I had to stop loving your potential

My healing has not been linear.
My letters reflect that truth.

Some days I miss you.
Some days I miss us.
And some days, like today, I realize I’ve been grieving a man who only exists in my head.

That realization hurts differently.

Because the hardest part was never accepting that we changed.

It was accepting that I kept loving you according to who you could be, while repeatedly being shown who you actually are.

I kept searching for a tender embrace underneath your anger.

Searching for love underneath the contempt.

Searching for the man I remembered inside the man standing in front of me.

And eventually, you have to stop calling that hope.

Sometimes it’s denial.

Your anger toward me has become louder than whatever love remains, and I’m finally listening. I hear it loud and clear.

Not because I hate you.

Because I love myself enough to stop translating cruelty into pain, pain into love, and love into another reason to stay.

I blocked you because access to me is not a birthright.

You do not get unlimited opportunities to disturb my peace simply because I once loved you deeply.

I will not hand you the pen and let your anger write my story.

I know who I am.

I am not every ugly thing I have ever said in anger.

I am not every mistake I made while hurting.

I am not the villain in someone else’s version of events simply because accountability makes them uncomfortable.

I am human.

I have apologized.
I have reflected.
I have changed.

And I refuse to spend the rest of my life auditioning for forgiveness from someone committed to misunderstanding me.

I refuse to drown in hurt wishing to be seen in my true light.

I am a good woman.

Maybe I wasn’t the woman for you.

Maybe you weren’t the man for me.

Maybe two people can love each other and still bring out wounds neither one knows how to stop touching.

But I know this much…

I will own myself before I ever allow another person to own my identity.

I will own my shortcomings, before I allow another person make them define me.

I will walk away with my heart still soft.

I will show myself grace.

I will grieve what was real.
I will mourn what I imagined.
And I will stop confusing the two.

The world has not hardened me.

That might be my favorite thing about myself after all of this.

I can still love.
I can still hope.
I can still believe there is something gentle waiting for me on the other side of letting go.

Maybe one day you’ll find that gentleness too.

But it won’t be my job to get you there.

So yes, I’ll keep writing these letters.

Not because I’m waiting for you to read them.

Not because I secretly hope one finally tugs at your heartstrings and softens you.

I write because my healing requires somewhere to put the words.

And today, the words are simple:

I loved you.

I wanted you.

I wanted the version of us I kept trying to resurrect.

But I want myself more.
I want my self respect and dignity intact.

So this time, when I disappear from your life, understand this …

I am not asking you to come find me.

I am finally finding myself.

I don’t need you to be my home. Home is within me.

-V