A love letter from nyc

[Nov 22,2024] No introduction. No beginning. No end. Just me right here. Right now. Present in all my fucking feelings and the fear that I may never get over you. The fear that every time I think I actually may be moving on, I stumble on the idea of you and everything life could have been had we been together. Right here. In the present. So that the reality and truth of my present didn’t have to feel so gut-wrenchingly empty without you. But I am here, trying to move through this for the hundredth time, feeling like my soul will somehow forever be intertwined with yours, whatever that means. Maybe that’s just me still struggling with letting you go, because we all know that the reason this has been delayed way beyond its so-called expiration date is because I never wanted to believe it could really expire. That we could actually falter. That the red signs were blazingly there. That my heart took and is still taking what feels like an eternity to catch up with my mind. Maybe it never will. Maybe I just don’t want it to. Maybe I have been delaying my own process. I know the facts. I knew them all along but I didn't like them. Fuck I refused to accept them at all costs, so I set out to change the narrative of the story so much so that I began believing my own delusion because I couldn’t ever come to accept that the reality was true- that you were never good from me from day one. But I went for it. Not sure why, but I did. And despite how fucking painful this is, I don’t regret a second of it and if life asked me if I would do it all over again, I would. I would just to get to have experienced you. Because even though everybody strongly believes you aren’t nor were the love of my life, right now I still feel like you will always be the love of my life.

Everything seemed fine for the past few weeks, almost as if I really was consciously moving on, whatever that means. And then I found myself treading the streets of New York City. Crisp chill, the scents of pine decorating the air, the loud sirens and noises reverberating angry tunes, and the sight of every little thing possible that could remind me of you. I missed you and thought about you in everything I did, the minute I realized the last time I navigated this overwhelmingly beautiful city was with you. Summer of 2021. Our first trip together where I was kind of like “hmm I may be truly falling for this guy”. And then we established that I was your girlfriend right after we came back. I’ll never forget how I sat in Central Park with you that day, pondering about my new love endeavor while you obsessively checked your AMC stocks. I vividly remember seeing a dating app notification on your phone that day which I dismissed and then later brought up in passing. You told me I should have addressed it in the moment, and you were right. But why the fuck did you still have dating apps on your phone if according to you, we were exclusive. Nothing made sense from day one and the red flags were literally waving themselves at me but hey I went for it anyways. Fucked up and shaky but somewhere down the line, we fell in love. Fuck. We fell madly, deeply, and obsessively in love. Two wounded souls, still healing, still trying to make sense of life brought together by the universe to potentially help each other heal and grow (at least that’s what I hoped would be the outcome) but instead you broke my heart and soul into a million pieces, and I am still paying the price for my own decision of having stayed and forgiven time after time.

I feel you in everything on this trip. The familiar corners, the long walks, that corner apartment that we both noticed had cool art, the fact that your feet were killing you for some odd reason, the fact that at one point you wanted to go back to the hotel to watch your stupid soccer match and I was like “Hell no. Let's find a bar because who comes to NYC to be trapped in a hotel room?”, our little vintage shopping spree together, the way you kept nudging my leg as I read that book I bought from the cute Brooklyn bookstore, the way every time I looked up, I caught your gaze and we smiled knowing that we both were kinda falling for each other. But here we are today. Here I am pouring my soul at the New York Public Library because I needed to write to let these feelings out because walking in the rain at the Bryant Park Market made me wish we were here together, hand in hand on a romantic winter stroll. But you’re not and I don’t know when the fuck I’ll actually accept that reality and the fact that I made the decision to close this chapter because despite our love, I hated the version of myself when I was with you. I hated the sleepless nights, your avoidance, your lack of accountability, your inconsistency, your blinding ego, your inability to show up, your broken promises, your “I love you’s” that never led to anything, the way emotions and vulnerability terrified you, our long steamy nights of passion, our dumb inside jokes, the music we jammed to together, your cigarettes, your volatility, your lack of appreciation, your laziness, the way we could never keep our hands off each other, the way your eyes would glow with a hundred emotions you never expressed, all the times you whispered “I love you” in my ear and I pretended to be asleep, the “I love you’s” during sex (fuck my eyes teared up with that one), the way you tickled me in the mornings just to be annoying, our ski trips, our adventures, our last minute road trips, your amazing ability to push me away, the way we spoke about a clearly nonexistent future together, the way you joked about wedding venues, the unfulfilled dreams, the life we never got to live together, the children we never had, the vows that were never uttered, just ugh me, you, and this thing once called us.

I started writing this excerpt about a month ago and even though all these emotions still feel visceral and real, I’ve accepted we’re just never going to work out. You fucked it up every single time, but I also allowed it to happen all over again every single damn time thinking and desperately hoping that you actually had changed, that you actually had learned your lesson. A lesson that was never my job to teach. A harsh reality of me trying a little harder each time thinking that was the solution to open your heart to more love, to seeing my fucking worth and value once and for all, but what I didn’t see or simply just refused to see at the time was that for every second In stayed, I devalued myself a little more. And the worst part was that I took your inability to show up and love me like I deserved personally. I took our failure personally. God knows I tried, but I kept trying till my fucking soul gave out. And sometimes we only really truly and fully accept something and let it go when we have no fight left in us. I never wanted this to be our reality but it is, and I have to accept it. I have to accept you. And now as I reflect on this past year, I’ve just come to accept that we are never going to work out. Not that I don’t want us to or didn’t want us to but I’m just tired of waiting for you to change. I don’t want to change you. Your silent withdrawals. Your pettiness. Your unpredictability. That was your love. It was just a fucked up way of loving and I accepted it because I loved you so fucking much that I made it okay to accept that version of love. And because I preferred having you with all the fucked up-ness than not having you at all. But despite the suffering, I have grown. I have healed, and ironically enough you taught me how to fucking worship and adore myself without you in my life. So in honor of this new year and in honor of story, I let you go. I let you go so you go on about life without me. I let you go because I deserve to be loved in every way I need and I’m never settling on a half-ass love again. So thank you, babe. Thank you for treating me like shit. Thank you for everything we experience together, even the shitty moments and the pain. It was all necessary and that final ultimatum I set quite literally saved me from an emotional burnout. Heck I found peace the minute I completely removed you from my life and I think that in itself says a lot. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

This is the courteous definition of our relationship that you never had the balls to give. Done. Bye.