Maroe… 

I would use your given name, but that girl faded away. Maroe was the girl I ended up knowing. 

I don’t know how to process pain this severe. For two years, we were building a life together. Planning out future, a family, overcoming pitfalls, learning and growing together. I thought the world of you, and eventually loved you very deeply. Just as I do now. I was SURE I would marry you one day. 

When things took a downturn, we fought. Argued, and more and more issues accumulated. I feel awful for the way this ended. Ultimately, I chose to leave because time after time, I was left feeling like I was invisible to you. Unheard, unloved, and unsure. 

Listening to someone and hearing them are not the same thing, they are both skills that must be consciously practiced. After all that time I begged you and begged you to HEAR me, but you never did. So many small arguments turned into resentment, and all you had to do was sit there and pay attention to me for 5 min and listen to HEAR, not just respond. We never got anywhere… 

You changed on me, unexpectedly, and I don’t understand why you weren’t aware of that, but you forced me into your box, your way of thinking. I heard you. I listened attentively to every thing you said to me. I feel like you selfishly loved me. You loved the illusion of a family and a idea of being included, but we’re woefully uninterested in putting in the legwork to actually become part of the family. 

I am so angry. So hurt. So resentful. So bummed. I’ll never forget the first time I saw your face. We played chess by the fire and just talked in the January cold. I was mesmerized by your beauty and your intellect. If I had a chance to go back to any moment in my life and relive it, exactly as it was, without being able to change anything, it would be that evening. That was the be first time I was hopeful and optimistic in quite some time. It brings tears to my eyes now…

Things ended so badly. I don’t know what happened to make you stop caring enough to listen, but it was when you became Maroe. The girl I met before dissipated like a mirage and the person that remained was totally different. She had different morals, different ideals, and was much more abrasive. 

I miss the girl i knew. I’ll never know which was the real one, and which was the phony. I wish we could have worked it out, and I wish you understood. 

It will take many years for these wounds to scar over. Likely never will they fully heal. 

I love you, Jess. 

Regardless of what happened, I will always love you until the day I die. I’m so sorry I couldn’t be a better man. 

From the first Meow. 

Xoxo 
– Taylor