Dear Boys Who Had My Heart,

I still remember what you all smell like, and I can catalogue all of your scents in my mind. Sometimes I catch your smell walking down 3rd avenue, and I get this tickle that rises from my stomach and into my throat. I don't know exactly what that tickle is. I guess it's a mix of many emotions — fear, anger, regret, happiness, hopefulness, disappointment. Which one overpowers the others depends on the day and how I feel.

Of course, my teenage brain believed I knew exactly what love was. Although I was, and still am, young and naive, what I felt for you, I thought was real. It was really real to me. I gave and gave and gave to an unhealthy relationship I knew I couldn't escape from. Or maybe I could escape, but I wouldn't allow myself, because that constant battle is what I believed was love. I thought I was grown up, but allowing myself to be tortured like a dog waiting under a kitchen table for scraps of food to fall was far from mature.

Don't get me wrong, you all taught me things. You taught me what to look for in a partner — Someone who embraces and respects the 50/50 give and take a relationship is supposed to have, someone who doesn't forget or ignore when I have something important to do or say, someone who watches me with love and not lust, someone with a hard jaw line, not a hard head. You taught me about maturity, and to what standards I should hold people by before I give them my time. You taught me that I can't change people. You taught me not to give up my whole heart, not until I can give my whole trust. You taught me how to deal with heartbreak, and how to get over people who were no good for me. You taught me about disappointment. You taught me what it feels like to be cheated on, and lied to, and manipulated, so that I will never do that to a future partner. You taught me to value my own self worth, and to respect myself. You taught me that I am the most important person in my life, and making myself happy should come before making you happy every time.

I don't regret the time I spent with any of you. You all made me genuinely happy while we were together, and I thank you for making those times enjoyable for me. You took me to proms, homecomings, fun hiking adventures. You carved out high and low moments in my life that I will always have locked into my memory. So thank you.

But on the other hand, you don't deserve my thanks. You didn't deserve any of the long nights and days that I sacrificed and compromised my own mental and physical health to make you happy. You didn't deserve all the love that I dished out, and that wasn't always reciprocated. You don't deserve my time anymore, and yet you still get it, in the form of my obsessively stalking you over the internet. But, I don't deserve to still be manipulated by you.

So I'm making a vow to myself, to be like the ice queen, and let it all go. I'm releasing you back into the world. You are free. Free from me, and I'll be free from you all. I hope I taught you things too.

Not Always Yours,

McKenna