Looking in the RearView
“Objects are Closer Than They Appear”
They say hindsight is twenty-twenty, but the truth is, it’s more like a cracked mirror — every glance backward distorts the image just enough to make you question what you saw in the first place.
I spent years loving someone who taught me that pain could wear perfume and smile in public. She didn’t raise her voice often, but when she did, it left bruises in places no one could see. I lost count of the apologies I whispered to myself, trying to convince my heart it was just a rough patch. That if I worked harder, loved louder, or held on tighter, maybe she'd come back to the version of her I first fell in love with — the version that might never have really existed.
Still, I never stopped showing up. For her. For the version of us I kept alive like a candle in a hurricane.
Now, she’s in my rear-view. And some days, I still glance back, out of habit. Out of hurt. Out of hope. But healing, I’ve learned, isn’t about forgetting — it’s about learning to look back without wanting to turn around.
I can still remember vividly how it ended. It started with her tone.
Sharp. Dismissive. The kind of tone that tells you you’re stupid without using the word. I was just asking if she’d seen the envelope with the rent money. That was it.
“Why do you always assume I touched your shit?” she snapped, not looking up from her phone.
My stomach tightened.
“I didn’t assume,” I said, gently. “I just asked.”
She rolled her eyes like it was the dumbest thing I’d ever said. Like I was a child needing to be corrected.
“Maybe if you weren’t so damn careless all the time, you’d know where your own things are.”
I stood there, silent. I’d heard worse. I’d been called worse. But something about the casual cruelty in her voice made my throat burn.
She walked past me, brushing against my shoulder like I wasn’t even there. Her perfume lingered in the air — sweet, intoxicating, the scent I once associated with home. Now it smelled like manipulation.
I turned to face her. “Why do you talk to me like that?”
She stopped. Slowly, dramatically. “Like what?”
“Like you hate me,” I said, quieter now. “Like you resent me for still trying.”
She smirked — not out of amusement, but out of power. “Because you’re exhausting. You always need validation. You always want to ‘talk about feelings.’ It’s pathetic.”
My heart sank, but I kept my voice steady. “I just want us to be kind to each other. That’s not pathetic.”
Then she got louder. “Don’t turn this around on me. You’re always playing the victim. Maybe if you weren’t so damn sensitive, we wouldn’t be here.”
I flinched at her volume. Not because I was afraid she’d hit me — but because she already was. With every word. Every cutting phrase. And she knew it.
And then she said it.
“You’re lucky I haven’t left already. No one else would put up with you.”
That was the moment something in me cracked.
I’d spent years trying to be the version of myself she would love. I bent. I shrank. I sacrificed my own voice just to avoid hearing hers raised. But that line? That line gutted me.
Because deep down, some part of me believed it.
I didn’t yell. I didn’t slam doors. I just walked into the bedroom, closed the door behind me, and sat on the edge of the bed like a man grieving someone who was still alive.
She didn’t come after me. Not to apologize. Not to explain.
And that night — I slept facing the wall. Quiet. Broken. And finally beginning to understand:
Love shouldn’t cost you yourself.
“The Mirror Hurts Too”
They don’t tell you that healing comes with shame.
Not just for what was done to you — but for what you did in return. For the moments you broke character. For the promises you made and didn’t keep. For the days you became the very thing you swore you’d never be.
I used to think she was the only villain in our story. But time softens the blame, and clarity sharpens the mirror.
I hurt her, too.
Not in the ways she hurt me — mine wasn’t calculated or cruel. But pain doesn’t need a plan to do damage. Sometimes, all it takes is your silence when you should’ve spoken. Or your shouting when you should’ve walked away.
I remember the night she cried and said she didn’t feel seen. I brushed it off. Told her she was being dramatic. She wasn’t. She was drowning. And I was too busy keeping my head above water to realize we were both sinking.
There were promises I made just to end the fight — not to honor them. “I’ll change.” “I’ll be better.” “I’ll listen.” They were bandages on a leak I refused to fix at the foundation. And the more I said them, the less they meant. To her. To me.
I wasn't always patient. I wasn't always kind. I became reactive, bitter, guarded. I shut down when she needed me open. I got quiet when she needed answers. And some days, I stayed not because I believed in us — but because I was afraid of starting over.
And that’s not love. That’s fear with a ring on its finger.
The truth? We were both damaged. Both desperate. Both afraid of being alone more than we were willing to be honest.
