Dear _____,
I'm certain you expect what I'm about to write to be scathing, but somewhere along the way, I quit carrying my hatred for you. We all have baggage to carry, and I dropped yours to carry my own and to help others carry theirs.
Society is hard on young women in so many ways. For the sake of this letter, I'm only going to focus on one. As a female, you frequently have to pick your poison: prude or slut. I tried for a very long time to walk that line, but it's next to impossible to maintain. It's what you have to do if you want to be the "cool girl." Here is where I own my part in this saga. In trying to maintain that balance, I let you fill in the blanks about my past experience. Maybe if I owned my lack of experience and that you took many of my firsts, you wouldn’t have been as critical or flippant with me. Maybe not. I do know that I should have quit riding the rollercoaster that was us a lot sooner.
Here is where I hold you accountable. You should have let me go. I stopped talking to you so many times, but you continually came back to me. I would go six to eight months without you, and then, you would just reappear as I was celebrating my sobriety from you. You posited yourself as a “nice” guy. You called your grandma a “peach”. You cried when your mom told you it should have been us as she watched us talk and laugh for hours. You told me secrets about the other female in this macabre film that I will never write because they are about as far from flattering as I can imagine. I never asked to know any of these things. I didn’t ask to know your mom thought we were meant to be. I definitely didn’t ask to know details regarding your unhappiness with my replacement whenever we didn’t speak.
You once told me a story about how a coworker or boss worried that he married the wrong girl and how you felt certain you would spend the rest of your life doing the same thing. You never knew this part, but I made my choice that day. Why would I ever choose the role of unappreciated wife when I could be the one who got away? I ultimately made the choice for you because my insecurities had started to lessen, and somewhere along the way, I realized women like me don’t ride the bench or act as second round draft picks. I'm not anyone's draft pick actually except my own. Women like me leave everything on the field. We're not a commodity to be drafted, traded, or discarded. We realize we are the faces of our own franchise. One day, I saw our future so clearly. You would care about cars and impressing your friends, and I would resent you for needing to make me feel small so you could feel better about yourself. I do resent you for doing that to me in the past.
You used to compare us to an unstoppable force hitting an immovable object. I was always the force in your analogy. Even now, I wonder why you would want to be the immovable object. It feels like such a mundane and static way to live.
I guess I just grew up and realized the world was so much bigger than our small towns. I experienced far more difficult losses. I found the types of love that would grow with me rather than try to contain me. I found that I contain multitudes.
To be honest, I didn’t write this letter for for the guy who broke my heart. He will never read it, and I’m perfectly okay with the ending I chose for us years ago.
I wrote this letter for anyone who is in a relationship where you are made to feel small. Get out of it.
I wrote it to own up to the fact that it takes two to hurt each other the way we did. I’m sorry for my part in the destruction.
I wrote it for everyone who blames their partner’s’ infidelity on everyone but their partner. I also don’t expect the other female in question to read this post. With that said, there was a month between when I made my choice mentally and when I officially ended it. I didn’t do that for him or myself. I held that door open for a month to give her a chance to run. She didn’t, but she should have because the last time he tried reaching out to me is far more recently than she would guess. He didn’t change. I just became apathetic about taking the bait.
For any females reading this, there is no need to be the “cool girl.” It’s a terrible societal construct that is detrimental to females’ self esteem while enabling boys to be boys.
Regards,
Anonymous
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