Photo by Paul Wesson Photography

Have you ever ended a relationship where there was so much you had left to say, but knew it was better left alone? That to extend even one smidgen of communication was to open a door best left closed securely <with a dead bolt>?

Sometimes I just need to get things off of my chest, I write them out and then shred or burn the words away. But sometimes there are things worth hanging onto. Whether he ever knows it, I do.

I believe everything happens for a reason, we don’t always know what the reason is right away, or even at all. But there is a reason none-the-less.

I try to reflect on lessons learned and not repeat mistakes that can be avoided. Though I have noted sometimes I make the same mistakes multiple times before the lesson really becomes ingrained, or the actual depth of it becomes clear. I know that however painful life can be and is, that if I can learn something from each experience it makes it all worthwhile. No regrets. Everything I have been through has brought me to this very point… in this moment.

And so my letter follows:

This letter is one of thanks to you for being part of my life, however short and stormy, yet happy and intense a season it was.

I am thankful to you for opening my eyes to a number of important possibilities. I am at a crossroads. I have determined that there are more changes yet to come. One of the possibilities being contemplating leaving. Leaving the community I have been calling home for nearly seven years. And another being that of returning. Returning to a setting that is more my pace and atmosphere. Returning to the only place I really know as “home”.

I could have made a completely new change, but I’ve come to realize – in losing some of that newness I had been so fervently embracing with you – what I really yearn for. I yearn for the story I have living within me… to grow and to flourish. The circle of my life is bringing me back “home”.

I thank you for showing me that rushing in is not wise, even when we think we’ve found the exception. That no matter how much I want to believe, I can not actually know without taking the time to learn.

I am grateful to you for showing me that even the toughest skin can have a softness that will embrace caring – caring for me in ways that I need and want. For showing me that someone will see me as worth giving everything for.

I am grateful to myself for finally seeing the light and not sacrificing myself for the missing pieces. I thought I’d found the whole package, and yet an integral piece was still missing. You know what piece that was, and it saddened me that you could not give it to me, even as you tried.

When I have all of it – together… after slowly growing with the man I am meant to… into a relationship of trust and respect, of love and nurturing, of learning and adventure, of dreams and of really truly living, I will finally be “home” in every sense.

I am sorry that we couldn’t have that together. But I thank you for being a part of my story.

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