Letting Go

#lemon8diarychallenge

Vulnerability

🤍 My Story:

•my first love in my life•

Freshman year I applied to a small dual credit high school. I was excepted and planned to graduate early. I was in the midst of healing from trauma and my near death experience. I was in therapy and nervous for this year’s outcome. I wanted to forget what happened and I became somewhat aloof and tried being someone I wasn’t. I felt fake some days and empty in other days. I didn’t know my identity. But I knew I wasn’t a bad person. This was also during covid so I was isolated even more than my mind. I decided on second semester to attend in person class. I saw a girl. She was everything I wasn’t. She is beautiful. I was never envious of her. But I would always wonder when I would gather the courage to say hi to her. We all had our masks on but I knew I wanted to see her smile. One day, during a bathroom break, I saw her waiting outside. No one was there except us. I side stepped as she also stepped in my path. I giggled and finally said hi sheepishly with my head drawn down. I walked away thinking how dumb I sounded. But I was happy. We finally started talking after we were introduced through a mutual. We hit it off. I was told later on by her that I was shy but bold at the same time. I loved it. The rest of the semester we talked all the way to and through the summer. We stayed up on call every night. Until sophomore year came. We obviously knew we had feelings for each other. I agreed and we confessed over phone at 2 am in bed. I told her right after to not ask me out. At least not now. I was still in therapy and wanted to be better. For me. For her. New years comes around in sophomore year and I told her the night before, “be read for my call at 2 am”. I had given her a letter before school break and told her to open it at 2, New Year’s Day after the count down. A letter professing my admiration, love, and ready for commitment to her. She said yes. I was so happy. We spent every time together. My firsts were all with her, besides my first kiss unfortunately. Every moment felt like my soul was tied to hers. My heart tugged and my chest felt warm and fuzzy. I imagined us together growing older even. We had out meaningless fights. We grew past it and had even better communication. Until one day at a friend’s party we had an ugly fight. It was her first time being invited to one. We argued and I was angry, hurt. Until she said something I wasn’t ready for. “I’m not good for you, I think we shouldn’t continue this.” I went to the party and saw her. She looked at me and looked sad. We walked outside and talked. She agreed it didn’t feel right and to stay together. We had great times together going through sophomore year, junior year even. But our life responsibilities grew as well. Every school is visited by military personnel to encourage some kids to enlist. I thought of my immigrant mother and the pay check they would give me. We needed the money. I talked about it with her. She inevitably was mad I didn’t give her enough time to think about it. We decided to live up the moments I had left in Texas with her. The day for me to leave kept approaching quicker than I could count. And then it arrived. It was a chapter in my life that was equally ugly to compare to my other ones. I decided it wasn’t for me. When I came back I had this feeling. This intuition. I finally saw her after months being away. Something was off. More timid. I asked her, thinking to myself ‘no I’m being dramatic’, I’d ask again almost every week, “Please, tell me honestly, did you do something to betray me? Please if you did I won’t be mad.” I would even apologize after for how stupid it was to ask bc she’d respond, “No I would never. On my mother’s life on your life on mine.” We continued and made up for the time I was away, going into Senior year. Mid first semester our fighting and arguments got worse. Our communication as well. I felt at a loss missing what we had. I’d cry and would bring it up thinking it would help. It didn’t. She felt that I was holding on to it and we were growing bc of it. We both agree that we do change as we grow. I accepted it and everything was fine. Every night we’d say our good nights and I love you’s. When I had nightmares of betrayal she’d reassure me. Soothing me. I felt maybe I was traumatized from basic training. Until a certain day came. I don’t know why I woke up with a nasty feeling that morning. We were in different classes but I had asked her to come to my class. She did. She seemed normal as usual. She asked me what was wrong. I said nothing and we talked about whatever. Unexpected to myself, I asked for her phone. I was drawn to open Instagram. And an account I hadn’t seen before was logged in. I asked her what it was and she snatched it from me. We stared at each other for a long period of time. My breathing grew ragged. Tear I didn’t feel spilled out. My body began to shake uncontrollably. My mind felt like it was on fire. A tightness grew in my heart. My chest. It felt like I ran a mile in a cold blizzard. My mind started going a mile a minute thinking of everything it could’ve been. It was the worst pain I’d ever felt. Even with my near death experience I had never felt this type of pain. This was worse. Nearly three years of our relationship and I felt the most amazing feelings to the most brutal of all in under a minute. Every sweet whisper, profession of love, every single night….she’d betrayed me. She never showed me what was on there. She’d deleted the account. All claims by her. I never got closure to what it actually was. The ironic thing of it was that I had to take her word for it. After her reassuring me every night since I had been back from a brutal place. I cried and cried and cried. My family didn’t know what was wrong. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t stop shaking for weeks. The memory is engraved into my heart and brain. We talked about it after I had felt numb enough to talk to her. My eyes grew dry and my heart was heavy. She professed her regrets. Until one day I grew so much hatred and told her everything I had stopped myself from doing. Because I was always the bigger person in our arguments. We cried. We stayed together, but I would ask for breaks from her frequently. We agree without speaking of it to move on and see if we can just move on. The “ultimate love story”. We are now graduated. I’m working two jobs now. I barely have days off. But recently I planned to go on a date with her. She ended up not being able to for her family was going to visit another family for dinner. She is friends with that family who live in the city. She ended up bailing out on our planned sleepover to only sleepover at their house. Ok I get it. The next day she stays in that city and doesn’t even consider to tell me. She then goes out and still doesn’t tell me. Doing the plans we planned for. She’s done this before. And still did it. After arguments over it. I felt the stages of denial.

🤍 How I Felt:

-unconditional love

-admiration

-understanding

-happiness

-frustration

-betrayal

-pain

-numbness

🤍 My Takeaways:

The reason I am writing this story is to finally come to terms with my first love. To finally let go. To understand that I am better than this. That I deserve better. I write this hoping someone can take away from this and have the courage to let go when it was time to do so. I still haven’t told her. I’ve honestly ghosted her since then. But I plan to tell her face to face. Something she didn’t have the courage to do the first time. I just want to move past this. To become the better version of myself and solely focus on just myself and live this one life. I’m scared and I still cry every night. About what I need to do. Letting go isn’t a beautiful step. The first step into a new era can be ugly. Painful even. But it takes courage either way. True courage. Please…I hope I have the courage again.