My last letter.

Dear Los Angeles,

I’ve been thinking about us every single day for four years, six months, and twenty-four days. To say the least, it’s far too much time for someone to be so consumed by agony.

We’ve been arguing about all of these “what ifs” and “what could have been” and what “should have been.”

The thoughts have ranged across the board, between hate, love, fear, sadness, future, past, and everything in between that and more. I’ve tortured myself in this way that’s so discreetly subtle. Unable to share you with those closest to me, because simply they would not understand “why.” Hiding you secretly, as someone who’s supposed to care deeply about me.

But I’ve been hypocritical. Standing behind this kind of shield that shows people I follow my advice, the appearance is that I would never let myself be that person who gets unquestionably lost in a relationship that was too seemingly difficult to leave. I have prided myself on becoming and living this mold of a person who is self aware, understanding, thoughtful, loving and never settles for anything less than what I know I deserve. Some think that this looks like confidence, and it’s not. It’s living. But we strive for these qualities. The independence, the optimism, the joy, the real confidence. Do we ever really achieve them all at once? Or do we all have this smile and energy that feels like we’ve got things under control, when in reality, we’re searching for just one.

These days, I’ve spent long nights, thoughts within thoughts of how do I? And when should I? Why can’t I? How come? And what will that be like when it’s actually over? None of us like loss, but that’s an inevitable thing, it’s just some is more severe than others. And with others, we can at least withstand the pain that comes with it. I’ve had these thoughts within thoughts about why I’ve put you in such a high place… and every single reason reminds me of how you demonstrated time after time that you did not deserve me. I don’t say that because I’m this unique person that you’ll never find anyone else like me. I know that, because even though there were a lot of times that I wasn’t great, and we may have fought a lot. I admitted to my faults and flaws every time, and I always worked on them. But you… you couldn’t do the one simple thing that I needed from you. Just one… a first, with you.

I’ve learned from heartfelt romantic comedies, and love movies that, you can’t have a bunch of “one mores” to make up or equal a lifetime, or to find closure in it. Because believe me.. I’ve bargained and begged for one. That is something you’d never give me, not even a singular chance. But I constantly overlooked what I needed, and because you made me feel pretty, and accepted, and comfortable, it lead me to believe that you were so much more than all of the things I didn’t want.

Despite your challenges, and mistakes, and despite even mine. There is no bad will between us, I just don’t have it in me anymore, because I did love you. That means, I could never hate you for what we’ve put each other through. And that still means, that I dream of a beautiful life for you, full of firsts, and one mores. A life that brings laughter, love, fulfillment, and a very long future.

As for me, the thoughts are more addictive than anything I’ve ever experienced. I don’t want to imagine my life with you in it anymore.

Turns out, you can’t find “the one” without a one.

I’ve used all my cards. I’ve said all my words. I’ve fought in the battle of “us” and I used to think that I was the one who was losing, but so contrary. You lost… beneath the ashes of our love, I was the one who stood true to myself and my heart, I gave it my all. You may have walked away feeling unscathed, but I was the one who walked ahead. You cowered in so many battles, while your strength may have been physically above me, I excelled in sharing and emotions. It has set me up to be able to open my heart again to find a love that isn’t a war.

This is my last letter to you, my dear darling Los Angeles.

With love,
Cec.

Dear Los Angeles,

Let go. I don’t want to cannot do this with you anymore.

We have nothing left to give one another. I feel only pain when you’re around. I feel only doubt and confusion, and… sadness.

I’m in a chapter of life that requires so much of my energy and time that you tell me “matters” but not enough for you to want to be a part of it. This emotionally, intoxicatingly happy and laughable, ride with you is absolutely unbearable.

The last thing I ever wanted was to imagine my life with you. That I don’t have you to laugh with… to support me, and cheer me up. But who am I kidding? You make me cry more than you make me feel good. And I know that it’s not your fault, because you don’t even realize what you’re doing… because you are not here– you are not part of me. So how could you know?

