Thank you for loving me in my loneliest of times. When I felt like the universe was against me, you were there. You showed me I was important. You showed me my self-worth. When I looked in the mirror I hated what I saw, but you taught me to love it. And I learned to love it because you loved me, so I knew I should love me too. Your opinion mattered to me. Thank you for giving me a chance when other people doubted me, and also when I doubted myself. I didn't know if I would be able to love someone at that point in my life, so I was afraid to be with you. However, you proved me wrong.

You showed me that I could actually love someone much more than I ever thought I could.

I loved you more than I loved myself, in fact.

Thank you for bringing out all of my best qualities. I was genuinely happy for the first time in a long time. My smile was real. My laughs were genuine. And my eyes lit up in a new way when I looked at you. I always loved your eyes. They put everything else in the world to shame. Thank you for looking at me the way no one else ever had before. I could tell, just by seeing you look at me, that you loved me. It wasn't just any type of love, though. There are a lot of people in the world who wish for love, the way you loved me, and I never imagined I would have been lucky enough to experience it.

You were real with me. It's hard finding someone "real" these days because people have sly intentions and underlying meanings in everything they say, but not you. So thank you for being the most honest and loyal person. I always feared giving my full trust to people, but not you. You taught me that it is possible to give your whole heart to someone. The scary thing is, though, once you give away heart, you don't always get it back. It hurts, but as hard as it is to admit, it's usually worth it. Thank you for teaching that to me.

When you give your heart away, the first thing you think about isn't the heartbreak you'll experience if it ends.

You don't think about the things that could go wrong or the things that might ruin the feeling of utmost happiness you experience in the beginning. Having said that, thank you for showing me that relationships will never be the fairy tales we read about and dream of. As much as I wanted it to be, our love was not a fairy-tale. There were small things that grew into big things and they began to break us.

Sadly, we were two different people and it was too much of a difference to work out. You changed later into our relationship and tried to change me too.

Thank you for making me realize that I will never change myself for someone else, despite how strongly I care about them. I liked to be loud, obnoxious, and social. I wanted to be the life of the party. You were just a wallflower. You liked to be in the background, behind all the noise and away from all of the attention. When I was outspoken or made scenes at parties, you couldn't stand it. You asked me to sit down and be quiet. I didn't listen, so you told me I was too stubborn and full of pride to "make you happy." I thought we were happy, though, until it came down to things like that. So, thank you for teaching me that you can't find true happiness in other people. I thought I found my happiness in you, but then I realized you simply helped me see all the things I had to be happy about (without you). You were with me when I learned some of my most important life lessons. I grew with you, but surely not from you. In reality, I grew away from you over time.

You also taught me that I don't have the power to change people. You had so many demons that I don't even think you knew about. I tried my best to break through them and make you internally happy, but some things are simply bigger than others. I tried to change you and take those stupid demons away but it didn't work. I wish I could have taken them away from you, but I just couldn't. You started to say things to me that I knew you didn't truly mean. Weren't you the one who showed me my self-worth?

You tried to take it away from me in the end, because you couldn't stand me living a life that wasn't exactly like yours.

I want to thank you for loving me when I didn't know how to love myself, but I do not thank you for trying to make me someone I wasn't.

You made me realize who I truly wanted to be as a person. When you tried to hold me back from being the person I had always been, I realized how much fun life was before you. We had fun together, but we did not have fun in public because you were too afraid of what other people might think of you. When I went to parties, functions, or gatherings without you, I felt free. I felt like I was allowed to be excited about life again. I was happy with you, but you made me feel as if I left your side or gave my attention to anyone else but you, then I was doing something wrong. It shouldn't have been that way, and I know that now.

It took me about seven months to realize that I liked me without you more than I liked me with you, and when I realized this, I felt like I could breathe again. I thought we could make it through everything together, but as I said, some things are simply bigger than others. Above all, thank you for proving to me that it is possible to love someone that hard. However, loving someone as hard as you loved me can get to be unhealthy, so thank you for showing me how to notice when enough is enough.