Her

Vladimir Estragon
Jul 20, 2017 · 8 min read

“It was exciting to see her grow and both of us grow and change together. But that’s also the hard part: growing without growing apart or changing without it scaring the other person.”

Hey bunny. It’s been a while. It feels weird to be writing you again. In the early days it was such a large part of our relationship. I have spent plenty of late nights over the years emptying pen after pen trying to find the perfect words to capture just how I felt about you. I would spend hours on end writing and rewriting them; agonizing over the smallest details until I got it just the way I wanted it. The look of excitement on your face whenever I handed you a new letter always made that process feel worth it. Although, I guess this is going to be a much different kind of letter than those ones we use to keep in our wallets for safekeeping.

I should start by saying thank you. Even if there were parts of our relationship I wished had gone differently, we spent our formative years together. 6 years. A quarter of my life up until this point. It would be impossible for me to separate the person I am today from the time we spent together. And even if I have my dark days every now and again, for the most part I really like that person. So I will gladly embrace all the ups and downs we had along the way if that is what it took for me to end up here. We navigated that awkward transition from children to young adults together; facing all the problems the world could throw at us as a team. If I had never met that girl who convinced me to go running through a torrential downpour just for the fun of it all those years ago, I’m not sure if the person writing this letter would exist. Thank you for being my co-author for that chapter of our lives.

Once upon a time you were my safe place. When I was around you I felt like I could be the unaltered version of myself that the rest of the world rarely got to see. It felt ok to be completely vulnerable around you. That was something I had never really experienced before. Growing up I bounced around from friend group to friend group a lot. I had my nerdy friends, my theatre friends, my music friends, my sports friends, and so on and so on. I never really had a problem fitting in anywhere, but I never felt like I truly belonged in any one place. With each group I was only ever a subset of the whole person that I truly was. You were different. You wanted to learn about all the different aspects that made up the person I really was. You wanted to see me completely. Initially I was taken aback by it; why would anyone want to spend all that time learning about what makes me, me? What made me worth all that effort? But you were persistent. Slowly but surely those walls I had built around myself started to come down and I let you in. I showed you the parts of myself I had never shown anyone. To my surprise you did more than just accept it. Seeing me cracks and all seemed to make you love me even more.

For a while there we built something really special together. A place where we could discuss anything free of judgement: the dark secrets of our pasts, our hopes for the future, those random thoughts that we normally wouldn’t tell people for fear that it would sound dumb. You were my best friend. We took every opportunity to learn about each other. I was obsessed with understanding the way you saw the world. It didn’t matter if you wanted to vent about why your best friend was getting on your nerves that day or if you wanted to muse about what happens when we die. I wanted to absorb it all. I wanted to know you as well as I knew myself. As time went on and I got to know the inner working of that mind of yours something strange started to happen; I started to see myself the way you saw me. All those weird things about myself that I disliked and was self conscious about didn’t seem like flaws but rather quirks that made me special and unique. I learned to love myself through your eyes.

In return I tried to show you the girl that I saw when I looked at you. I’m not sure if I ever truly succeeded at that. You were always your own harshest critic. I wanted you to see the kind hearted and caring girl who was capable of so much more then she thought possible when she got that little push she needed from time to time. It seemed like you were the only one who couldn’t see her. I remember one day when you were getting particularly down on yourself getting all of our friends to randomly message you something they loved about you without telling you what was going on. So you could see that it wasn’t just me that saw those things in you. As time went on I could see you catch glimpses of it. I watched you grow from a nervous kid into a confident young woman. I watched you accomplish things you thought you weren’t capable of; celebrating your victories with you like they were my own and helping you pick yourself back up when the world knocked you down. I loved watching and helping you grow. I hope I helped you become the person you wanted to be. I know you did that for me.

I can’t quite pinpoint exactly where it all started to fall apart. It happened so slowly that I didn’t even see it happening at the time. During University we managed a long distance relationship well for a long time — traveling to see each other every weekend and falling asleep on Skype together most nights — but as we neared the end of our degrees our lives got busy. It became more difficult to find the time to continue to learn about each other and without me even noticing we drifted apart. Looking back now I know that you were right that breaking up was what was best for the both of us. We weren’t those inseparable kids who would spend every waking minute talking any more. If we met each other today, I’m not sure if we would have ever dated. We had become different people. People who weren’t right for each other any more. But at the time all I wanted to do was try and make it work with you. I still remember feeling like my heart was being plucked from my chest and trampled as I handed you your grandfather’s necklace back and watched you walk away from my car and out of my life.

I told you that getting over you was going to be the hardest thing I would ever have to do. I was definitely right about that. In a matter of minutes I had lost my best friend, the future we had planned together for so long, and the girl who showed me how to love myself. Part of me wanted to remain friends, but I knew that I would never be able to get past you if you were still in my life. So I made a clean break. For a long time it was really hard on me. I spiralled into depression, but with time and the help of my friends it slowly got more manageable. It feels like a lifetime since we broke up. I went through a period where I swore off dating for a long time; trying to find out who I was as an individual after being part of a couple for so long. I learned how to be alone. How to love myself through my own eyes instead of through yours. I travelled Europe trying to learn how to date again; only to realize that what I really missed was having a partner in my life. I moved to the city and started to have small crushes here and there again. And then I ran into her.

I always told you that I didn’t believe we each have a perfect soulmate out there that we just needed to find. Instead I believe that people became soulmates. You meet someone you care about and as you grow and take on the world together you change and become perfect for each other over time. She was the one girl who ever made me question that. I am not sure if I ever told you about her. I was always afraid that talking about girls from my past would hurt you unnecessarily. I met her at Shakespeare school the summer before we started dating. There was something magnetic about her that felt different than anything I have felt in my life. It was the most immediate connection I have ever felt to someone in my life. But she was from Montreal. I had to make a choice. I could either chase a girl who lived 8 hours away who I didn’t know if she felt the same way about me, or I could try and forget about her and see what you and I could have together. I knew it would be unfair to keep both of you in my life. I don’t regret a minute of the time you and I spent together because it made me the person I am today. We had a love that blossomed over time into something that will always hold a special place in my heart, but after I had recovered from the break up I always wondered what could have been if I made a different choice all those years ago.

You told me that you knew I would find someone who could love me better then you ever could. I didn’t believe you at the time. I didn’t think I would ever feel the same way about someone that I felt about you. But when I saw her again it felt like I was that love sick 14 year old all over again. She makes me want to do those kind of insane grand romantic gestures I use to do for you. The way she makes me feel inspired me to want to start writing again — that is why I started writing this series of letters. I am not sure where this will all lead — our schedules have been so busy at the moment that we haven’t been able to find a time to meet up yet — but for the first time in a long time I am excited to find out. I really like this girl. There is something special about her that my mind just won’t let go of. I waited a decade to see her again. I can wait a little longer.

It may have taken about 3 years, but I did what I use to think was impossible. I got over you. You represented an era in my life. It was a era I deeply loved, but it’s time for me start creating a new era of my life with someone else. I will always love the relationship that we had. It showed me how incredible sharing your life with someone can be. But sometimes even beautiful things need to die to make room for something new. I hope that you are happy with where you are in life. I hope that I made a positive impact on your life. I hope Dan is able to give you everything that I wasn’t able to. You deserve happiness. I do too.

“I love you so much. But this is where I am now. And this is who I am now. And I need you to let me go. As much as I want to, I can’t live in your book any more.”

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For all the compasses in the world, there’s only one direction, and time is its only measure.

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