I watched a Rom-Com the other day, that was about love, and friendship. It was about growing up, and being able to accept that sometimes you have something beautiful, and magical, and that it’s okay if it ends. We grieve all types of losses, even when they’re our lovers. We bargain…

“Just one more kiss. One more hug. One more meal. One more anything with you, and maybe that would be enough to make it feel like a lifetime with you.”

I can still “imagine” a future with you… I’m always going to imagine you, until one day… I just don’t. And that might be another year, or two. It might be in five… but the more I hang on, the longer it’ll take for me to accept that you were never, ever, ever mine.

What I would give for one more day… for you to tell me that you want to hold me again, to show me love again. What I wouldn’t do just to feel you.

The only thing I want more than you, is to stop this feeling of wanting you.

See, I’ve heard of women like me. I’ve known women like me. And I have to apologize to all of them. For, I had no idea what this felt like. To go through those raw and real emotions of losing someone you fell deeply in love without, despite how wrong they were for you in every single way. And they spend years infatuated with them. Unable to let them go. It’s just that, I was a lot better at hiding it.

I want to be one of the “strong ones” that was able to say “I respect and am worth so much more than this.” and yet, I am sitting here, bawling my eyes out, texting you when I shouldn’t. Aching, because you don’t want to be with me, but you’d be okay with sleeping with me.

You were such a sweet guy when I first got to know you. You were so madly in love with some woman who treated you poorly… she had a boyfriend and you wanted her so badly. I was on the side, just trying to get you to let go of her. And how I wish I had someone on the side helping me let go of you. And so many years later, I am you. I felt so bad for you. I wanted you to be HAPPY. And still, as I sit here, my heart wrenching, and tears rolling down my face, it kills me to still want you to be happy even if that means you’re with someone absolutely stunning and magnificent.

One day, you’ll find each other. And it’ll be nothing like you’ve ever experienced before. It’ll be nothing like our sh*t show of a relationship. It will be so easy… and loving, and happy, and she will make you laugh like no one has ever made you laugh. She will support and be there for everything you need her for. She will love you, more than I ever could…

I’m trying, and I’m doing the best I can to just stop what we’re doing. It’s not good for either of us. I promise you, I am trying so hard..

With love,
Cec.

Let go.

Dear Los Angeles,

I could probably tell you exactly why I reached out again. You had left me hanging, in wonder a while back, and it ate me up inside. I tried to figure out what it was that maybe you wanted to say to me. Figured it was a moment of weakness for you, and you just made a mistake… but I reached out, and you opened up. We both opened up. Six months later with clear heads… me with a heavy heart…

It started out so peacefully, and a calm misunderstanding. We’d both seen how passionate and blown out of proportion our reactions were, and we both were able to agree and come to some conclusions. I think we both cared about each other enough to do that now, but still, something wasn’t fitting.

The idea of us again, the idea of going back to normal and falling back into this routine that I missed and used to love so much, appealed to me. I honestly thought… maybe I would go down this road again. No matter how much I had already said I despised it, and refused to. It crossed my mind, because I loved you.

So again, I dropped everything, to be there for you. I would give up my entirety for the chance at a moment with you again. For you to hold me, kiss me, care for me, and pretend to love me. And a week after talking, after “friendship” or flirting, or whatever we’ve been doing, things seem to be settling… and for me, they’re setting at a place of discontent.

It doesn’t feel good to keep guessing with you. I remember this feeling all too well from our days together. Always wondering what you were doing, who you were talking to, always unsure of where we stood and I hated that. I didn’t believe I deserved it. And it happened again, but this time all I could do was tell myself “let go, let go, let go, let go…” I had to have a conversation with myself “This is the exact road you’ve been on over and over, sweet girl… and it will not be different this time, just like you hope it will, you will continue hoping. Things won’t change, and he won’t love you. He couldn’t love you the last four years, he won’t love you now. He’s using you. He’s playing you. You aren’t significant or important to this man. He doesn’t want you the same way. Let go. Let go. Let go.”