I don’t excuse what she did. I don’t forget the manipulation, the gas-lighting, the betrayals. But I also won’t pretend I was innocent just because I was hurt.
I contributed to the slow erosion. The missed chances. The same arguments on repeat. I stayed too long, and in doing so, I helped build a home made of triggers, not trust.
Some days I miss her. Some days I miss who I was when I believed we could make it.
But most days?
Most days I just pray that the next time I love — I do it from a place of healing, not survival.
A Heart Like David’s”
The church was nearly at its capacity, but I was in my own world.
Just me and the silence, broken only by the faint hum of the lights above the altar and the soft creak of the pew before me. I sat in the third row upstairs— not out of tradition, but because I couldn’t bring myself to go further. Not yet.
My Bible rested on my lap, open to Psalm 51.
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”
I read it again. Slowly this time. Letting the words sink into the bruised corners of my soul.
I used to wonder how David — a man who failed so epically, who betrayed, who lied, who even took a life — could still be called a man after God’s own heart.
But now, I understood.
It wasn’t about perfection. It was about pursuit. David didn’t run from his brokenness — he brought it to God, raw and honest. He owned his failures. And still, he returned. Again and again.
Just like this.
I closed my eyes and exhaled.
“I’ve blamed her for a long time,” I whispered into the packed sanctuary. “And maybe some of that blame was justified. But God… I know I failed too. I didn’t protect her heart like I should’ve. I let my wounds become weapons. I became hard where I should’ve been tender. Silent when I should’ve prayed.”
My voice trembled. “I wasn’t the man I was meant to be. And I can’t fix the past, but I don’t want to live chained to it anymore.”
The tears came, slow and cleansing. Not dramatic — just steady. Like grace.
“I forgive her,” I said finally. “And I forgive me, too.”
That was the hardest part.
I sat there a while longer, letting it wash over me. The weight of guilt and shame didn’t disappear all at once, but it loosened. The grip wasn’t as tight anymore.
I wasn’t perfect. But for the first time in a long time, I was honest. That was something.
Before I left, I scribbled in the back of my journal:
“Becoming a man after God’s heart doesn’t mean you won’t fall.
It means you fall toward Him.”
And with that, I stood. No fanfare. No divine chorus.
Just a man with a limp and a heart finally learning how to beat freely again.
The Small Things Now”
It started with the mornings.
No more waking up to chaos. No walking on emotional eggshells or bracing for the next blow, visible or not. Just sunlight through half-open blinds, a cup of coffee I made for no one but myself, and the living room door opened to a message— a quiet place where healing had room to breathe.
I didn’t rush anymore. I prayed first. Not just for strength, but for patience. For wisdom. For softness.
The version of myself from a few years ago wouldn’t recognize this one. This man who paused before reacting. Who no longer needed to be right in arguments, but chose to walk away from them. Who didn’t see forgiveness as weakness, but as freedom.
I still had my moments — shadows that rose without warning, memories that crept into my chest and made it hard to breathe. But now, I faced them instead of feeding them. I wrote them down. Brought them to God. Let them pass.
One afternoon at a local coffee shop, a barista accidentally spilled an entire cup down my shirt.
The old me would’ve snapped— not because of the coffee, but because life had already made me feel invisible. Disrespected. Small.
But now?
It’s just a shirt,” I said, smiling. “I’ve lost worse and still survived.”
The barista apologized three times, but I waved her off gently. It was nothing. It was a moment. It was a choice. And I chose grace.
That night, I met up with a friend I hadn’t seen in months. We talked for hours — mostly about life, about God, about scars. At one point, the friend leaned in, voice low.
“You’re different, man. Quieter. But not like… defeated. More grounded. Lighter. What changed?”
I thought for a second, then replied, “I stopped trying to fix everything. I stopped carrying pain like it was proof I loved her. I let it go. And I gave it to God.”
The friend nodded slowly. “You still believe in love?”
I smiled. Not bitter. Not naive. Just real.
“Yeah,” I said. “But I don’t worship the idea of it anymore. I want something rooted in truth this time — not trauma.”
Healing didn’t make me perfect. However, it made me intentional, and that made all the difference.
I still looked in the rear-view sometimes, but, now, I did it only to remind myself how far I’d come — not to go back.
As the weeks turned into months, the ache began to soften. It didn’t disappear completely—hurt rarely does—but it no longer ruled my days, and in the quiet that followed the storm, I began to hear something else: a whisper of purpose.
