I Choose Me

I still remember the thanksgiving dinners, the Christmases that we spent as a family, and everything else in between. I still occasionally scroll through my phone to look at the pictures that even a year later, I haven’t been able to make myself delete.

But, don’t flatter yourself. This has nothing to do with you. Don’t get me wrong, you were important to me once, but I’ve said goodbye to you emotionally before I ever did so physically. What I haven’t been able to say goodbye to are the memories and the wondering. What I find myself still holding onto is the history and the what ifs. Because in saying goodbye to you, I was forced to say goodbye to those I considered family. I can hold on to the hope that everything will work out one day. But that will mean that I accept you coming back into my life as inevitable. And I refuse to do that. Meting you, loving you, trusting you; those were inevitable. Letting you back into my life is not inevitable, it is improbable.

To be honest, you hurt me more than I thought you could. After all, our demise wasn’t sudden. But I’ve held on to that hurt for too long. I’ve let your betrayal dictates my actions and my relationships for too long. So, this is my goodbye letter to you, to our history, and to what could’ve been. I’m going to make a conscious effort to stop asking myself what ifs, to stop comparing and measuring others’ actions by your actions. You were inevitable because without you and your actions, I wouldn’t have realized my worth. I wouldn’t have realized that I sometimes make excuses for those who don’t deserve to be forgiven out of a messed-up sense of loyalty. I wouldn’t have learned the difference between fighting for love and family versus fighting for familiarity and broken trust. Without you, I wouldn’t have the strength to recognize toxicity and have the strength to let go of it. Thank you for the lessons, I will keep the memories, the good and the bad but, this is my final goodbye to you.