Leaving On A Jet Plane...

Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that is where I renew my springs that never dry up. 

-Pearl S. Buck

I will consider this to be nothing more than an open letter to every guy who has been a part of my life and ruined it - for the better.  A burning ceremony to cleanse my future, if you will.

All the things that I need that I've never gotten from you but could have if you would listen.  I couldn't have predicted you if I tried.  You were the one that I didn't see coming, and then before long you were the one that I couldn't imagine leaving.  And then you left.

I'm laughing louder now.  I'm smiling brighter and if it's the last thing I do, I swear I'll find something better than what we had.

That's not to say that your memory won't knock the breath out of me on a Thursday afternoon when our song comes through the car speakers.  I'll fight the urge to vomit when I hear someone say my name the same way you did.   That's not to say that I won't want to scream and break everything within reach at the memory of every lie I ever caught you in and how I want to invent a time machine for the sole purpose of going back and punching myself in the face for believing you anyway.  But the difference between then and now is that I recognize the pain in those memories.  I've packed them in a suitcase and put them down and walked away.  I'm done carrying them with me and I'm done giving you that power over me. 

I didn't do anything to deserve what happened, there are no amends to make on my part.  I am the one who always breaks and I am done bending over backwards to get love and approval.  Your love is staring at a big black hole and hoping you will love me is as endless as the magical vortex that the idealism of Santa and the Easter Bunny being real reside in. 

I wasn't what you wanted. I get it.  I kept hoping and staring and waiting because I didn't at the time.  Only to look back and realize that I'm in the same place I started in.  It makes me want to vomit all over your existence the same way that you've desecrated mine.

I don't know if you'll ever read this.  It's not for you anyway.  It's for me.  I'll read this on those nights when I'm alone and I feel like everything is falling apart.  I'll read this to remind myself of the promises that I'm making to myself at this very moment, to look forward and to stop letting the memory of how you mind fucked me into making me feel dictate my happiness.  This is me turning a page in the chapter of my story.  You don't win this round.