For so long, I had wrapped my identity around that relationship—around being someone’s person, someone’s peace, someone’s home. Now, with only God to lean on, I started asking different questions: Who am I without them? What am I here for? As I had lost myself and purpose being immersed in that union.
It was in those quiet morning moments—coffee in one hand after fasting, journal in the other—that I started to remember things I had forgotten about myself. The dreams I had shelved. The passions I once poured into others but never into me. There was a spark again, something I hadn’t felt in years. A desire to live with intention, to give from a place of wholeness instead of emptiness.
God wasn’t just healing me. He was repurposing me.
I felt a pull toward helping others who were walking through their own valleys—friends, strangers, men who thought they’d never have peace again. I started writing more honestly, sharing parts of my story that I once hid. Somehow, pain had turned into testimony. And my vulnerability became a bridge for others to cross over into hope.
I realized that my worth wasn’t tied to being chosen by someone else. I was already chosen. Already seen. Already loved beyond measure.
So no, I didn’t come out of that heartbreak the same. I came out wiser, less rigid, stronger. With a heart more aligned with God, and hands more ready to serve.
This new season didn’t look like what I had planned. But it felt sacred.
And for the first time in a long time—I was excited for what was next.
1st Corinthians 13: 4-7
“4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
“With the ache receding and purpose stirring, creativity slipped back into my life almost unnoticed—like sunlight creeping across a room just before dawn. Falling in love with yourself and passions will help to calibrate your purpose.
Healing isn’t linear—and it’s not just about what was done to me. Somewhere along the path of heartbreak, I had to stop and admit the hard truth: I had caused pain, too. In my brokenness, I’d hurt someone I once loved. In obvious ways, but also in sharp words, silence that punished, control disguised as concern. I used my own wounds to justify actions that weren’t love, and that realization cracked me open all over again.
Looking in the rear-view, I didn’t just see what they did—I saw what I did, and that was the beginning of real repentance.
I started writing not to share, but to confess. Quiet mornings with my journal became a sacred space. The pages didn’t lie. They held my rawest admissions, my deepest regrets, and slowly, something shifted. I wasn’t writing to escape guilt—I was writing to own it, to make sense of it, to surrender it to the God who sees even this and still doesn’t turn away- Just like David.
It wasn’t performative. It was accountability in ink.
“Faith without works is dead.”
So I started asking: What does repair look like, when the damage has already been done?
I started fasting and praying more. Being slow to anger, while burning pride and ego out of my life. My thoughts. And my heart.
I reached out where I could. No expectations—just truth, apology, and space. Some doors stayed closed- thankfully. Some responses were gracious. All were humbling. I didn’t get to decide how others healed from what I’d done, only how I lived differently going forward.
I started writing more intentionally—business proposals, poems, stories braided with hard-earned wisdom. I wrote about emotional immaturity, about cycles I had inherited and repeated, and about breaking them with God’s help. My creative gift wasn’t just for beauty anymore—it was for reckoning, and for rebuilding.
Writing gave my guilt somewhere to go—into something redemptive. It reminded me that transformation is a daily choice. Not just to feel sorry, but to live sorry. To live changed.
So I prayed prayers that began, “Lord, help me to walk in your will. Help me to rid myself of the spirit of aggression, of pride and ego. Help me be someone whose love heals, not harms. Help me to continue believing and trusting in you. Help me to not lean on my own understanding, and in ALL my ways I should acknowledge you, for you will direct my path.”
I couldn’t rewrite the past. But through writing, I could tell the truth about it—and create a new future where grace wasn’t just received, but reflected.
I met her one evening.
Simple. Unexpected. She wasn’t loud, but she carried herself with a kind of quiet confidence that made the room feel safer just by being in it. We talked — casually, comfortably. There were no games, no pretending. Just real conversation.
She laughed at my dry humor, asked thoughtful questions, and looked me in the eye like she wasn’t afraid of what she might see there.
And for a moment — a brief, terrifying moment — I felt something stir.
Hope.
But then came the whisper: “Not yet.”
Not because she wasn’t worth it. She was.
But because I still felt the weight in my chest when I thought of a certain place, or when an old love song slipped into a playlist. I still had dreams where I was back in that apartment, trying to hold a woman who’d already let go.
And there were still days — not every day, but enough — where my mind drifted back to her.
Not the version that broke me.
The version I fell in love with.
The one who danced barefoot in the kitchen in a onesie.
