Dear Stephen:

“I didn’t make the girl I loved feel loved and wanted. I didn’t expose myself because I was afraid I wouldn’t be good enough.”

I find that regret is the most paralyzing emotion – and something that we wrestle with, particularly when it comes to relationships in which we feel we ruined, when the other person does not want to give you a second chance, when you are still left wondering everyday that they must think of you as often as you think of them.

A year ago on May 9th, I lost the love of my life forever. Nearly a year later – it somehow plays in my head as if it happened yesterday. I watched him slam the door on our apartment, and I knew I had been painted in a corner. My own anxiety and depression led me to keep things inside, secrets, and slowly a wall was built in between us so thick that we could no longer see each other. My own anxiety and need for reassurance or praise clouded my head so badly that I could not even notice that he saw right though me. And anytime he tried to get me to open up, I would convince myself that he was the enemy. We were no longer a team working together – we had become opponents working against each other.

No matter what, I thought that we would find a way through the darkness. Our love was unconditional, in many ways, and we had been together for so long that I always felt no matter how dark things got for me, he would be there.

But once he walked out that door on May 9th, he never looked back.

I am still, in many ways, struggling with the end of this relationship. I go into periods of self-loathing. I could have eaten more so he didn’t have to sleep next to a frail girl with her bones nearly coming out of her skin. I could have spent that 4th of July with the persona who loved me instead of getting on a bus to a concert by myself. I could have made him feel like #1 more often. But the truth is, I was so focused on my distorted self-image that i was blinded to the fact that I was pulling away, physically and emotionally.

Although I struggle, I have learned (through ebbs and flows) that the universe has a way of showing you what rock bottom really looks like – when you are truly alone and forced to face yourself – in order to demonstrate that you are capable of picking yourself up again. It’s nearly impossible to see through the fog now, I know that all too well. But I promise you that this too shall pass. New opportunities will open up, and a new love will come into your life. And you will make it your life mission to rectify the mistakes you feel that you have made by doing what’s right for you, step by step, day by day.

Steve refused to talk to me after the day he left – it was almost as if he was fed up with me. I wonder how he was never able to look back when I ruminate over the whole thing. But what I do promise myself is that I will never take anyone for granted again, I will move ahead and fix everything I did wrong to Steve by doing everything right with those that are with me. And the next person who loves me like he did will never have to experience the pain that he did, because I will only act with love and compassion.

Endings in life are the world’s way of showing you that all positive change is proceeded by chaos. One day, you will see. I promise.