Dear Daniel,

It’s been a year since we called it quits. Or more specifically, a year since I called it quits. How incredibly weird is it that my first love is someone that I met online? The texts, messages, the late night conversations were something special weren’t they? You were something special. It was so perfect at the start. All of it. The nightly phone calls until we both fell asleep, the good morning texts, everything, was so perfect. Until eventually, it wasn’t anymore.

I’ve written you so many letters before but honestly, I don’t know where they went. I probably threw them all away in hopes that it would help me forget about you, but it clearly hasn’t. Because a year later, the sound and even the whisper of your name is strong enough to break my heart all over again. Do you still remember when you asked me to be yours? How nervous you sounded and how deep you were breathing? You were so nervous it was almost comical. From that day on, I poured every inch of my heart out to you. You knew everything about me; my quirks, my fears, my traumas… You knew everything.

I’m not writing this letter to try and call you out on your shittiness or to make you feel bad. I’m writing this letter because I finally want to move on from you, which is damn near impossible. This is me trying to repair myself and the damage you left, this is me trying to fill the wounds and close up the cuts. This is me finally coming to accept the terms that I need to move on from what we had. I don’t regret anything that we did together. You made me want to wake up in the morning and completely love life. You were the main reason I woke up smiling every day, it was all you. And for that, I thank you… Because you made me the happiest I had been in so long… And then I lost you.

Even though I was the one that broke up with you, I still lost you. No, we both lost each other. I lost the one I thought I was going to love for a very long time and you lost the one who gave everything she had for you. I’ve tried so hard to convince myself that you were the one that lost something special, but in the end, we both lost. We both lost something that was great.

I lost someone that I loved. I lost the nightly phone calls, I lost the piano serenades, I lost the stupid jokes you always made and I lost the most beautiful green eyes I had ever seen. I loved you Daniel, I loved you so fucking much. But soon enough, I also lost the self-hate and doubt that came with loving you. Even though breaking up with you was the hardest thing I had ever done, I had to do it. Because even though you made me so happy, the sadness that came with being with you was greater. I was sick of questioning if I was good enough to be with you, I was sick of trying to be so goddamn perfect for you, I was sick of trying to steal your attention from other things.

The broken promises you made, the stupid excuses, the lies and the hurtful words… it was too much. I couldn’t do it anymore. Did you know how painful it was to be the least of your priorities? To be the last to know everything? To always be the last choice? Your inconsistency in loving me made me believe that you didn’t care anymore. If your definition of love was to hurt someone the way that you hurt me then I don’t think you’re ever ready to love anyone.

I’m not going to lie. I would still break every bone in my body for you, I would still tear myself apart limb from limb for you. But now I need to learn how to stop. I need to learn how to go on with my days without you always lingering in the back of my mind. This letter is one stop closer to moving on from you. I loved you Daniel, heck, I still love you. But the pain of loving has to go away and stop somehow. Now I know that the best for me- doesn’t include you.