The one who talked about baby names.
The one who, for a while, really tried.
I thought about the empire we almost built. The trips we almost took. The future we almost had.
Almost was a cruel kind of grief.
She gave me her number. Said, “No pressure. Just… if you ever want to talk.”
I kept the slip of paper in my wallet for three days before tearing it in half and throwing it away.
Not because I didn’t like her.
But because I was finally honest enough with myself to say:
“I’m still rough around the edges. I’m still healing. And I won’t drag someone into my process just because I’m tired of being alone.”
Then it hit me. The alarm went off and I jumped up! I was dreaming!
I prayed that morning.
“God… give me the strength to wait. I don’t want to build something new on a cracked foundation. I don’t want to love from a place of brokenness.”
Solitude was different now. It didn’t feel like punishment. It felt like peace.
Some nights were quiet and fulfilling — long walks with worship music playing, writing poetry in the moonlight, slow conversations with God that didn’t ask for anything but understanding.
Other nights? They were hard. Rough. Felt like my personal Hell.
Memories crept in like thieves. I’d catch myself scrolling through old photos or wondering what she was doing now. Whether she missed me. Whether she ever truly saw me. Whether she was healing too.
But now, I didn’t run from the ache.
I allowed it speak.
I listened.
I gave it to God. Again and again.
Because that’s what healing looked like — not pretending you’re over it, but refusing to let it rule you anymore.
I was becoming the man I once thought I had to fake.
Not perfect. Still learning. Still tempted to text. Still missing what could’ve been.
But now? I didn’t need someone to complete me.
I wanted to be whole before sharing my life with someone else.
So I waited.
And in the waiting, I was no longer lonely.
I was growing.
Since then, I’ve been using the rear-view mirror not to return to the past, but to remember what it taught me. A reminder that pride, ego, and emotional blindness once drove me off course… and that humility, patience, and surrender are what keeps me aligned now.
The road stretched out in front of me — long, quiet, unhurried.
There was no destination today, just movement. A drive without a reason, except to breathe and think and feel again.
I glanced in the rear-view mirror — a habit now. Not out of fear. Out of discipline.
There was nothing behind me but open pavement. Still, the image pulled something deeper.
It reminded me of who I used to be.
The man who fought with silence instead of words.
The man who chose being right over being kind.
The man who clung to pride like armor and called it strength.
But that mirror also showed me something else.
How far I’d come.
I used to think ego was confidence. That standing my ground — even when it cost peace — made me a man.
But now, I saw how ego had kept me from listening. From apologizing. From taking accountability. From growing.
It had convinced me that I always had to be strong. Stoic. Unaffected.
But real growth came the day I admitted:
“I was wrong.”
Not once. Not just in that relationship. But in how I showed up — or didn’t. In the way I avoided vulnerability because it made me feel weak. In the way I performed healing before I’d even started it.
Pride had burned bridges I was now learning to rebuild — not with others yet, but within myself.
I looked in the mirror again.
Thank You,” I whispered. “For showing me who I was — and who I no longer want to be.”
The world moved fast. Everyone chasing the next high, the next distraction, the next temporary fix.
But I was moving slower now — on purpose.
I kept a moral code not because it earned me applause, but because I had seen what happened when I didn’t. When lines blurred. When I excused my behavior with pain. When I justified my silence with being "tired."
I used to live by feelings. Now, I lived by conviction.
Even when no one was watching.
Especially then.
Because God wasn’t looking for performance — He was looking for consistency in the quiet moments. In the choices that didn’t trend, but transformed. And that’s where I struggled mostly- consistency.
There were still days where I ached to share my life with someone.
I had love to give — and this time, it was healthy. Whole. Sacred.
But I wouldn’t rush it.
God had entrusted me with this season of solitude for a reason. To build discipline. To deepen faith. To learn that being alone wasn’t the same as being empty.
I poured my energy into purpose — writing again, mentoring men my age who were stuck in the same cycles that I once was.
And each time I looked in that rear-view mirror — metaphorical or not — I remembered:
Where I’d been.
What I survived.
And why it was worth it to never go back.
I wasn't finished yet.
There were still rough edges. Still moments of doubt. Still nights where I missed the old dreams.
But I no longer let the rearview defined me.
I used it only as a reminder:
To stay humble.
To stay grounded.
To keep moving forward — with grace, with purpose, and with the quiet strength of a man who knows who he is becoming.
“There will be a time when my tear ducts go barren.
