I am sorry for everything.

I am sorry for the ways I acted that caused our relationship to fall apart. I am sorry for how things ended, and the part I played in that.

I am sorry I couldn’t communicate with you better. I have these stupid walls up and they made me run away at any sign of danger.

I am sorry that you had to deal with a version of me who hadn’t yet dealt with her sh*t. A me who was still holding on to hurt from the past and let that crawl its way into our relationship.

I am sorry I didn’t listen to you. Like really listen. When you told me things that explained why you were the way you were. When you tried to tell me my interpretation of events wasn’t in line with your intent. I should have listened. When you told me I was the only one you wanted to be with. I didn’t listen.

I wanted to believe you were the bad guy. Because it was easier to be angry and play the victim than it was to be understanding and sympathetic.

I am sorry for not letting go of our arguments long after they’d been resolved. And I am sorry for only looking at evidence that proved me right, instead of looking at all in front of me that proved me wrong.

I am sorry for every hurtful thing I said to you when drunk. I am sorry for all the things I didn’t know how to say when I was sober.

I am sorry for not believing you when you told me how much you loved me. For the moments I cringed and turned away when you tried to tell me how beautiful and wonderful you thought I was. For the ways I let my own insecurities command my thoughts and tell me how you must really feel about me.

I am sorry I spent so much time stuck inside my own head. How much time I spent living in the past and anxious over the future.

I am sorry I didn’t spend enough time soaking up our time together. I am sorry I wasted those moments we could have spent building wonderful memories instead.

I am sorry I didn’t realize something was wrong earlier. I am sorry that, despite all of this, I kept holding on to something I wanted us so badly to be, but I now know we never could have been.

I am sorry I wasn’t able to let go sooner. I am sorry for all the unnecessary pain I caused us both because of that.

I am sorry for not being the me I know I am capable of being. I am sorry I let 25 years go by without really understanding myself. I am sorry that I put so much pressure on you—on us—on a relationship to fill the parts of me that needed a different kind of love and attention.

I am sorry I didn’t go within and do the work I should have on myself. I am sorry that I didn’t know who I was when I met you, and I should have spent more of our time together figuring me out.

I am sorry I didn’t know what love should and shouldn’t look like. That I had a big hole in me I desperately needed to fix. I am sorry that we didn’t meet five, ten years from now, because I know there is a much better person—a more me version—within.

Or maybe I am not sorry for all of this. Because maybe these were lessons I needed to learn. And you came into my life to reflect back to me everything that I hadn’t yet worked through, the things that I was still missing.

I am sorry if that was selfish. I hope that I, too, gave you things you didn’t yet know you needed.

~