed by lows. It is a constant, straight line that I am unfamiliar with. 

Where I was once navigating an unpaved, bumpy dirt-road, I am now driving effortlessly on the evenly-paved scenic route. And sometimes I judge myself for missing the twists and turns that old dirt road had in store for me because I knew it well.

The most difficult part of being in an abusive relationship is later undoing the years of damage. I often find myself wondering why my new boyfriend isn't knocking at my door at three in the morning to profess his undying love for me. I wrongly question his commitment to me when he casually lets things go or doesn't show any jealousy. 

I am learning what real, honest love looks and feels like and I am resisting it. I judge myself for missing the dramatic conversations and knock-down arguments. I judge myself for holding onto the disturbed type of love I was presented that is taking years to heal from.

We almost never come into relationships with clean slates. I have my baggage and so does he and so do you. Healing does not follow a timeline and will be as stubborn as I allow it to be. Removing the judgment of myself for being hurt and presenting an honest image about who I am and what I'm dealing with is my only hope for putting my past behind me.

One day I will take that letter out of my bag. One day I will no longer need to hold onto the warped abuse I confused for love. Today I will take one step at a time.

I traced the curves your back with my fingers as you were falling asleep. I let your hair tickle my face and held you tighter still as your body twitched in a fitful rest. As you sleep, I imagine the boy you were and how helpless you must have felt under the weight of the world. I imagine how cold life must have been to you to have hurt you, over and over again, refusing to let your wounds heal before inflicting a new one. I cannot blame you for the mistakes you have made or the path your life followed or the addictions you have fallen into, but I cannot help you.

My own nights are sleepless, plagued with thoughts of doubt. Your resistance to me is jarring, but even more so is your resistance of yourself. You fight off your emotions with a double-edged sword. Numbness is your preferred state of consciousness…any emotions that manage to get through the walls you have built wreak havoc in your mind before being carried off in a cloud of smoke. But I cannot help you if you refuse to be helped.

I watch the struggle in your eyes as your past bubbles up to the surface and I watch you erase it. But your past was not written in pencil that can be erased away, neatly and permanently. Rather it is an incessant force that refuses to be ignored and only intensifies the longer you deny it. I have watched you struggle with accepting our relationship and the commitment you have made to me. I feel crippled under your opposition.  I have more doubt in myself and have welcomed my own insecurities back to the forefront of my mind. Why isn’t my love enough? Love does not nurse you back to health, no matter how much I try.

And yet I am powerless against the forces you alone must fight. I have tried to stand with you, your hands in mine, as we face your demons together but my strength is not enough when I’m the only one standing strong against them.

My dear, I look at you and feel safe against whatever the world will throw at me. You make my own destructive past feel purposeful. But when your eyes are on me, I feel your uncertainty. I know you fear the loss of your addictions, the loss of control, a sense of settling into a life that is shared and not your own. I understand your hesitation and do not judge your fear. But I can only offer so much love without sacrificing myself completely to the mud you find yourself stuck in.

I want so badly to take your pain and make it mine. I want to heal you of your pain, resentment, and contempt with a flick of a magic wand. But I cannot fight the battles you were born to overcome.

So tonight I will lie with you, tracing my fingers along the lines of your body as you drift into sleep…a gesture of love that you can accept with only your dreams ahead of you.

You are enough. You are worth more than this mediocre love you are settling for. You deserve more time than he is willing to give you. You are worth the moon and the stars and everything in between the vast infinity of the universe. You are enough.

You are settling for a boy who is lost and confused. A slave to his emotions, you deserve more than his empty promises, half-hearted love, and utter avoidance in the wake of the ebbing and flowing of his mind. 

You do not ask too much of him: Half out of fear of him losing his mind and half out of the anxiety that he won’t deliver on his promises to you. You ask only for his time and his heart and you rarely get either of those things simultaneously, if at all.

Repeat after me: You are worth more than what you are settling for. 

I know it took you a long time to let yourself feel anything for the person standing in front of you. But when you did, it hit you all at once: An 18-wheeler barreling full force into you, you had no chance. 

And it’s okay that you feel the way you do. 

