Letters To Life

Dear Heartbreak,

I've experienced you for the first time recently.

When I started writing these letters, I hadn't the slightest clue that I was in love. Oh, what a wonderful feeling it is! To feel as if you've found your purpose... it's truly amazing.

Or at least it was.

It was amazing until I found out that the love wasn't mutual.

I loved him from the depths of my heart, but early on I noticed that he didn't have the same look in his eyes as I did. He didn't have the same tone of voice when he spoke to me. He didn't even have the same interest as I did in him. Of course, I should have taken it as a sign, but I was too stubborn.

That early on, my feelings weren't as strong as they are now, and I've come to the conclusion that it wouldn't have hurt as much if I had just accepted the fact that he didn't even like me.

Is this what it feels like to be heartbroken? Wanting the other person to still be happy even though you're dying inside? I don't get it! This person broke me and I still want the best for him? How is that heartbreak? Isn't it just good intentions?

I guess what it really is is when you want the other person to be happy even though you want to die, but knowing that they don't feel the same way. Yes, I understand how selfish it is to want someone to feel broken the way I do but what am I supposed to say? How come he doesn't feel what I'm feeling? How come he doesn't miss me the way I miss him? Why doesn't he care?

"Get over it," they say. "Let him go," they say. "You deserve someone better anyway," they say, but can't they understand that I don't want anyone better, nor do I want anyone less. I only crave his warmth, his touch. No one else can make me feel this way and the fact that I didn't generate these feelings for him makes me want to scream at the top of my lungs.

All that time...

All that time and he didn't feel for me once? Where the hell did I go wrong? Why didn't he just tell me?

See, I tried.

I tried so hard but you never noticed my efforts. I poured my heart out, my soul, and I put my blood, sweat, and tears into molding us together, but it didn't hold. My efforts? They weren't strong enough. I guess I didn't want it enough. I don't understand how, though. He was the only thing my heart truly desired...

In that moment, there was an array of different emotions: sadness, anger, relief.

Sadness because I didn't want him to go, anger because I couldn't stand the thought of him leaving and just watching him go, and relief because I also couldn't stand the thought of being with him and he not even loving me the way I loved him.

So have I figured it out? Did I break down this emotion into little pieces so that I could put it back together in order to understand it more?

Loving him, but knowing that he didn't love me back. Wanting him to be happy and live a good life, but knowing that he didn't want the same thing. Needing him, but knowing that I could never fulfill his needs.

It was confusing to me at first. Why did people lose their minds over a person just because they broke up? Just because they left? People leave all the time, right? Why should that one person be any different? I understand it now.

The worst thing about you, Heartbreak, is that I actually had to experience you in order to understand you.