ten years, one goodbye

I saw him again.

"I think this should be our last goodbye," I said, watching the road ahead.

"I'm in acceptance," he replied, his hands steady on the steering wheel.

Ten years. And this was how it ended. Not with anger or tears, but with a peace I'd never felt before.

I was 19 when I met him. I didn't know what love was.

The meeting

At 17, something happened at a party that made me decide I was done with men, done with the possibility of being hurt again. I built walls so high I convinced myself I didn't need anyone. For two years, I lived in that decision. A high school dropout with no confidence, no social life.

Something made me try one more time. I walked into that bar, and there he was.

Buddhists call it karuna samskara: the soul traces left when two people connect deeply. I didn't know the term then. I just knew something had shifted in me the night we met.

Someone finally saw me

I still remember when I told him I was reading Jane Eyre. What amazed me wasn't literary discussion. It was his eye contact, his complete attention to my words. We talked until 8 AM. How starved I was for that basic human connection.

A few months later, we were laying in bed and he said, "Do you think we know each other enough?" I replied yes. He said, "I do too. Would you like to be my girlfriend?" I wholeheartedly said yes.

When he couldn't find words for what he felt, I could help him understand it. When I couldn't grasp concepts he was explaining, he'd patiently break them down.

He would stay up until 7 AM helping me study for my high school equivalency. When I was terrified I wasn't smart enough for the math test, he looked me straight in the eyes and said, "I have no doubt you could pass this test. You're so smart."

I shed a tear. Someone believed in me.

He waited for me to be ready for intimacy. Patient and gentle while I learned to trust my body again. He introduced me to his family, and I saw what healthy love looked like for the first time.

The first three years were pure magic. We were young, in love, spending weekends making love, eating, talking, watching movies curled together. Saturday mornings in bed until noon. His laugh when I'd make terrible jokes.

It was simple. No fighting, just love.

When we grew apart

But then I began wanting to be as smart as him, to accomplish what he was accomplishing. I felt pressure to become a full adult, ready for marriage and kids.

He went the opposite direction. He moved back to his parents' house. Back to video games, smoking weed, avoiding responsibilities. Living like the 19-year-old I'd been when we met, while I was trying to become the woman I thought he deserved.

We started having fights about his drinking, his going out, his refusal to take anything seriously.

Why I stayed

I stayed because I didn't love myself enough to leave.

I can dress it up: I stayed because of our connection, our history, our potential. I stayed because I believed in him. I stayed because love is patient.

But the truth? I stayed because leaving would mean admitting I was worth more than what I was accepting. And I didn't believe that yet.

I didn't know how to put myself first. I didn't even know that was an option. My self-worth was completely tied to making this work, to being chosen, to proving that if I just loved him well enough, if I was patient enough, understanding enough, accomplished enough, he would finally meet me there.

Every time he chose video games over our future, I made it mean something about me. I wasn't interesting enough. I wasn't worth prioritizing. If I could just become more, smarter, better, more ready for the life I thought we'd build, then he'd want it too.

I was building a version of myself to deserve a version of him that didn't exist.

I was loving a hypothetical future, not a present reality. I was in love not only with him, but with an imagined future, with a version of me that existed only in relation to him. I longed to be "chosen." I dreamed of motherhood, wedding, shared life.

And he was just a boy in a man's body. He could barely take care of himself, terrified at the thought of sustaining not just his life, but someone else's.

The first ending

When we first broke up after six years, I wrote him a letter.

I told him I loved him. I thanked him for teaching me what heartbreak felt like. I said that even though we weren't together anymore, I still believed he could accomplish anything.

I wrote: "How can I be so selfish that just because we aren't together anymore, love would die? It will just transform into something different."

I meant every word when I wrote it. I believed love could transform into something that transcended being together. I believed I could let him go and still carry him with me.

I was wrong. Or maybe I was right, but it would take years of pain before that transformation could actually happen.

The real heartbreak came during our final weekend together. We watched La La Land. He turned to me and said, "I wonder if that's what's going to happen to us."

We both knew the answer. We were already living it. Two people who loved each other but were growing in opposite directions, and love alone couldn't bridge that gap.

We said goodbye to our families. I cried only with him, on his chest, smelling him, feeling the unbearable pain of knowing I wouldn't be held by him again.

Even then, I knew that love is free. Even though he wasn't with me, I still loved him.

The second chance

About a year later, we tried to get back together. We were no longer who we had been. You cannot enter the same river twice.

When we tried again, I told myself it was because we still loved each other.

Really? I was terrified of starting over. Terrified that without him, my story was incomplete. That I'd wasted six years. That I'd have to face the question: if I leave, who am I?

My identity was wrapped up in being his girlfriend. In being the person who loved deeply. In not being superficial, in valuing connection over stability, depth over money.

But I'd confused "not superficial" with "accepting dysfunction." I'd made a virtue out of settling.

He could barely take care of himself, and I was dreaming about motherhood and marriage. He was indecisive about everything, and I was calling it patience. He was showing me through his actions that he wasn't ready, and I was waiting for his words to say something different.

