I have been wanting to write this to you for so long but have never found the courage to before. It took me a long time to get over you and to put you in my past but I can finally say that I am happy now. I want this to put a closure to our past together, which I have wanted to do for years. So here it goes:

Dear Ex,

We met in the beginning of high school, you were my first kiss, first boyfriend, and first love. We had always believed that somehow, we would manage to spend forever together. I guess at 15 we didn't know the true meaning of love or what it took to be someone's "forever." That explains why we spent the rest of our high school journey off and on as boyfriend and girlfriend. In the end, our love for each other ended up differently than we had expected. However, what girl or boy doesn't fall in love with their high school sweetheart while also sharing their hardest goodbye together?

It has been more than a few years since our falling out. We are both in college now, doing what we had always dreamed of (but without each other by our side). Every now and then I come across a picture of us in my computer files or a note that you put your entire heart into, deep inside my closet. Each time I come across another memory with you, I have no choice but to throw it into the trash because our lives no longer include one another.

With that said, I know that we have both moved on and found new hope in new love. As for me, I have found "my person" that I know may very well be my forever. When I found love with whom I share with today, you knew you were starting to lose me (and I wouldn’t be coming back to you again). You shared a movie title with me around this time that I would soon realize was about us. The plot revolved around two adults, who were high school sweethearts years prior. The woman was engaged and the man was single, chasing his baseball career. Long story short, the couple found each other again and spent their forever together. This confused me, because it was your way of telling me that we would find each other again in the future. Even then, I knew that as much as this fairy tale seemed true in the movie, it wasn’t in reality. The year that followed was our senior year, a time of excitement. We passed each other in the halls more than I was comfortable with, as I was newly committed to another man. However, this transition from you to another man helped me find myself in some of the oddest ways. It shined a light on our past, putting our fights, tears, and you cheating under a spotlight. It made me realize that our love we once shared was less than forever. I believe that God put you in my life for a reason and that he let us fall apart so that we could find the true meaning of love in someone else. Yet, I ask myself why He would put someone like you in my life, causing me to fall head over heels with you just so that you could break my heart into a million pieces.

Rewind to our past and you will not find a fairy tale love story. We bickered and fought like it was our superpower. However, if you glanced at us in our good moments, you wouldn’t believe this to be true. When you looked at me, you looked at me like a queen. When you kissed me, it felt so real. When you held my hand and told me that you were sorry, I knew that it was love. But behind closed doors, you were talking to several women. You were making other girls feel the same way. At least that is what I had thought. You put me through depression, starvation, bullying and so much more. Everyone looked at me like a joke, because I was that girl who stayed with the cheater. Your friends would call out my name throughout the halls even when we were on our breaks. Other guys asked for my attention, but I always ran back to you. Why did I put myself through so much drama and heartbreak? Well, I guess we were both to blame for this. I ran to you and you let me, at least until the final breaking point. It was our junior year prom, just weeks prior when you left me for good. You cried and I cried, but we both knew this was the last time. I guess that is when I also hit my breaking point.

Today, I can look at this moment differently. You did do what was best for us, which was leaving me. You told me, “You deserve better than this,” and I did. So I guess you were right to leave me, but that doesn’t make everything else you did right. But then again, we were both young teenagers, trying to get over one another. In the end, we did share a lot of happy memories together and I am thankful to have had you in my life, aside from the trauma you put me through. Like I said before, God put you in my life as a bridge to a new life. I needed you to show me what love was like with you so that I could find the love I wanted so dearly in someone new. There is no point in putting you under the spot for everything you did wrong to me, because you did show me so many other things. You were my best friend, and sometimes I wish that our friendship didn’t have to go waste because of our relationship, but not everything can last forever. I wish you the best in everything you do and I hope that you achieve all of your goals in life. Thank you for the few years that we shared together; as much as it may have sucked, at least we made it out okay.

I am beyond happy and it is the love that I deserve. Sometimes, I wish that I could have closure with you, since we never had that. So I guess this is me closing this chapter with you. I also hope that this letter finds you in some way or another. Will I ever hear back from you again, just to see where you are now? This letter is my way of saying goodbye for good. I know you are my ex, but a final goodbye is just what I need to close this chapter of my life with you (as dusty as it is). The dark path sometimes leads us to the shining light which I have finally found. Our relationship was that path and now we are both with someone new, deep within the bright light in separate lives, which is exactly what God had always planned for us.

Yours truly,

Your First Love and Now Ex