Opening your heart up to someone is one of the most beautiful things that you can do in this life. But you ran a risk telling him all of your secrets; all of the things that you make you feel ugly. I know you reveled in his own dark, hidden past. You exposed yourself to him, turned on the lights, and asked him to take you as you are. 

I’m sure he wanted to. I’m sure that he saw you standing in front of him, strong, big-hearted, patient, and kind, and wanted to let you in.

I’m sure that he is scared of your boldness, your directness, your honesty. You are the sun and you have the power to change his world every day with your brightness and strength and he is afraid to be in the light. He has grown so used to his darkness that the thought of you pulling him out of the cave he has built himself is enough for him to want to cut you the sharp edges of his words.

Please know that when he lets you down, disappoints you, makes you feel unwanted, and a burden, that it is not because you are not enough. It is because he is not enough.

He cannot keep up with the sun with the weight of his demons pulling him down. You cannot out-love his darkness. You cannot force your light on what isn’t ready to be seen.

You cannot change his world without his permission. 

And you cannot ever, for a second, let someone make you feel like you are anything less than the sun that you are: Bold, bright, and beautiful.

You are the beautiful sum of all of your experiences. Life has beaten you down, dealt you the lowest cards, and yet you are still here, breathing in and out from the lungs that made you cry out when you were born and the same lungs that choked out “I’m sorry” more times than you can count. You are wonderfully complicated, desparately broken, and yet I love you still.

You are a knotted ball of anxiety and fear. Driven by paranoia and blocked by depression, you sometimes stand so still I am afraid I will knock you over with all my big ideas and explosive passions. Addiction has left you scarred and empty. Hopeless, even. I am much your opposite: Full of life and hope, believer in love and fate, going after dreams big and small. I believe in communication and honesty, whereas you are an addict and lie to protect yourself.

Yet I love you still. I love you for all of your strength and courage to overcome your addiction. I love your wit and your sense of humor. You’re intelligence greatly outpaces mine and you are always two or three steps ahead of me that I struggle trying to keep up with your intellect. I love you for your smile that has been broken and for your eyes that have grown tired. The lines around on your face speak volumes of the years you have put behind you.

And yet I have tried to tell you that I love you. I have tried to offer support. I am only one human being, flawed and perpetual in my humanity, and I am limited in how gently I can caress your heart. You are a train whizzing by me on the tracks, unable to stop with no direction to boot. I cannot stop you, I can only watch, whispering thoughts of encouragement in your ear that will go unnoticed with all of the chaos around you.

I cannot help he who does wish to be helped and I cannot change you, fix you, or make you see what I see when I look into your beautiful, weary blue eyes. I can only love you, to the best of my ability, and hope that my love can somehow make its way into your heart and you allow it to be there. I can only love you and support you and understand you and plan on doing those things until you tell me you’ve had enough; perhaps until my love has been too much and your guilt rises greater than your love for me. For this I will not blame you or be angry with you; You are beautiful and your intentions are pure, but you are ruled by a drug that pretends to love you but really just wants you dead.

So if you leave me out of frustration or guilt or shame, please know that I will never stop loving you or wishing you the best and only ask that your separation from me results in a happier version of the man I fell in love with all those moons ago. You are greater than the eagle, stronger than the crab, louder than the lion, and you were not born into this world to thrash around, aimless and alone.  You are greater than your wildest expectations of yourself and I will be here when you figure it all ou. As long as you want me to be, I’ll be here.

In schools across the country, they teach you about Christopher Columbus coming to America, how to solve for x, and how to make a pit stop at your locker and the bathroom before getting to class in three minutes.

In adulthood, most of what you learned in school is irrelevant unless you’re like final contestant on Jeopardy or something. I wish they had spent a little more time going over things I would actually need to know instead of drilling into my head the stupid song that helps you remember all of the states in alphabetically order (Completely a useless talent, I’ve learned.)

Here is a list of things you should have totally been taught in school that would actually benefit you:

1. Check Writing

Why don’t they teach you this? Do they assume you just know? Do they assume somethings are left for your parents to teach you? It’s pretty embarrassing when you’re first rent check gets returned because you signed your name on the wrong side.

