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All You Will Be in My Life is a Cautionary Tale for My Daughter

When my daughter comes home crying one day with a broken heart, I will know exactly what to say to her. I’ll tell her of a boy I once knew, a boy I once loved. 

You will be the cautionary tale I tell to my daughter. 

I’ll hold her as she whispers the same words that dripped from my own mouth many years before. I’ll listen as she tells me about a boy a lot like you; a boy who promised her the world and then walked away. 

You will be a story I tell my daughter when I find her in bed crying over a boy who doesn’t deserve her tears. I’ll tell her about how it gets better. How each day hurts less than the last until finally, you don’t feel it anymore. 

I’ll tell her about the days she has to look forward to; the days where she will smile again and love again. I’ll tell her about how one day, she won’t think about that boy anymore.

She will ask me how I could know any of this, and that is when I will tell her about the boy who crushed me so long ago, a boy who now only exists as a tale of a broken love. I will tell her about you and tell her about how I learned that I didn’t need you.

She will know the truth in my words because this will be the first time she’ll have ever heard of you. You will not exist outside of the story I tell my daughter about how immature and emotionally absent boys are nothing to shed tears over.

You will be a story I tell my daughter when she smells the perfume on his shirt and sees a stranger’s name on his phone. When she comes to me with makeup running down her face, I’ll tell her about a selfish boy I once knew and naively loved.  

You will be a story I tell my daughter when I try to teach her about self-love. When I try to teach her the importance of learning to love herself before loving anyone else. 

I’ll tell her about a girl who lost herself in love only to fall to the deepest depths of the ocean before clawing her way back out.

You will be the story I tell my daughter when she meets a boy just like you. 

Then I’ll tell her that one day, her boy – the one who broke her heart – will just be her own story. That one day, he will just be a story that she will tell her daughter.

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