Thank you.
No, seriously. Thank you for everything. Thank you for hurting me, and thank you for breaking me. With all of my heart, thank you for walking away. You taught me that love isn’t real. Love is only real in fairytales, and fairytales are only meant for children.
Like a child, I fell for your games. I thought it was normal to be unhappy and fighting all the time. I got used to the constant crying, and I got used to feeling useless. You all taught me a valuable lesson in trust: trust no one. People could not be trusted, and they absolutely could not be trusted with anything as important as my own heart.
Thank you for everything that you did because it all led me to the one I am supposed to be with. He came when I least expected it, and he certainly was not someone I really saw myself with. We were already friends, had been for a few years, and the transition from friends to boyfriend/girlfriend was frighteningly easy. We are now in a happy relationship of nearly three and a half years, and I can safely say that my boyfriend is my best friend. Every second I spend with him feels right, and every second we spend apart is REAL heartbreak. Things are not always perfect between us; we fight like any couple. But at the end of the day, it’s a real relationship based in real love. He has shown me devotion, loyalty, faithfulness, and everything else required in a relationship. And he does this every second of every day.
I can be a real unlovable mess sometimes. I’m not perfect, and I likely never will be. But what I know now, that I wish I had known before, is that I deserve someone who will know all that about me and still look at me with love in their eyes.
So, to all the boys I’ve loved before: I now know that what we had wasn’t real, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Because everything we had led me to him.
Thank you for leaving so that he could teach me what love really is.
Boys, thank you for leading me to my man.