To My Ex: Fuck You and Thank You

Life is a bit of a whirlwind right now, and a lot of feelings are getting thrown in this volatile mix.

Self-reflection is my thing. I was about to write, "I've been reflecting a lot on my life lately," but it's not a "lately' thing if you do it at all the time (guilty as charged), so I want to say that after extreme moments of self-reflection, I came to this realization that I owe everything to my ex.

Even before we became involved romantically, I always told him he had this huge impact in my life. Meeting him left a dent in my soul, a dent that I sometimes proudly own as a survivor adorned with battle scars and at other times, a dent that makes me reel in agony and abject self-deprecation. How could I have screwed things up so badly? How?

There's no use in saying "what if" about everything. There's no doubt that we fell out of love and to continue being with him would've made things go way worse, but a part of me feels victimized nonetheless. Not that my ex was super mean or horrible when he was the exact opposite. I think the problem is he's human and I'm human and believing in love's promises is like building castles atop clouds: it just won't hold.

Even though the break up and the loss of a best friend gave me the impetus for change - the impetus to succeed academically, to make friends, and to take charge and responsibility for my life - it still left me longing at times for the girl whom I used to be. Now I'm just someone looking back at a faded memory - some worn out sepia photograph with hardly a semblance to its former glory.

So, to my ex: fuck you. Fuck you for leaving me helpless and dejected. Fuck you for telling me "my love for you will never change" when it in fact dissipated and eventually evanesced.

But thank you as well. Thank you for leaving me helpless, because I then learned to stand on my own two feet. Thank you for letting me go through this agonizing-at-times self-discovery. Also, thank you for telling me in the six years we were together that I'm a smart, beautiful, and strong woman. Even when we fell out of love you never stopped believing in my talents and in my potential.

Thank you.