I want to thank you. Yes, i know, you are waiting for the punch line, or the punch, but you won’t get either. Not that a couple of you don’t deserve being punched in the gonads for certain specific actions (but i won’t go there, my brother’s don’t need any more reasons to hate you) but i’m not going to send anyone after you. In fact, this letter is about closure, in all its various forms.
At various points I like, cared about deeply and loved in various ways, each of you. What i felt for you then was real, but today, i would have a hard time verbalizing why. The “Me” then love, liked, cared for the “YOU” then. Now, totally different story. While love doesn’t die, it definitely does fade away.
I am not the same person I was when I dated you. Whether i was 16 or 26 or 36, the person you knew then is not the person standing before you now. She is older, wiser and much sexier. She is an handful, to be sure, but she’s is sure about what it takes to win her heart, her mind, her body and her soul now.
A promise won’t do anything. Money, Trips, Concerts, Plays, Events, Romantic Dinners? um, sorry, I do that for myself, so again, WHY would I need you? What i’m looking for in a person i want to be with now is MUCH different from when i was with you. What are you bringing to the table is a whole different level now. I appreciate you for helping me realize that.
You guys have taught me that I have to love me more than I love you, because in the end, I will be there, you will not. Not that i didn’t love you (for the most part i did) but that self-encompassing, all inclusive, waking up in the morning glad to be alive feeling should have been for myself, not you. The reasons I didn’t are well known to you and I so i don’t have to rehash them here. Suffice to say, every day i wake up now, i’m happy and thrilled, for myself. Over the years i realized this saying to be true
“Hurt People Hurt People”
Sometimes i thought that you didn’t mean to hurt me, but when i look back, a couple of you really did mean to hurt me. While not physically (you knew I’d kill you swiftly if you touched me) but emotionally or mentally, but you figured that hurting me was the best way. Most times you didn’t succeed, a few times you did, in glorious fashion and on public display. In those instances, my most public embarrassments, i realized, this isn’t love. This is about control, anger, rage and your own hurt, because you ‘perceived’ I “hurt” you, real or imagined. You thought breaking me down would make you feel better. Sometimes it did, for a bit, then you tried to apologize. Not because you meant the apology but because your bed was cold or the other woman really wasn’t all you thought she was. If i accepted your apology, you viewed my acceptance as weakness and acted accordingly. If i didn’t accept you apology, all I did (in your mind) was reaffirm how ‘mean’ I was. Catch-22 right?
What i learned then and now was that it wasn’t about you. It was about me. It was about me being able to determine “Friend or Foe”, who was worthy to be in my life and who wasn’t and WHO should be on the stage of life with me, in the front row cheering me on, in the balcony, at the ticket counter or standing outside on the sidewalk.
Honestly, some of you i should have never dated. You and I didn’t have anything in common, except for lust in some cases. Some of you were right, I really was too smart for you, too kind for you, too funny for you, too ambitious for you, too everything for you. Good looking out, even if i didn’t realize it then, I do now.
You were meant to be in my life for a reason. To learn something about myself (while i would have preferred to learn in via READING it in a book) I realized what I DO NOT WANT in a man. I so appreciate that! Dating you really turned out to be the best thing i never had. I never had to get divorced. I never have to deal with you and child support or custody issues. I don’t have to change my name, I don’t have to deal with ANY of your family members and I don’t have to worry about EVER having to talk to you again if i chose to do so. I like that best of all.
I’m not bitter or anything like that (oh, and i could be and we all know that) but guess what, bitterness isn’t good for me and i’m only doing GOOD THINGS FOR ME.
when i think about some of you, actually i think about the funny stuff and what i learned to love from you, like Rap, Jazz, Comedy Clubs and the great outdoors. I will always think of some of you when I participate in those things. The not so nice stuff, well, i’ll tuck that away and save it for another blog.
Some of you are married now, have children, grandchildren, divorced. That’s good that you have moved on in your life. I do not wish you any ill wish. What i do wish is that you found someone who completed you, make you into a better man than you were when I knew you.
Like most women, I blamed myself for things that went wrong in our relationship(s) but soon i realize that since I wasn’t in a relationship by myself, it takes TWO people to make one and TWO people to screw it up. I accept my responsibility, i’m not going to accept yours. Whether you liked to get me to date you or lied to keep me, it was your lie, not mine. I am not a priest, I can’t absolve you of your sins. And if i were, I can’t honestly say I would. We are who we are. Change, real change comes from within. Whether or not any of you have changed; its not my place to say or even does it matter to me.
This letter is about me acknowledging that at one point in the timeline of my life, i had feeling for you. Whether for 1 hour or 1 year, You meant something to me. Whether based on a lie or the truth, You mattered to me. It would be unreasonable to deny that. What I will not continue to do is hold my feelings hostage to someone who is unworthy of receiving them. So here’s the deal:
I RELEASE YOU. I RELEASE YOU FROM any promises you made me in the past, in the present, in the future. I release you from my heart, my mind, my soul. I release you from any power you had over me in the past and any contact you make to me to reignite it in the future. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for allowing me to learn from you what love is, what good love is and what good love isn’t. Thank you so much for getting me clear about the direction I want to go in love.
yours always,
jinks
jinksjones 