Dear Ex-Lover

I was never supposed to fall in love with you. I knew it from the first moment I met you that you weren’t my type. My goodness though, I thought you were so handsome with your sandy blonde hair, steely light blue eyes and navy slacks. You were a man’s man. Military veteran, medical school student, and native Californian, you spoke English but I barely understood you. I didn’t think we’d tolerate the lack of commonality for more than a night.

Somehow, you stuck around all summer and by July your toothbrush was in my holder and your peanut butter ice cream was in my fridge. It was hard to walk around downtown like a normal person cause you always held me so close to your side, and I was semi-happy. You made constant Goonies references and quizzed me relentlessly on 80’s movie trivia, which I failed at every time. I didn’t really think that it mattered. You rarely asked about my dreams, my goals, my passions or my travels, I kind of just felt like a constant idiot in your world. I shouldn’t have been okay with this and I wasn’t, until I gave in.

My cat loved you. I realized I loved you too during our weekend in Bend, when you kept me safe and alive as we climbed Smith Rock. I caught my heart skipping whenever you laughed so hard your nose would crinkle and the way you’d grab me in close for a kiss. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend that Saturday night than pulling out the Murphy bed in our Airbnb and making a fort out of all the blankets to watch Harry Potter by candlelight and sipping cheap whiskey (the cheap whiskey was all you though). Even if for just a few fleeting months, I would have gone anywhere and done anything with you and for you.

After you graduated, things were not alright. I was leaving to work in San Francisco for a few months. You got upset at me every time I wanted to talk about our relationship, and that hurt. Why would you act like my boyfriend without the commitment? I thought better of you. I thought we had beat the millennial dating curses. I thought you cared about me enough to make sure I was okay, but you built a wall instead. I guess we didn’t make it. We ended up as a statistic, but babe we could have been so much more.

I’m leaving to San Francisco in two days, and my heart is bleeding out and somehow I’m okay with that. Our last morning together was so painful that I had decided it would be our last. I would have boarded a fucking plane and brought you flowers and gone to a farmer’s market to make you breakfast if I knew it would be one of the last times I’d see you. I loved you, and you didn’t love me and that was that.

I probably broke my own heart because I was so stupid for falling for you. Shit happens, even when you’re not seventeen anymore. Isn’t it dumb sometimes how much internal shit people go through while the other person doesn’t even care?

I’m bitter now, but I thank you anyway because you’ve reminded me of my value. I’ll keep on waiting for the man who’ll look at me like I’m magic, not a slab of cheese. I’ll wait for the man who will bring me flowers just to see me smile. I’ll meet someone who actually deserves all the love I poured into your emotionally barren life. And maybe in a few weeks, I’ll come to see that I never actually did love you. I’ll leave you here now, goodbye my love.