I started loving you when I was 15. Not a day goes by that I don't thank God for bringing us together. The days we were together were bright and happy, but when I went off to college something changed—we changed. We soon became toxic for one another. Somehow the love that we shared became almost seemed nonexistent. I loved you and you loved me, but we forgot how to show one another. Don't get me wrong, I love you, with every fiber of my being, but it took losing you to find myself.

Not only were we too young to understand the damage we were doing to one another, but we couldn't understand what we were doing to ourselves. When we ended things it was the hardest thing to get through. I didn't want it to end, but I knew they had to. I was looking for happiness in places other than our relationship and how is that fair? It got to the point where I just wasn't putting in the effort and it kills me that I didn't treat you right.

It took losing you to find myself.

It took me losing you to figure out who I want to be for myself and for who I want to be for you. In a relationship there should be compromise, not ultimatums. There should be patience and trust. We were really bad at all these things simply because we were young. We were children and did not see the destruction we were causing in our relationship.

When I stepped back and thought about everything I wanted to be as a wife, I realized that's not close to who I was and I questioned why. Why do I have this idea of who I want to be and who I actually am to you? Being young and being in love is amazing and magical but growing up and being in love stings when you grow up and want different things and grow into a different person.

The problem became that I wanted a ring but got a break-up. I thought I knew what I wanted and then I started to panic. I think everything happens for a reason and sometimes love just isn't enough, especially when what you want out of life is different. It's hard to imagine life without the person I've grown up with throughout the years but eventually all good things must come to an end.