2. Interview Skills

It would have been really nice to have been taught the Do’s and Don’t’s of interview etiquette. Some quick tips: Show up early, dress appropriately, and don’t lie about your skill sets. We all saw that Friends episode where Joey has to learn to play guitar because he lied on his resume, right?

3. How to know if you’re in a toxic relationship.

Drug use is hammered into your head from the time you’re in preschool until you graduate. Drugs are bad, just say no. Why do they never tell you the cycle of domestic violence? Why don’t they teach us that abuse can be verbal too? Maybe if they spent half as much time warning us about drugs and also focused on toxic relationships there would be fewer victims out there.

4. Dealing with Stress

They are totally okay with giving you hours and hours of homework and papers to write, in addition to extracurriculars, jobs, and actually having to be at school during the day, and never, ever tell you how to deal with all of the stress coming at you. Maybe we need to start teaching classes on how to run a perfect bath or give you a list of books you can chill out with?

5. 401(K)’s and other retirement plans

Sorry, am I supposed to just know that I should have one of these? Can someone please explain to me the difference between a Simple IRA and a Roth IRA? Google makes it pretty complicated and I’m still pretty much in the dark about this.

6. Budgeting

I get that math is important, but can we please go over how to budget our lives? How much should we be putting away in our savings? Had I already had some kind of working knowledge of this I may have saved myself a few months of eating only Ramen noodles and tuna fish.

7. Asking for a raise

If anyone could provide some tips on this, it would be much appreciated. I am still only eating Ramen and tuna fish.

8. Deciding you’re ready for marriage/kids/a home.

There are so many things to consider before going into all of these things, I wish someone would have warned me.  Maybe this a mother’s job but I’m pretty sure they should have still gone over this.

9. The truth about your college major.

It would have been really good to know that some majors are just totally pointless and you’ll end up being a college-educated barista. Some insight into the economy and job outlook would have been important. They prepare you to get into college and never actually stress the importance of what you’ll be doing there. Granted, a lot of careers are pretty flexible, but some info beforehand would have been clutch.

10. The current state of politics in the world.

I can tell you everything there is to know about what the founding fathers had in mind for this country. The current state of affairs, though? Not so much. I wish someone would have taught about the future of this country so that I can better make some educated decisions on politicians. I mean, some kids in high school will be 18 and voting in our next election for president. Shouldn’t they know what to be looking for?

There are million ways to tell someone you love them. Your mom tells you she loves you every time she asks if you’ve been getting enough sleep and if you’ve been using condoms. “I love you” isn’t the only way: 

1. “Get home safe.”

2. “Text me when you get home.”

3. “I miss you.”

4. “I am so lucky to have you.”

5. “You changed my life.”

6. “Put your seat belt on.”

7. “Do you want tea?” 

8. “I’m sorry”

9. “Don’t forget your jacket”

10. “Thank you”

11. “I got you something”

12. “I didn’t know which one you wanted so I got both”

13. “Do you want coffee?”

14. “Do you have enough cough drops?” 

15. “Have a good day”

16. “What do you want to do today?”

17. “You’re so cute”

18. “You inspire me”

19. “You look pretty today”

20. “I cleaned up a little bit”

21. “Spend the night”

22. “I made you coffee”

23. “I’ve been thinking about you”

24. “I had a dream about you last night”

25. “Making you happy makes me happy”

26. “How did that meeting go?”

27. “Don’t forget your umbrella”

28. “Let’s get away for the weekend”

29. “You look so pretty”

30. “I warmed up your food for you”

31. “You can have the last piece”

32. “Good luck”

33. “Watch out”

34. “Can I have this dance?”

35. “Text me when you wake up”

36. “Let’s sleep in today”

37. “Can I meet your mom?”

38. “I’m trying”

39. “I want you to be happy”

40. “I want to experience what the world has to offer with you”

41. “You have my full attention”

42. “I want to share things with you”

43. “What are you doing tonight?”

44. “I’m really lucky to have met you”

45. “I remember”

46. “I’ll do everything I can”

47. “You look beautiful today”

48. “Two sugars, two creams, right?”

49. “You can have half of mine”

50. “I love your laugh”