I’m right, but how do I do and follow what I know is right? He is never going to be “the one.” No matter how badly I dream and wish for it, it won’t be him. And I am trying to force this path that I have been down so many times, because the highs are so f*cking high, and it makes me feel so happy and good, but when the lows hit… they’re almost unbearable.

It’s only been one week. I need to stop with this attachment, with this familiarity. I need to stop with the routine with him, I need to stop giving. I look at my life and how lovely it is, and how this last six months without him has been tremendously difficult without my person… without my “comfort” but I have survived. I have been okay, I have been learning, and I’ve found joy and made room for friendships elsewhere. I have been okay… Some days are harder than others, and sometimes I am in misery wanting to talk to and text my friend, but the thing is, without it, I still survived. I still go through it. It wasn’t as smooth as I’d like for it to have gone, but I did it without him.

It’s proof that I don’t need him. It’s proof. Why do I need anything more that that. I don’t need anything more than just knowing I am okay, and I can survive without him. Despite already having known that all these years. Despite having already known I’ve never “needed” anyone to fulfill or complete me.

It’s a want, not a need.

“Sweet girl, you’ve given it your all, and it’s time you step back and give back to yourself. I know time changes, and your thoughts wonder. But keep moving on this path. You are finding fulfillment in your career and life, and it’ll make you full. I promise you, you’ll be full until your next challenge arrives. Keep calm, steady, and let yourself rise above. When you need yourself, I’ll be here.”

With love,
Cec.

You’re all that I want.

Dear Los Angeles,

Maybe it is wallowing. And maybe from time to time that’s what humans need to do. When they lose… they need to have their moment of pity. How long is too long? How deep is too deep to be with one’s own feelings of sorrow and sympathy?

There’s a lot of questions that I don’t have answers to, and I really don’t think I’ll get them, not for a while at least. And certainly not from you.

You would always tell me how it’s normal. For me to have these ups and downs, and to feel the ways I do. It might not have been what I wanted to hear, but I guess you were right. Sometimes I just need to hear that it’s going to be okay… and you did that for me. You reassured me that it would all be okay.

There are countless times I’ve had to hunt down your phone number after having deleted every bit of you. And I pull it up in a text, all written up, at my fingertips to send… and I fight with myself. My heart aches for you, and my brain knows how wrong it is. It knows that you could never fulfill what I’m searching for. It knows you’ll reject me over and over, maybe not even respond like the last time. It knows so very clearly that you and I will never be again. But it dreams… it just fantasizes about us. What we were, or could have potentially been. What could have… maybe what even was, if there was.

The deepest, and purest, the clearest, and most sane part of me knows that I’m going to be so beyond okay. It knows that I’ll fall in love with someone who’s so disgustingly right for, someone who’s not still married, and stuck in some mess of a life, someone who didn’t do me wrong over and over, only to shut me out when I made a mistake. Someone who will give me their time and love me. I know it.

But in this moment, right now. I want you.

I want what I cannot have. I want what I didn’t get a chance to have. I want something comfortable and familiar. I want someone who used to know me better than I knew myself, and yet how contradictory to say you knew me best, when really as I sit here thinking of you, you didn’t know me at all if you believed I wasn’t deeply sorry for the grey area mistake I had made.

You didn’t know me at all, if you believed that I didn’t love you, and that I wouldn’t have given anything or stood by you through everything.

I give you credit where credit is not due. That might not be love, but some sort of toxic infatuation, that some ignorant part of me was so utterly blind to. That’s what’s disappointing. That I let myself be who I never wanted to be, in so many more ways than just cheating on you.

I can promise I’m learning my lesson, but you have yet to learn yours, even 15 years later, you are in the same stuck place that you were…

I used to always say how from day one I just wanted you to be happy. And dear gosh, I do. I want that god damn joy for you, I want you to be married and magically happy with someone. But also, from so early on, I also felt sorry for you. I felt bad that you let these things happen to you and you let yourself get caught up in a life that wasn’t what you deserved.

