Dear Ex,
A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across a quote that almost jumped off of my iPhone screen and slapped me in my face. The tweet read: “If you still talk about it, you still care about it. Stop giving life to dead things.” I stared at it for a while as I allowed the words to penetrate my psyche. It was truth staring dead at me on an illuminated LCD screen. A barrage of images and old conversations began to clutter my mind as I thought of all that had taken place since we called it quits. I quickly retweeted the quote adding my own “note to self.”
It has been almost two years since our breakup; our ugly, painful, unbelievable, long, drawn-out breakup. The one breakup that made me a living witness of the pain that Mary J. sang about in those old school ’90s jams. The breakup that I was sure belonged in a Tyler Perry film or a Terry McMillan novel. The breakup that belonged anywhere but in my life at this point.
Talking is what got me through that difficult period. Talking to family. Talking to friends. Words are what pulled me out of the defeated state that I found myself in, so I clung to them. I expressed my hurt and humiliation. I expressed my rage and dismay. I expressed what it did to my self-esteem. I expressed how I felt I was taken advantage of. I expressed how I was gradually getting over it. I expressed how I was making peace with the situation. I expressed how I was learning to forgive you and so on. Talking about it is what got me through, but even after I got back to my old self, I found that I was somehow still talking about it. I had become comfortable telling our story. I had it down pat. I had it perfected as if it were some ancient folklore that I wanted my future children to pass down to my grandchildren and so forth (not cool).
Although I’ve gotten over what happened, the fact that I still talk about it says somehow or another I haven’t fully released it. With that in mind, consider this letter the last hoorah. I will no longer relay the nitty-gritty details to those that inquire. I will no longer tell the story of how wrong you did me. I will no longer discuss the huge mess that you made. I will no longer call you a womanizer, make any other negative comments about you or throw any kind of dirt on your name. I refuse to give life to something that died so long ago. I refuse to provide you with real estate in my head. I will leave the past in the past. I will let go of the things that no longer serve a purpose in my life, such as this negative experience. I’m done playing the victim.
I realize that each time you discuss things of the past, you somehow re-visit it and I for one am done re-visiting this soap opera. Living in the past hinders one from moving forward and I am one hundred percent ready to take advantage of my present and step into my future free from baggage, bitterness and resentment. I say all of that to say that I’m retiring our story for good.
Good luck and good riddance.
– Jaz
Jazmine Denise is a freelance writer living in New York. Follow her on Twitter @jazminedenise
Photos courtesy of Shutterstock
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