A Letter to.... Personal, Honest, My Words, My Experience

Dear Boy,

I address you so not to keep you a secret, not to emasculate you or belittle your male pride, not to waylay you with juvenile friendliness that you might sympathize and pity me. No. I pay homage to youth. Our youth.  To the naïve people we were years ago before we knew who and what would come later. To the fantasy that I endeavored to nurture despite all odds and to the hope you fed with little nods to your ego and smiled half-truths. Here’s to letting memories guide us, wrong paths, right paths, hurts like hell paths and fun for the moment paths.

I want to fault you for everything. Pass the blame and let the guilt weigh heavy on someone else. I want many things, but most of all I want to know that it wasn’t all in vain. Thus I can’t look at you and think YOU did so much and so little to wrong me.

The idea that a first love would be a first and that there would be a second to follow was foreign to me. Love was meant to be first, always, happily ever after and yes forever. Little girls don’t sit in their room imagining broken hearts, can’t get out of bed days, can’t go on, live on memories and hope for the best days…hope period. I didn’t think to prepare for unrequited love or to even fall so hard that I’m still reeling 3 years later…trying to a find status quo of normal.

“We lost faith in the arms of love.”* That very nearly sums it up.

Honestly? I was foolish. I was knocked over the head, tie me up and drown me foolish. I paid little notice to the signs, to people telling me over and over again, to God, to so many damn notions that loving you was wrong; that investing so much hope in a hero…a hero like you was wrong. You’re a king. A king of freedom, of thrill, of a brilliance no one could dare out shine. I didn’t want to out shine you. I didn’t even want to smother your brilliance. I wanted to join you. Can you blame me?

Never marry a man expecting to change him. That never crossed my mind. People whispered that to me and shouted it my face with their disdain, but I don’t like change. I was along for the ride, wherever it might have taken me. That’s where I think YOU missed out. How often do people know or meet someone so willing to accept the EVERYTHING about another human being? I’d like to think nearly never. Perhaps I’m wrong.

I feel as though I should go in to detail of the me you missed out on by not giving me the dangled in front of my face chance that I so wanted. That feels petty to me. The cards have been played and things are too late for us, for me. In the dark of night sometimes I let my hopes whisper to me still, but I’m learning to put those to sleep in the far recesses of my mind. I need someone else to show me love. I don’t need to show someone else why they should love me.

I need to take the steps to remove you from my life. That scares me. It horrifies me. Am I a fake? Did I give up too easily? Hell no, but I must have the solace that letting go will bring. It worries me. I can’t be confined by it anymore. But change? Remember it scares me. But maybe establishing these threads of thought can serve as a testimony…a eulogy to a first love.

I couldn’t make you love me. Why should I?

I CAN thank you. I’m growing. It has cost me so much and continues to leave scars that I know will be there, if not always, for a long time to come. I can’t settle. You gave me reason to search for a me that was/is hidden behind doubts and conformity driven hypocrites. “Keep your head up. Keep your heart strong. Keep your mind set.”** I’m diversifying. There are so many new things about me. Music tastes, dreams, opinions, the freedom to be, and so much more. You’re not responsible for it all, you are just the catalyst.

I’m thanking you; I’m not knighting you or paving the way for your sainthood. Presumptuous much? Maturity is many things. I believe it is admitting your mistakes, thanking those responsible for your life lessons (ultimately God) and forgiving. Not forgetting, though, that’s too much to ask of anyone.

You broke me; you broke me in too many ways to list. I don’t want or desire to dwell on. I want to trouble you. I want to put a catch in your spirit that causes you to look up one day and think of me. Think of me and wonder what could have been and what you owe me; apologies to fill pages and hours.

I used to think the woman that came to mean something to you in your life needed to endeavor to deserve you. Oh how I shouldered you with so much unearned glory. Now my prayer and hope for that woman is that you endeavor to deserve HER. The vengeful side of me…hopes she causes you to question…to question your existence and why you tore down your walls. To diminish the cocky bastard who bewitches young hearts with his smile.

Hell hath no fury….

I am many things; a lover of symbolic tendencies most certainly. In one month it will be 3 years to the day that hell, hoping, falling, fading, running and so much more began. I will say goodbye then, though I say goodbye to you now with my best weapon…words.

“I fought the wolves of patience just to let it lie down.”***

I am not courageous, but I deserve so much more than you gave me,

Maddie



* The Wolves by Ben Howard
** Keep Your Head Up by Ben Howard
*** These Waters by Ben Howard
Are we noticing a pattern?