You Were Never Toxic

When you get your heart broken, it can make things seem dismal.  You start to think you imagined it all.  All the sweet words, the moments, the looks.  A broken heart tends to tint the world in darkness.

When I was fifteen I fell for someone that I probably would've been better off without.  And I blamed him for breaking my heart for a long time.  Until last night actually.  I spent six years hating him and yet not being able to give him up.  But last night, I found an old journal from high school.  I started reading and my silly little commentary on life brought a smile to my face.  When I realized just how far back it went, I started wondering what I had written about him.  And I finally found the many pages devoted to the confusion he caused my heart.

I didn't imagine things between us.  For however briefly, we did have something more than a friendship.  I could finally remember the butterflies when I saw him, the sweet torturous joy when he found me backstage and I gave him something I had made.

Suddenly, this person, these memories, all of these moments that used to bring tears to my eyes made me laugh.  I never thought I'd live to see the day when I looked back on him and smiled.  But the truth is, I had so much distance from where we began, that I couldn't see things right.  It took my sixteen year old account of every encounter we'd ever had to remind me how much I loved him.  My friends thought he was the worst thing for me.  Toxic.  Poison.  Danger.  But he wasn't.  They were jealous, and fake, and clueless.  He was everything I ever needed.  He was a lesson in so many things.  And if he hadn't been the first to break my heart, someone else would have.  It had to come eventually, and I'm glad it was him and not someone else.

I've spent pretty much every moment since I met him wondering how I was so lucky and also how life could be so unfair.  But the truth is, he didn't break my heart.  Sure, I wish he had stuck around.  I wish he hadn't gotten engaged.  Twice.  I wish we had had a shot at a real relationship and not this weird stuck in the middle thing we've got now.  But it way my expectation that crushed me.  It was idolizing an idea of him and not accepting who he really was that hurt me.  It was my series of many mistakes that broke my heart.  He was just being a nice guy and indulging a silly sophomore that thought the world of him.  In all honesty, I owe him more gratitude for showing me kindness than anything else.

I don't know if he's one of the few that sees these things.  I'm not sure I want to know.  But last night, I learned a valuable lesson.  Nothing is all bad.  There might be pain in the middle, but you can't forget the moments that gave you inexhaustible joy.  Because if you dwell on all the hurt, every other situation in life becomes tainted.  And nothing is worse than good memories that have been twisted and tainted by time.