I kept waiting to be chosen. And he kept not choosing.

His indecision was a decision. My staying was a decision too. A decision that his potential was more important than my present reality.

He finally found the courage to end it in the healthiest way possible.

Wise or settling?

What made my history with him so difficult to explain to others was the very nature of our connection.

"He's not handsome." "No status." "He's unstable." "He has no money."

But they were looking in the wrong place. It was the feeling of home I found in his presence, even when we were silent. A connection that defied social expectations and external standards.

I was proud that I didn't care about his looks, his status, his money. At parties, when friends would ask about my boyfriend, I'd defend him: "We have real conversations. We connect on things that matter." I thought I was evolved. Mature. Not superficial like other girls.

But was I actually wise to value depth over stability? Or was I using "depth" to justify accepting someone who wouldn't, or couldn't, show up fully?

Maybe both. Maybe I was wise at 19 to recognize that connection matters more than a bank account. And maybe I was also hiding my lack of self-worth behind that wisdom. Telling myself I was "not superficial" while accepting years of indecision and regression.

It's not superficial to want a partner who can handle adult life. Wanting someone who won't choose weed and video games over growth isn't shallow. It's basic.

The years after

After a while, we exchanged texts. I missed him terribly. I kept waiting for him to show up at my door and ask me to marry him.

I missed the weight of his arm around me while we slept. The way he smelled like coffee and cigarettes in the morning. His hands, always warm, always steady. I'd catch myself reaching for my phone to text him about small things, forgetting for a moment that he wasn't mine to reach for anymore.

But I loved him more than he loved me. How disposable I was for him, how much he didn't miss me, was a pain in my chest. I felt like something was missing constantly.

The occasional meetups over the years were friendly but loaded with unspoken history. Sometimes hopeful on my part, always painful when nothing changed.

For years, I never fully forgave him. Not for the love, I was grateful for that, but for how easily he seemed to let me go. For not fighting harder. For not missing me the way I missed him.

Some part of me wanted him to experience the same hurt. To wake up one day and realize what he'd lost. To come back broken and apologetic.

That desire for his pain was my pain. As long as I held onto it, I couldn't heal.

Final goodbye

He was doing really well. Great job, bought a house where I once wanted us to live together. Now he's thinking of moving to the beach, following a surfer life.

I'm glad for the person he has become, and for who I am today too.

We drove in comfortable silence, the kind we'd always been good at. Palm trees blurred past the window. The sun was setting, painting everything gold.

We sat in that silence, both of us feeling the same relief. The weight of all those years, finally lifting.

Later, he sent me lyrics he'd written about us. He's not an emotional person, never has been. Words don't come easy to him. So this mattered. He was giving me what he could: his way of saying goodbye. His way of honoring what we'd been. I cried reading them, not because I wanted him back, but because after all these years, he'd found the words.

Letting go this time was not only forgiving him, but also releasing what I thought could have been.

For years, I tortured myself imagining another version of our story. A quantum reality where we loved each other correctly from the beginning. Where we found a way to grow together instead of growing apart. Where his potential became reality and my patience was rewarded.

But that timeline doesn't exist. And I finally stopped grieving it.

Releasing expectations about what "should" have been. Making peace with the fact that some beautiful stories are meant to be chapters, not whole books.

He taught me how much love I have inside. He gave me friendship, companionship, and heartbreak. He was a soul teacher.

Not because we were destined to meet, but because I learned through loving him what I'd never learned anywhere else: that I matter. That my needs matter. That wanting a partner who's actually ready isn't superficial. It's basic self-respect.

The greatest thing he taught me was that love isn't enough. You also need timing, readiness, and two people willing to choose each other consistently. Not just in words. In actions.

When you're with someone in whom you see so much potential, you're not in a relationship with them. You're in a relationship with your imagination. With the future you're building in your head. With the version of yourself that will exist when they finally become who you need them to be.

I loved him. I also loved the idea of being someone who loved deeply enough to make it work. I loved proving I wasn't superficial. I loved the story I was telling myself about us.

The person meant for me won't make me wait years wondering if I'm worth choosing. They won't require me to build a better version of myself to deserve their readiness. They won't make me question whether wanting stability is shallow.

They'll be ready. Not perfect. Ready. And I'll be ready too. Not because I finally became enough, but because I finally knew I already was.

Three good years and three years of fighting isn't a grand love story. It's what happens when someone who doesn't know their worth meets someone who isn't ready to grow up.

I needed him then. I needed to learn what love could feel like. I needed someone to believe in me until I could believe in myself.

And then I needed to leave. I needed to learn that I could survive without him. That my story wasn't incomplete without him in it. That I was whole on my own.

What we had didn't need anyone else to understand it. It mattered because it happened. Because it opened capacities for feeling in me that I didn't know existed.

The loves that mark us don't define us by their presence, but by how they transform us forever.

I will wish him well always, from genuine peace. The greatest love we offer to someone who was important is freedom. Freedom to be. Freedom to follow their path. Freedom to forget.

That was the real lesson. Not about soulmates or destiny or quantum realities where we loved each other correctly.

About me. Learning to love myself enough.