Why You Shouldn’t Forgive Him, But Always Will

The days of passion, intimacy, and anger are now nonexistent between us, and although we thought it would never be possible, the breath of fresh air we took away from one another left us as friends.

I don’t plan on asking you to hang out, nor would I call you to catch up, but I would be there if you ever needed anything, and I hope I could expect the favour to be returned.

You put me through the hardest days of my life thus far at a very young age, and because of this, my family and the majority of my friends will never forgive you.

Yet I do.

And it is not due to my mother’s lack of trying to pollute my mind with how horrible of a person you are; it is because I know how great of a person you were, and despite everything, how you always will be.

They say that when the bad outweighs the good in a relationship, it is time for it to end, and at the time, that’s why ours did.

Looking back on our honest and innocent relationship, there were many mistakes made by both of us; however, there were tremendous amounts of good.

My family can only recall the times you walked over to my house randomly with flowers, only to be overcome by the memories of the days I spent crying in bed at 4 a.m. on school nights.

They were not there for the times I cried to you about rumours spreading about my intoxicated behaviour at the party the night prior, and you were able to get me laughing 20 minutes later, or about the love letters you used to write me that can still make me smile today.

My mom tells me that in the grand scheme of life, you will be insignificant; I will grow to forget your name and the pain you put me through.

I disagree.

I think I will be 48 and look back to the day you brought me a cinnamon bun after work and catch myself smiling in nostalgia.

My gut tells me that when my heart breaks in the future, I will survive, as I will always remember the days spent crying in my room when I found out about you and her and how I thought the pain would never subside, and then, just like that, after many tears and reflection time, the pain did subside. I was able to exhale. I will always be grateful for the strength you ignited in me, a strength that I may have never known if not for our love.

Our relationship consisted of many firsts for both of us, followed by many lasts.

I look forward to meeting someone in the future that I will love more deeply than I loved you and using things that I learned from our relationship to better my future ones.

I will never love you the way I loved you; the pure innocence will never be there again, but I am okay with that.

The years we were together taught me so much about compromise, love, life, frustration, and putting someone before yourself.

Our break-up taught me about honesty and the lack of it, feeling so low that nothing mattered, and then how to pick myself up and out of that pain.

I do not thank you for what you put me through, but I do thank you for the lessons I learned from our experience together.

But mostly, I thank you for introducing me to the person I have become.

So I do forgive you for all of it.