30 Days Of Letters - To A Former Romantic Involvement

When I read the first of Essin' Em's 30 Days Of Letters (Done before her by other bloggers whom I keep intending to read in length), I was intrigued. And now I'm giving it a go myself.

Who to address this to is a hard decision, for I am torn between former loves, former partners, former crushes. I have many of them, after all.

But I’ve chosen two, rather than one - the one that I hurt the most, and the one that hurt me the second most. The one that hurt me the most does not deserve a letter. He’s not worth it.

Dear M,

I am sorry. I never should have dated you in the first place, and that is not a reflection on you, but on me. When we met, and when we started dating, I was very hung up on my first love. And I think you knew that; in fact, you most certainly know that from the drawings I did months after we broke up of him and I. I was looking for a replacement when I should have been focusing purely on getting over him. You didn’t deserve to be the replacement, especially as you were in no way like him. No, you were sweet, and tried so hard to make me happy.

I saw that, and didn’t care. To me, at the time, no matter how much I denied it back then, you were an ego boost. I used you harshly, and I regret it greatly.

I cheated on you twice. Once with him, once with someone else. I never told you this. I never will.

You were jealous of the wrong guy though; you loathed my best friend, who wouldn’t have stolen me from you, but disliked Hunter, having watched me chase him playfully around the pool at city hall. I’m sure you knew even then that I still loved him, but we both were hanging on by our fingernails to the idea that we would last.

I broke up with you by email. I’d like to think I would have done it in person if at all possible, but I wouldn’t have. At the time, I hadn’t the ovaries to watch someones heart fold in upon itself. I knew you were depressed, and I beat myself up over the fear that it would push you over the edge, but I also knew I did not deserve you.

In due time, we became friends again. I began to view you as a younger brother, and grew protective of you, knowing how fragile you were emotionally. When the girl you lost your virginity to subsequently broke your heart, I loathed her. I still do. She too knew you were emotionally fragile, but she didn’t care. She also used you. Perhaps I am a hypocrite to hate her for that, but by that point I was with Steven and you thought we were an excellent fit, over a year had passed since I had broken your heart.

I have only seen you online once in the past year and a half now. I miss you painfully, and wish I could talk to you. I wish I could send you this without completely breaking you, but I fear it would.

I’ll always consider you my younger brother. I hope you’re doing well. I hope you still think of me at times and remember me fondly.


Dear R,

We dated for three and a half days. Not five, as you insist. I still slightly resent the fact that, during that time, when I was so hammered that I was violently vomiting, a friend of Hunters held my hair and rubbed my back and not you.

You told a lot of lies and accused my friends and I of a lot of lies back in the day. Our friendship post-dating was very off-and-on, usually due to your deciding that we were idiots, or that we weren’t trying hard enough for you.

Like M, in due time we became friends again, and you came to be like an older brother. You approved of Steven, and was protective of me as I was of M. I adored you. I needed you. You knew how to make me smile, and gave great hugs, and DMed my first D&D game. You got Steven a job, and were all-around great.

Then when my life was too full of work, illness, and a serious descent into depression, you decided that we weren’t making enough effort to be friends. And I was without a brother again. I resented you much for it. I still do at times.

Like M, I miss you painfully. I don’t know if we’ll ever be friends again. At times, I think of how much of an asshole you could be, and feel seething hatred, and at times I remember the good times and cry for having an older brother again. I want to talk to you, but I hate the idea of trying to be friends again only to have you desert it again. I can’t take much more hurt in my life.

Perhaps some day we will meet when we’ve both stopped expecting so much of people.