Letter to My Ex

                A letter to my Ex seems appropriate now that time has settled down like a dirt road when the old truck is in the distance.  I have thought about all those years, all the months, weeks, days and hours.  What I have discovered is that there was no time that my feelings weren’t hurt by some little thing that he said or did.  My memories are less accessible today because I don’t want them to be and now I don’t wish to pull them back out of that cobweb memory bank.

          When did it go wrong?  When I thought that if you love someone they must certainly equally love you.  If you put a map in front of me like a board of candy cane, I would be able to bring up every wrong turn in a long journey.  The thing I can do now is not lay blame or commiserate with those wrong turns but to accept my own responsibility.  I am the only one who I could change.  I didn’t.  Not in the beginning, not down that long road, not when it was teetering, not until too many years passed.

          I know the saying that everything is for a reason and everything leads you to where you are at the moment.  That is true because each roll of the dice moves you forward or backward but it moves you.  If I had more control, more foresight, more initiative, I would not have taken the road I took.  If I had been brave.  I don’t want you to think I am diminishing my love for it was and is true and honest as any emotion I ever held.  It still as strong as it was in the beginning and that is why it took so long to bury that love long enough to step away from the relationship.

          Did he treat me bad?  Oh, my little bitty heart believes so and if that is the case I now know that it doesn’t break easily despite the jabs and punches [figuratively].  My relationship was like a dripping faucet that slowly wore away the porcelain on the sink.  It should have been a great relationship because I am a devout romantic.  I am in love with love only to find out that love cannot be isolated.

          I should write to him, tell him that we were just not really meant to be and that I should have known that in the beginning.  I feel bad that he spent so many years not happy but then maybe he just isn’t a happy man.  I don’t know.  I could not see past myself to understand that it wasn’t right.  I should let him know that I know that he truly tried but didn’t have the capacity to even express his feelings.  Maybe I didn’t allow him to grow into being romantic, maybe I didn’t expect enough or was even too insecure in the relationship to believe.  I don’t know.  I don’t know despite so many years, despite our strong friendship and despite love, I still have no answers just acceptance.

          I won’t write because I still think it might shoot me in the foot but I hope he is finally happy.

Barb