It's okay, I forgive you. I know that it was not your choice, but that of the insidious disease that ravaged your life. I know the words that sliced through like a swift papercut were only spit out of pain and anger. That is okay too.
I understand that you loved me as best you could and that I would never live up to your romance with the bottle of booze. Regardless, I still loved you.
I hope one day you find the healing and recovery you so deserve because I know the real you, the you that's separate from your addiction. I know the woman you are under all that debris – genuine with a heart of gold and a beautiful soul. One day, I hope you find freedom.
Despite the heartache and the minefield I managed to hopscotch through, I have no regrets. Quite the opposite, in fact. I am grateful for the road we walked and I’m blessed for the role you had in my life. Whether you know it or not, I’m grateful to you.
Because of you, I found the courage to come out to my family and fully embrace my entire being. Thanks to you, I was able to love myself for the first time in my life… even when that meant loving myself first, before anyone else.
I’m grateful to you, my ex-lover, because I was able to taste motherhood. I know I am capable of being a mom, and a good one at that.
Thanks to you, I was able to experience a deeper love than I thought even existed. True love was a foreign concept, a mythological creature only few would ever meet.
I was one of the lucky ones. I’m grateful to you because I learned what real love feels like and that I’m able to fully give myself to another human being. But most importantly, I am grateful to you because I learned that I truly treasure my sobriety and recovery.
I am now aware that I will protect my sobriety above everything else, even love. I know that I can not only survive, but survive and start over with full confidence that I'll be okay. I now know a peace that I had to access within myself and without you, that would not be the case.
I will continue to grieve the loss of you in my life and I will be okay. But for now, I am deeply grateful to you for who you are as a whole – the wreckage and the beauty. To the one I couldn’t save, thank you.
