You sent me a Facebook message today. Every once in a while, you send me a little chit chat message that usually ends in some awkward, lackadaisical attempt at an argument, but not today. Today, you sent me a picture of the playlist you made for me called "my girlfriend has awesome taste in music" where you picked all the songs we had in common and played them when I came over to your house.
You told me that you still couldn't bring yourself to listen to it, that you "still couldn't indulge yourself in me." Excuse me, Grady, but you stopped being able to indulge yourself in me on Wednesday, April 13, 2011 when I broke up with you.
And then I got to thinking a little bit. That was just over two years ago, but it feels like a much more distant memory. It's hard to remember the way it actually felt being with him. Nothing is separate; it's all a bit of a haze of the fights we had and the ways that we made up.
I was fifteen years old when I met you. I was learning to drive and it made me feel so mature, and then I met you outside the mall and you put out that cigarette when you saw the subtle disapproval on my face. You saw me at school and you talked to me, and you called me during fall break of sophomore year and we talked on the phone for five hours. I was a big phone-talker then. Not really anymore.
And then October 9, 2010, I started dating you. You made me happy for a brief time, and then a semi-connected multitude of events (most of them were your fault) stockpiled and we were no longer compatible. There's the skeleton of the story. We spent half a year together, but half a year was all I could handle.
I can think about all this in great detail now because nothing about it bothers me. I do not miss even the best parts of our relationship, and I certainly don't miss the worst. It's just so strange when I see pictures of things like that. I forgot that playlist even existed, even though I've listened to it at least a hundred times. It almost makes me feel guilty because you were, at one point in time, a significant factor in my life. You were significant and all I remember about you is that you liked outer space and you had a really fucking cute cat. (I think I liked Miss Kitty more than I liked you.)
Really though, I was perplexed rather than angry when you said that to me because I wasn't sure if you were still holding onto some stupid faded and tarnished dream of the two of us together or if you were just trying to stir up a little pre-grad drama. It's probably the latter.
But what I do know is that you hurt me very badly. Yes, I'm the one that ended if with you, but I ended it with you because I was sixteen years old and you had taken a girl who was once very bright and optimistic and you had beaten her self- worth into a pulp. You made me fucking hate myself for everything I ever did, and it took a long time to build myself back up.
But honestly, all I want to tell you, after pondering over it all, is thank you. Thank you, Cameron Grady, for being what you were to me. You did a lot of damage to me, damage I thought was irreparable because I was young and I was stupid and I was convinced you were the love that I let go. But you know what you did? You led me to being the person I am today. A lot of the choices I made were directly related to the person I have been changing into since I stopped dating you. I like myself more than I ever have. I can handle a lot more than I could before I met you. I'm stronger now. I'm a little more guarded now.
But most of all, I'm grateful now for the things that I have. I wanted to say here that Isaias is the one that replaced you, but that phrase doesn't do it justice. Isaias came into my life, carved out a new space for himself, and made everything that had happen in the seventeen years before I met him completely irrelevant.
I am grateful for him more than I could be had I not put up with you because I can see what a perfect person he is. For the first time in my life, I know what it feels like to love myself and to be in love with someone else at the same time and god it feels good. And how it feels to be loved, I could never have imagined something so overwhelming.
So I suppose, since high school is almost over and petty high school fallouts are unnecessary still to hold bitterness, the only reason you were ever important to me, in the grand scheme of it all, is that you made me into a person that Isaias deserves. I owe you nothing. I have everything I need in this one person because I love him. I love him so much that I'm surprised by it sometimes. I'm glad I met you, because I ended up with Isaias. I ended up where I am now, which is where I want to be for the rest of my life.
this scar is a fleck on my porcelain skin.
you tried to reach deep, but you couldn't get in.
now you're outside me; you see all the beauty.
repent all your sin.
there's nothing but time and a face that you lose.
I chose to feel it, and you couldn't choose.
I'll write you a postcard - I'll send you the news
from the house down the road, from real love.
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