I think about him sometimes. I wonder where he is and who he's there with.
I imagine a beer in his hand and a pile of empty cans near his feet. He has a girl leaning in close, but no matter how close she gets he'll never let her 100% in.
He always had a way of doing that, of making those closest to him feel so distant, so invisible.
I know now, it really wasn’t me, it was him.
I know now, I can do so much better because eventually, I did.
When he walked away, he took away the kind of relationship I am blessed to never have to endure again.
I'll never have to endure listening to him tear me apart word by word. The kind of words I took years convincing myself weren’t true, but he claimed otherwise. I'll never lose sleep over thinking all the things I could do differently to make him happy.
After all the years I spent building myself up, creating this beautiful human being I thought was pretty damn cool, it took him seconds to break me down to nothing.
He broke down every wall and against my better judgement, I let him. He recognized the brokenness and wanted more. So he kept digging.
He dug so deep, I eventually became exactly who he wanted me to be. A girl seeking validation and love, from a guy who lacked the capability of returning such a thing.
A guy who may have possibly lacked the ability to even ever feel such a thing.
He had his moments though, that made me think maybe somewhere deep down he was a decent human being. Behind closed doors, he told me secrets.
He allowed me to hold onto his hopes and dreams, to be his number one support system, his number one fan.
What about me? Where was my support, my cheerleader?
He took, took, took. And, I gave, gave, gave.
He recognized the bags under my eyes and the way I tossed and turned while lying by his side at night. Rather than help fight the monsters under the bed, he became the monster in my bed.
I want him to know something. I did not know all of this as it was happening. I wholeheartedly wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Because that’s the type of person I am.
I’m the kind of person who chose to love him despite the way he treated me, despite the many flaws I very well knew he had.
Loving him was life-altering. It sucked the life out of me.
Without him, I'm finally alive again.
Without him, I'm finally me again.