mi amor,
I live now in the age of social media heartbreak and while I pray you never have to, I am realistic and realize that you will have it much worse. I've been on both the giving and receiving end and while I know that neither is fun, I want to talk to you about the end I've been on infinitely more.
Love is a lot of transcendent, beautiful things. You'll be so lucky to feel all the different kinds of love that you will in your life, but I want you to know that not every one will end so beautifully. Even the gentlest of heartbreaks will rock your insides, no matter how hard you try not to let them.
There's a good chance, though, that if the age in which you live mirrors mine at all, there will be no gentle heartbreaks. There will be months of love culminated in a single text message ending things, or a 2 am phone call filled with sweet nothings to ease the pain, not knowing that they'll make them worse. There will be more love from you to them or from them to you. There is no perfect situation where both people lose every feeling in exact rhythm. These feelings will stay with each of you in different ways, and sometimes, as unfair as it is, you will have to stomach the words "you mean nothing to me" while your stomach is still the home to a thousand butterflies, flapping their wings as slow as a dying heartbeat. Those words will drip away the last of their nectar, but they will not die entirely then and there, no matter how badly you wish them to. You can try to kill them, will them to fly back up your throat, the same way they went down with every kiss, but even the saddest of them will be stubborn in their demises. They will believe they deserved a better ending, and I'm here to tell you that they did, my sweet. They did, and you did, and the millions of other girls and boys feeling the way that you do right now— they did, too.
Someday you will give all your love to someone, and if you're lucky, they will give you the same. If you're not that kind of lucky, someday their butterflies will die, but they will keep feeding you the sweetened nectar yours use to fly, and tell you once the last of theirs has left their throat how they feel. This is not out of concern for your feelings, this is selfish.
It is selfish to wait for the last of your own love to leave you before letting someone else in on the secret. People will say they do it for your own good, because they didn't want to hurt you, because they wanted to be sure. The moment you feel something dying inside you, say something. It does not have to be goodbye; you can say it, and you can both choose how to move forward, how to work on it or whether to. If you have someone's heart, even if they no longer have yours, promise me that you will be gentle, and that you won't wait to leave them with an ocean until after your last puddle has dried up. Even in your best intentions, this will hurt someone. And even if you don't love them the same way you used to in this moment, even if you don't love them one iota, promise me you won't leave them with a storm. If you ever loved them the way you said, you shouldn't be okay with doing them thus injustice.
I'm not saying that you have to stay with someone you don't love. You don't. But you owe someone who has invested in you the simple respect of understanding; consider how you felt as your own feelings were leaving you, and imagine them feeling the same with one drastic difference. While you considered these feelings and you made peace with them, someone was loving you more and more each day. When you hand them these feelings to feel, they will feel them alone. Consider how difficult they were for you to feel and then consider feeling them alone, the way you didn't have to.
You will see people long after you leave them. In your dreams, and in your feed, and in your photographs, and on the streets, whether you're a month without them or ten years. Social media heartbreak makes this a given; you will still see them and they will still see you and no matter what role you played in the leaving, if you loved them once, this will make you feel something. It won't always be something good. It might be sadness, or regret, or anger, or longing. It might be empty, but it will never truly be nothing. Someone who has seen your open soul and mind and body will never truly feel nothing for you, and you they, and anyone who says otherwise is a liar. You may not see people and miss them, but you will feel it, and when you do, you'll know what I'm talking about. There is no word for the feeling the past hands you when your eyes meet it. You will understand one day.
If you read this when you already feel it, know that you are not wrong. It will feel wrong, that you can't erase people like they seem able to erase you, even if you want to. I can't tell you why, but I wish I could. Writing this at 18, I wish that I could tell myself, too. I wish I understood the things that rage in my rib cage whenever they see fit, and I wish I understood why someone who gives me nothing can still sometimes make me feel so many something's. When I learn, I'll tell you, but I don't believe I ever will, and that's okay.
No matter what they've done to you, my love; if ever you loved them this way— and you'll know the way— do not forget them. It may feel like the right thing to do when they've so blatantly erased you, but I promise you, it's not the right thing. Do not live through your memories but don't lose them either, don't let the egos of people around you stop you from feeling things and cherishing them. Don't let the worry of looking pathetic to the people who forget you by remembering them sway your mind. You do not have to stoop to the same level because you were done the injustice. You do not have to feel bad for feeling bad solely because you know that they don't. Feeling bad means that you used to feel good and it was a beautiful time even if you were given an ugly tale to tell. If you ever feel this way know that you did not deserve it. You did not deserve to love someone with your all who was selfish, and who did not know how to love you back. You did not deserve to feel the way you do now, alone, going through the things they gave themselves the liberty of feeling while they still had you, and then leaving you alone to feel them. No one has to be somewhere they don't feel happy, but someone you share hearts with should never treat you this way, and if they have, know that I am so sorry and that I understand your mind in this moment. I do not know every facet of it, but I know that you've got a dying monarch in one palm who won't even look at the clementine you've got in the other. I know what it's like to force the horse to water and I know what it feels like to make it drink, and what it feels like when it refuses to. I won't tell you that we're one in the same, but I will tell you that we are all of the same breed and that we all feel the same fire when someone lights us up and extinguishes us without warning.
If you know at all what I mean, do not be afraid of loving someone past their expiration date. If you loved them once the way I know you will, do not erase them. Feel the hurt, and let it simmer, and let it evaporate, but don't be afraid of letting it back out of the clouds. If you loved them once the way I know you will, do not do someone the injustice of forgetting them because they forget you.
You will feel the flame and I won't promise for how long, but I'll promise you the worth of it, and you will know what I mean when you are warm and they've forgotten how to use matches.
