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A post shared by annie miteva (@_minimalista) on Feb 5, 2017 at 8:34pm PST

I love you.

Let me start there. Even as I type those words, a small part of me whispers, “It isn’t enough.”

I believe this is the longest we have gone without speaking in eight years. Every time something happens, I instinctively reach for my phone and want to share it with you. Believe me, my heart hurts as much as yours.

I know you well enough to know that you are sitting and stewing. If stewing were an Olympic sport, we’d have won the gold. Like you, I have sat and analyzed every single thing we said to each other in our last conversation.

Could I have handled it better? Could I have been a better person? Did I deserve to be treated that way?

My questions mirror yours, my once friend.

I’ve come to realize, as I’ve released myself from anger, that these aren’t the right questions. In fact, there is only one that really matters: when did we become toxic for each other? 

We lost each other long before our fight, long before we decided to call it quits. I want to believe it’s because we took different life paths, but we both know it runs much deeper than that.

We spoke of 2020 being the year of tremendous change. We spoke of it like we would have a place in each other’s lives. We were consciously oblivious to the fact that we had both become enablers. We were right though—2020 is that year. We just didn’t comprehend that what was involved was us losing each other.

We were bound to break because we were both bending against our core values in order to keep each other. The simple, now glaring truth is that as we have grown—we have grown in completely different directions. What would have once drawn us closer together has now torn us apart, and I can’t help but feel that it’s meant to be this way.

I know there is a small part of you that feels the relief that I do. There’s no reason to feel guilty about it. My friend, we missed the signs (and you know how we love the signs). We saw them in everything, so how could we have been so blind when it came to each other?

We should have let go a long time ago. Maybe if we had, our last words to each other could have been spoken in kindness.

I have shared some of the best memories of my life with you, and I will look back on each one of them with the fondness they deserve, as I know you will. 

Beau Taplin wrote, “Sunsets are proof that endings can be beautiful too.” As the sun has set on us, I want to carry the beauty we brought to each other’s lives within me.

I want to reassure you that your vulnerability is still safe with me. Each secret shared, each fear expressed, each doubt spoken, will remain with me. I would never dishonor the love we shared. It feels insincere to say I wish the very best for you, but I do. I want you to succeed in all the ways your heart desires, and most importantly, I want you to love yourself ferociously.

Strangely, I feel a knowing, from both of us; all things in its right time.

I love you. Let me end there.