Void of the very thing that gives it its purpose.
There will be a time when my nostrils become so clear that its ventilation chills the lobes of my brain.
There will be a time when my mouth goes blank. Empty of the words that sobbed and and sang sweet words of adoration towards you.
My brain will become static. Unable to be aroused by the sweet sounds of your soothing speeches.
My heart will become cryogenic. Losing its ability to feel and express the warmth that smothers you like a glove,
This will be the time, that you realize you have lost the one you love.”
I used to wake from those dreams and feel robbed. Like life had stolen something from me.
But today, I felt something different.
Acceptance.
Not peace. Not yet. But… permission to finally let go of the fantasy of what could’ve been.
The love is gone.
And maybe it was never what I thought it was.
Maybe it was more need than nourishment.
More familiarity than future.
But it was real to me, and losing it still hurts.
There are days I still glance in the rear-view — not to turn around, but to remember why I had to move forward.
To remember what ego cost me.
What silence stole. And what love looks like when it's broken, but still trying.
I miss her sometimes. But I don’t miss me back then.
And that’s progress.
Still becoming.
I believe the hardest part wasn’t when the love ended.
It was when I realized it wasn’t coming back.
That moment when you stop hoping for a text…
Stop checking if she viewed your statuses….
Stop thinking reconciliation is one deep conversation away.
That was the real grief.
Not the breakup.
The acceptance.
I tried to keep it alive long after it had flatlined — bargaining with God, with time, with memory.
Convincing myself that the love we had just needed more effort, more time, more forgiveness.
But what do you do when love becomes survival?
When the hands that once held you become fists, words become weapons, and kisses taste like manipulation?
You let it die.
And that’s what we did.
Not all at once. Not in some grand, final argument.
But slowly. In pieces. In the quiet. In the dark.
In the way I stopped texting.
In the way I started praying more than I begged.
In the way I chose silence over shouting — not because I didn’t care, but because I finally did.
It changed me.
Not just in how I love someone else — but in how I love myself now.
How I protect my peace.
How I say no.
How I recognize red flags without making excuses.
Losing her cost me the illusion.
But it gave me clarity.
And with that came the hardest, holiest gift:
Acceptance.
I don’t hate her.
I don’t hate me.
But I know now — what we had couldn’t have held the weight of who I’m becoming.
And that…
That’s enough for me to keep going forward.
Growing with the Shrink
I sat down slowly on the soft gray couch. It felt smaller than I remembered — or maybe I had just grown since the last time I was here.
The office was still the same:
Vibrant walls, a single window draped with block-out curtains, that somehow allowed for light to sneak through, a bookshelf filled with unread titles, a box of tissues on the side table — untouched, for now.
But I was different.
This time, I didn’t come because I was falling apart.
I came because I wanted to stay together.
The therapist looked up with that same calm, unflinching gaze.
“It’s been a while,” he said.
I nodded, exhaling through my nose. “Yeah. Thought I could muscle through it. Heal on my own. White-knuckle it with prayer and writing and long drives… but some things need light, not just silence.”
The therapist didn’t say anything, just waited.
“I’ve been living with ghosts. Dreams I don’t talk about. Regrets I pretend don’t sting anymore. I keep telling myself I’ve let go — but there are days I still drift into the memory of her. Not even the real her. The idea of her.”
“And how does that feel?”
I blinked slowly.
“Exhausting.”
Therapy didn’t give me answers. Not right away. But it gave me clarity — the space to unpack things I had locked away in the name of strength.
And little by little, I began to repurpose my life.
Not around achievement. Not around pain. But around peace.
I stopped saying yes to things that costed my rest.
Stopped chasing people who didn’t see my value.
Started walking again, early mornings with nothing but the sound of my breath and God whispering through trees.
Started writing poetry that I didn’t show anyone.
Started serving again — not for recognition, but for reconnection.
I rebuilt my life around quietness, purpose, and accountability.
Therapy became a mirror, not a crutch. A place to sit with hard truths — like the fact that I’d caused hurt too, broken promises too, made healing harder for someone I claimed to love.
But instead of shame, I leaned into repentance.
Instead of guilt, growth.
Peace wasn’t something that happened to me.
It was something I chose, over and over again.
In the way I answered texts late instead of immediately.
In the boundaries I set without explanation.
In the way I no longer needed to prove my worth — not to her, not to anyone.
I looked in the mirror one evening — not the rearview this time, but the full one in my hallway.