For me, I know what I deserve, and I also know that I can’t continue down this road for long. I might have gotten stuck for a few years, but mine was just a few… yours was almost half of your life thus far.

Still… for now, you’re all that I want.

With love,
Cec.

I miss you.

Dear Los Angeles,

I’m just here to tell you that I miss you.

I miss the music we’d connect with, the songs you’d share with me with such excitement. You loved music so much and when you’d share with me it’d make me smile.

I miss the random goofy text messages you’d send me. The unrelated joke, or the silly thing that happened at work. I miss the little videos and photos you’d send me. You made me laugh every single day, and that’s because you liked making people laugh. I miss how much I laughed with you.

I miss how I could tell you everything. How I didn’t always have to be happy, and when I was low or homesick, you were there. I miss how you’d give me hugs and hold my hand. How you could crack a joke and it would cheer me up.

I miss how unapologetically inappropriate we could be. Given, I wasn’t the only one you were able to be that way with, but you were my only one I could be that way with.

I miss how you would flirt with me, and ask about my day. I miss how you would remember little things that I didn’t expect. I miss the little things. They meant the world to me, even if you didn’t realize it.

I miss talking to you every single day.

I miss seeing you with the girls. I miss hearing how happy they made you.

I miss knowing about your job, your work, your passions.

I miss hearing about what made movies terrible and what made them so cinematically beautiful.

I miss when you’d tell me I was pretty.

I miss when you used to tell me I was enough.

I miss how you knew me better than i knew myself.

I miss how we could say we’d made it even after four years, how we’d take pride in that something “special” between us.

I miss being someone you were once so close with and shared personal things with.

I miss your many talents and interests. From hockey, to softball, to videography, photography, BJJ, lifting, children, food, movies, feminism, comedy, and everything inbetween.

I miss how you were happy… with or without me.

I miss your sweet brown eyes, and your wild hair. I miss your little stache’ and the tattoos on your arms. I miss the caps you’d wear. And the way you taught me about sports. I miss the smirk on your face.

I miss hearing about your mom and the life you’ve gone through. I miss hearing about your friends.

I miss hearing about your favorites.

I miss our nicknames and inside jokes.

I miss our song.

I miss the way you used to make me feel without having to be here.

I miss how I used to be able to count on you.

I miss how I knew you’d always be there.

I miss when you didn’t make me cry.

I miss when you cared enough about me to always say good morning and tell me goodnight. To check in on me on days that were important.

I miss the days when you were the one who made the mistakes and I forgve you for them.

I miss the days I believed you had feelings for me.

I miss your voice.

I miss when I had you.

I miss when my heart wasn’t broken.

I miss when I loved you happily.

I miss the last four years, that I would never trade, but fuck me…. sometimes I wonder if they were worth it.

I miss when I didn’t cry all the time and when my heart didn’t hurt. I miss when I wasn’t taking insane amounts of benadryl and trying to find benzos from randos.

I miss the days I wasn’t depressed.

I miss when I knew who I was.

I miss the strong woman I was before you tore me down.

I miss not being reliant on a man and knowing I was me without anyone.

I miss when I was better.

I miss you.

With love,
Cec.

In love with, LA.

Dear Los Angeles,

There were always so many words to say. I wouldn’t allow myself to say them any longer. It had been four years, and such a long and complex story we had. Though I know it was best for myself to let you go, you had sadly checked out before.

Such a beauty you could be, but so busy to us all. You were the heartbreaker and I didn’t even know it. You were more to me than I ever wanted anyone to be and here I sit.

LA, my old friend, are you well? I don’t have open access to you like I did once before, and I wonder… are you at work right now busy as ever, doing what you love most? Or are you in bed with someone new, snuggling? Are you with the girls making them laugh as usual? Do I ever cross your mind from time to time?

You’re on my mind, but I’m too exhausted to even say anymore. My brain is racked around you and it leaves me dyfunctional.

With love,
Cec.