Dear stranger,
Hey, I miss talking to you 24/7. I miss our stupid debates about cats vs. dogs and the best superheroes, which you never even had a chance of winning, but your effort was appreciated. I strangely remember everything about our “relationship.” I put that in quotes because we acted like we were dating. I even had to pinch myself sometimes to remind myself that it wasn’t going to last. The cute text messages, the times when your car would pull up on my driveway and my heart would skip a beat, or when you would look back at me and smile when we were with your friends… I miss those times.
I know you said it would be hard to keep in touch when we went our separate ways for college. I hoped it wouldn’t be. Even the days leading up to it I thought you would change your mind. I hoped you would change your mind because you knew I’d be willing to give it a shot in a second.
My friends now are doing the long distance thing – the thing that we thought would be the most awful thing possible. They are doing it and getting through it and from the outside looking in, it doesn’t seem so difficult. So I ask you, stranger, why? Why couldn’t you commit to me? Why couldn’t we just give it a shot? What would be the worst thing that could happen? I bet it wouldn’t be as worse as never knowing where the path would lead, where we might have been now and where we would have ended up.
It’s been three months since we have spoken last. I unfortunately think of you sometimes, and it makes me mad because as much as I don’t want to, I still do. I think of you when my best friends talk to their boyfriends for hours on the phone while I’m watching Grey’s Anatomy. I think of you when your favorite band played at a party, and I go back to that time when your awful singing voice came out on our third date right before you dropped me off.
But here’s the thing… all the times I have thought of you I have been lonely. So doesn’t that say something? I know what it means, it means that there have been times where I haven’t thought of you for days and there have been times where I can’t stop thinking about you. But nothing you do controls that… it’s all me.
Home will be hard, seeing you in the grocery store, or at half-off apps will be harder. I don’t want to have that awkward, “How are you? How’s school?” conversation. I know it’s going to happen, but I guess it’s just a part of life. Missing people, hating people, yet not wanting to let them go at the same time.
I want to say thank you. Thank you, thank you for giving me an unforgettable time in my life that I will always remember. Thank you for being the smarter and wiser of the two of us and deciding that this was our time and that would be it. Even though in the moment I didn’t want it to be over, and I always knew you didn’t want it to be either. I appreciate you more now that you did. You gave me a chance to learn who I am and what I want by being on my own. And in conclusion, I have realized I wanted you to say those words, but now I know eventually someone else will.
Love always,
The girl that got away
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