Beard a little fuller. Eyes a little wiser. Spirit quieter, but stronger.
I didn’t see the man who’d begged someone to stay.
I saw the man who finally learned how to stay with himself.
“effort alone doesn’t equal growth, and that being willing to change isn’t the same as actually changing”
Therapy humbled me.
I sat on the couch, arms folded, leaning back like I was fine — like this was just a check-in, not a breakdown.
The therapist looked up from his notes.
“You said something last time that stuck with me.”
I asked as I secured myself in the couch. “What’s that?”
“That you were always willing to change. That you gave effort. That you tried. Do you believe that made you enough?”
I nodded without hesitation. “Yeah. I showed up. I worked on myself. I didn’t just abandon things when they got hard. That has to count for something.”
He paused.
“It does count. But here’s the question—what did you actually change?”
Silence.
My jaw tightened.
“I mean… I stopped being aggressive. I stopped trying to prevent her from walking out during arguments, my approaches were different. I started listening more.”
“And how long did those changes last before the same cycles returned?”
I looked away trying to balance the teardrop on the edge of my eyelid.
He softened his posture in his seat and uttered. “You’ve convinced yourself that being willing to grow is the same as growing. But there’s a difference between conviction and transformation. One feels good. The other costs you something.”
That hit harder than I had expected.
I swallowed the largest gulp of nothing that almost took my life.
“I thought if I tried hard enough, it would be enough. That being better some of the time proved I was changing.”
“But growth doesn’t happen in the moments where it’s easy to choose better,” he said. “It happens when your worst habits show up and you still choose differently. Even when it hurts. Even when no one sees it.”
I exhaled slowly. “So I wasn’t enough?”
His voice softened. “You weren’t finished.”
That night, I sat with that truth:
I wasn’t enough… not because I was worthless, but because I stopped too soon.
I had confused willingness with wholeness.
Effort with evolution.
Trying with transforming.
I always meant well, and I thought that counted. And it did… but not as much as I wanted it to. Intentions didn’t rewrite behavior. Desire didn’t rebuild trust. Apologies didn’t erase patterns.
I had to own that.
I had shown up — yes.
But sometimes only halfway.
Sometimes just enough to say I tried, but not enough to truly change.
And that’s what cost me love.
Not just hers — my own.
Solace?
It had been tucked in a book on the bottom shelf, pressed between pages like a secret too heavy to throw away.
I wasn’t looking for it — wasn’t even thinking about her that day. But when the letter fell out and landed on the floor, the weight of it hit me like an old bruise.
The handwriting was mine. The pain was mine. The words… belonged to a man still bleeding.
“I wrote this two years ago,” I whispered to no one, carefully unfolding the page like it might still sting.
I sat on the floor, back against the wall, and read.
“For months I’ve been lonely, overwhelmed and alone. Fighting with everything I’ve been going through alone to not burden you with anything. You also have been going through your depression and trying to figure out how to adjust to this new life and role. Luckily, you had me for the physical support and I tried as much as I possibly could to be supportive mentally, emotionally and psychologically. Unfortunately, those efforts were not enough as your “experience was too overwhelming”. Nevertheless, I tried despite the push-backs.
While all of this was happening, I paid no attention to how I was being depleted mentally, emotionally and psychologically, because I needed to show up for you as your source of strength and support and that stifled both of us. We never got the professional help we needed to transition through this new phase, instead, we listened to other people who were also hurt.
I tried as much as possible to not let my feelings get in between us, but it got to an unbearable amount. I further felt forgotten, unloved, unappreciated, uncared for and unwanted. Despite that, I looked beyond all that I was feeling and placed all my focus on making sure you didn’t feel that way as well. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, and one day you’ll look back and say, he actually tried.
There were times I realized that my efforts were misplaced and I had to readjust and approach it differently, but nothing was being received positively. That further sunk me in depression, anxiety, feeling inadequate and feeling unwanted. But, you never realized any of that, because I didn’t allow it to consume me nor us. You never realized how much I was hurting. You never realized how much I was alone. You never realized how much I was afraid of doing what became inevitable- damaging what I wanted to create.
This is no way for anyone to live and I’d recommend that you get the help that you need professionally.
I’m sorry and thank you.”
I allowed the letter to fall to my lap, eyes staring past it, into a memory that no longer held me hostage.
And then it hit me:
I didn’t need to send it.
Didn’t need her to read it.
Didn’t need to revisit it to feel complete.
