Open Letter Final Draft

Now that I have began my sophomore year in college, reflecting back on my freshman year,  I wonder how I dealt with everything. Never before had more changed in my life than what changed between the months of February 2018 and September 2018, the present. Beginning college is a stressful task in itself. Making new friends is stressful. Stress about your roommates, classes, etc, I can’t get too much into it, but besides all those stresses that automatically come with beginning school, I added on another by entering my freshman year of college in a fully committed, long-distance relationship with my long-distance boyfriend at the time. When we finally broke up in February 2018, we had been together for almost 3 years. Now, this amount of time may not seem too long, but looking back, those years were spent constantly worrying about someone else, constantly thinking about someone else, and dedicating boatloads of time and effort into a relationship with the same person every day for almost three years. It really changed me. Being in a relationship with someone, especially for that long can teach you a lot about yourself. It’s kind of scary. You learn things maybe you didn’t want to know.

After being at college for around 6 months or so, we broke up. It became more and more toxic as the months went by, but honestly, I think our relationship had ended long before we made the actual cut. Our relationship was unhealthy and not ok and I could talk about it for a long time but that’s not necessarily why I began writing this letter. It is, however, significant because not only do I know for a fact that I would have been far more depressed if I had chosen to stay with him, but most importantly, I know for a fact my entire life would have been completely and utterly different than it is now. I wouldn’t have made the friends I have now, I wouldn’t have gone on all the eye-opening trips I’ve had so much fun on, I wouldn’t have had the experiences I’ve had or learned the lessons that came with them, I wouldn’t have grown in all the ways I have and I wouldn’t be the happy, self-respecting person I am today. You really don’t realize how much one person can hold you back until they aren’t relevant anymore. I know I didn’t know. I also didn’t know just how sad I really was. I thought I was living life happily for a long time, but compared to how I’m doing now, looking back, I wasn’t really living at all, and I most definitely was not happy.

Nevertheless, I don’t want to leave you under the impression that I regret the years we spent together, when in reality, I wouldn’t take them back if I could. I’ve learned that love is a serious drug, and that the mere act of “being in love” with someone isn’t reason enough to remain with them. It is quite possible to find your soulmate but later come to realize that you aren’t meant to be together. It was an obnoxiously stressful school year, and the break up was just one of the many unfortunate events. I discovered parts of myself, however, I never knew I had and I learned to recognize these parts of myself as well as to forgive and respect myself.

I think the scariest part of ending our relationship was the thought I’d become lonely, but even in solitude we are left to our subconscious and the thoughts and feelings that live there. I’ve spent so much time with myself these past several months, long enough, I think, to grasp what I’ve been trying to tell you this whole time: This past year I’ve learned how to be alone, but in the years leading up it wasn’t something I didn’t know I didn’t know how to do. When you are in an extremely intense relationship with someone you don’t realize they become a part of your routine, and when the relationship does end, there are just these seemingly enormous gaps of time, previously filled by the person. Whether it’s awaiting to check your phone in the morning for that goodmorning text, or the facetime call every day before dinner, life is just so different and these kinds of things shocked me, but I got used to it. Time heals, and as time passed, I developed new routines, made new friends and did new things.

I wish I could go back and magically grant you all the knowledge I have now, minus all the pain and hurt that came with it, but that would be besides the point. I want everyone to know that it’s okay to be alone, more than okay actually. Being alone does not necessarily translate as loneliness. I want us to take time to hang out with ourselves and get to know ourselves a little better. I want us to take the time to discover the little things that make us happy and I want us to practice finding comfort from within ourselves, because the more we do, the more we’ll realize how un-alone we really are.