I could not find myself able to sit down and write this article. I kept shaking my head and thinking to myself, "Why have I not written about it yet?" I usually write my reactions to the world in the notes app on my phone. Typing this on my phone seemed like a senseless act, not the declaration of the truth. So here I am, sipping my coffee at a disgustingly trendy coffee shop, scribbling down words rapidly on a piece of wax paper used for wrapping my bagel. No matter how many times I replay the last few days over and over in my head, I find it hard to believe that we are no longer together. It feels like this couldn't possibly be the end. Maybe it has not been the fear of the truth, but fear of accepting that I am no longer in control of what happens from here on out. In my head, I keep romanticizing "the end" rather than accepting it for what it really is. I guess I've been scared to close the door that once led me to you.

I know you won't mind me writing about this because I really have nothing bad to say about you. I have no resentment towards you, and I have not and refuse to call you anything that I wouldn't say to your face. I respect you and the time we spent together far too much to be childish. I made that mistake in the past, hiding behind a computer screen writing poems and letters driven by bitterness rather than accepting the reality, and my part in it. The reality of this is that we were far too young to have the type of love that we did, and we both lost ourselves in the process. Our relationship was illusively perfect with damage brewing under the surface after a year of long distance. Even if this hadn't blown up in our faces when I came home, I don't think we would have ended up happy. How can two people unhappy with themselves expect to find happiness in another broken human?

Instead of working on myself for the last almost-two years, I came into this expecting to fix you. I wanted to take away the troubles you had been handed, even though you had never asked me to. Even if this was all a subconscious goal of mine, it was there, pushing me to fall deeper into the relationship, and trying to take away more and more of your pain. Regardless of the arguments we shared and some of the painful words, phrases, and comments that were thrown at me, most of the pain was inflicted upon myself. I didn't see how much damage I was doing to myself by trying to solve all of your troubles instead of my own. I should have been motivated by my own needs and decisions, not yours. I questioned how much you really loved me until now. By doing this, I finally know that you truly loved me. By letting me free, you're giving me the freedom to figure out who I really am. I remember you asking me this past spring what I even did for fun anymore, and I came up dry with no answers. I don't even know who I am. Finding myself has always been a goal on the back burner behind finding success, and then by trying to fix you.

It has taken me an extremely long time to realize that my place in the universe is already inside of me. Maybe it is because of what happened this week, or maybe it's a thought that has been brewing inside of me for a few months now and I just refused to believe it. I cannot control those around me, no matter how desperately I want to help "fix" them. They must find that their place in the universe is, too, already inside of them. Closing doors may be scary, especially when they've been open for so long. But by closing them, you may just be opening new ones, too.