I had already healed. Slowly. Quietly. In the way I showed up for myself. In the boundaries I’d kept. In the grace I’d learned to extend without opening old doors.
That letter — that version of me — wanted closure from her.
But the man sitting here now?
I already had it.
Because closure wasn’t something she could’ve given.
It came from understanding, from ownership, from God whispering into places no apology ever reached.
Looking back, I’m glad I didn’t send the letter.
Not because it wasn’t honest — but because it wasn’t ready.
I had been writing from a place of guilt, desperation, and emotional debt. I wanted closure like a transaction: Here’s my pain, now give me peace.
But now?
I had peace.
Because I no longer saw that version of myself as pathetic or broken — I saw him as unfinished.
And I could hold space for that man.
Thank him.
And move on.
Darkness crept upon the evening like a thief in the night. Quickly and quietly. The house echoed the pumping of blood in my aorta away from my heart— no music, no distractions, no other background noise to dull the moment.
Just me. The letter, and the decision I was finally ready to make.
I scanned the pages one last time, not in grief, but in reverence. These were the words of a younger version of myself — broken, reaching, unfinished. The man who wrote them was still learning how to speak honestly, how to hurt out loud, how to ask for grace I wasn’t yet able to give.
I opened my laptop, pulled up a blank document, and began to type.
This letter wasn’t a last attempt to be heard.
It was a chapter — a reminder of what it took to get here. A mile-marker on the journey back to myself. Looking in the rear-view.
When I finished, I saved it. Closed the lid.
Then, slowly, I unfolded the original handwritten version, the ink slightly faded, the corners worn soft by time and hands that weren’t ready to let go.
I struck a match.
Held the flame for a breath.
Then touched it to the bottom of the page.
The paper curled almost instantly, flames licking upward like they, too, had been waiting for this release.
I watched silently as the words burned — every apology, every memory, every wish for something that no longer lived.
I dropped the ashes into the sink.
Let the water run.
Watched it swirl and disappear, grain by grain, until there was nothing left.
No more letter.
No more “what if.”
No more waiting for a reply that never came.
I didn’t cry. I didn’t smile. I just breathed.
For the first time in years, my chest didn’t feel heavy with things unsaid.
I had given the past its moment — not to relive it, but to release it.
And that act of letting go… that was the reply I never needed to receive.
The closure had never been in her response.
It was in mine.
And tonight, with fire and water, I chose it.
The water stopped running.
The ashes were gone.
And for the first time in a long while, I didn’t feel like something was chasing me.
There was no need to reread old texts. No urge to check her profile.
I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t sad.
I was empty — but in the best way.
Clear. Quiet. Still.
And in that stillness, something stirred.
I walked back to my desk, opened my laptop again, and just sat there.
The blinking cursor waited.
It didn’t rush me.
It didn’t ask me to be profound.
It just asked me to show up.
So I started to write — not the letter, not the past — but the after.
What healing looked like in real time.
What it meant to feel haunted some mornings, but still choose peace.
What it meant to be a man who used to need love to feel whole, and now found wholeness in God and in himself.
The words came slowly at first, like water through a clogged pipe.
But then… they poured.
What started as a few pages turned into a routine.
I wrote in the mornings. Sometimes in prayer, sometimes in raw honesty.
I wrote at night, when the silence got too loud and memory crept in uninvited.
I wrote scripture beside confession.
I wrote poetry beside pain.
The journal wasn’t just a place to dump feelings.
It became a mirror — showing me where I still hurt, but also where I had healed.
I didn’t write to be read.
I wrote to be real.
What therapy opened, writing helped process.
What faith reminded him of, writing made personal.
I found God again — not just in sermons or Sunday mornings, but in the space between sentences.
In the way truth spilled from my fingers when my mouth didn’t know how to speak it.
In the grace I gave himself on the page — grace that God had offered all along, but I had been too ashamed to accept.
I no longer saw myself as a man who failed.
I saw myself as a man who grew.
Yes, I had caused hurt.
Yes, I had lived in cycles.
But I didn’t stay there.
I turned back. I turned inward. I turned upward.
And in doing so, I reclaimed my voice — not the one that begged to be loved, but the one that was learning how to love without losing myself.
In the end, the letter wasn’t the story.
This is.
The healing.
The pages.
The quiet victories.
The way my faith no longer felt performative — it felt personal.
This is what becoming feels like.
And I was finally ready to write it all down.
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