I don’t know how you like your coffee on cold mornings.

I don’t know on clear nights which rooftop you climb, what haunts your thoughts at night or what makes you want to stand up and fight.

But I do know you—and I know your heart.

You are the woman who zips her own dress up for work every morning. The woman who cooks dinner for one. The woman who runs around double checking locks before going to bed every night. The woman curled up under sheets, in the corner of a bed meant for two.

I know you because we share the same joys and the same pain.

We all arrived here through different roads, different highways and different dirt paths. Some of us are bruised. Some of us are spotless. How we got here doesn’t matter—only how we’re tied together.

We are the women who spend our sweatpants-wearing Sunday afternoons alone. The women who treat ourselves to fancy Valentine’s Day dinners. The women who buy ourselves jewelry after making mistakes.

We are the women who have great sex with sexy men but wake up every morning with no cute text messages or funny notes. 

We are the women who’ve decided to bravely put love on the back burner. We know we’ll one day be partners of wonderful wild men. We might never get married but we know there’ll come a time when we’ll look into someone’s eyes and see a man who loves us.

We never for a second doubt that we deserve all this but we know that now is not that time, and we accept it with grace and patience. And we enjoy the ride. 

Couples in black and white romantic movies make us smile without wincing. We sing along to love songs on radios knowing that one day, one of them will be sung for us. We go to sleep every night happy no one’s taken our minds hostage and that no one is cheating on our hearts. We aren’t waiting. We aren’t still, or frozen with hope. We are in a constant state of motion, dedicating everyday to ourselves and the professional goals we ache for.

We are the women with huge hearts and empty beds, occasionally fulfilled by good men who are interested in our bodies but not in our lives. Who wants to know what we are doing but not HOW we are doing. 

Solitude can get deafening sometimes, but self-sufficiency is a trait even warriors have trouble mastering. And we do it every day. 

Carry your pride flag with you and know you’ll never be alone.

Beside you stands an army of women marching to the same heartbeat in bedrooms that are oceans and countries away, carrying the same promises to themselves throughout their days.

Never allow anyone to tell you what you should have, or who you should need.

And never let anyone tell you who you are allowed to fall in love with, allowed to sexually crave or allowed to miss. 

Before you read this and think it’s for you, I’m sorry but it’s not yours. It was written for me.

Every letter, each word that you see here is mine.

The tears that fell hard on the keys of this computer are not yours to touch. They fell solely for me. The last drop that fell from my cheek has now dried. The cleansing is done.

I have washed my soul. 

My memories are cast and the wind has taken the thoughts that compulsively span around my mind. My eyes no longer seek to catch sight of a love we once shared.

Fuck. I survived. Thank fucking God.

Thank the hours that I trembled, thank the cold hard floors that held my bones and thank the aches that tore through my stomach when you left me empty and raw. Thank loneliness.

Thank you.

I experienced it all.

I learned to feel love. I learned to feel numb. And I stumbled and crumbled and fell into a hole so deep I thought I would never be able to crawl out. It was brutal and it chaotically ravaged my soul.

Some people drink. Some smoke. Some binge eat. And some, like myself, love blindly and desperately. I guess each person kills herself differently.

And that’s what happened. I died. 

I lived under your spell. I was enchanted.

But your rejection, not only towards me, but also towards him, dealt vicious blows and brought me down onto my knees.

I cried out your name. I screamed so loud but no sound came out. No one heard and no one came to the rescue.

So, I mourned alone your death.

I didn’t know what was there at the end of our line. I was terrified to let go of the memories. I felt as if I had to hold on for him.

Then it hit me harder. There was nothing to hold on.  The loss happened a year ago when you told me the most cruel things I have ever heard. Those words drove me to hell and left me there to burn. For way longer than I could take.

I had to stand up and open my eyes. I’ve carried this pain for too long. I’ve taken you with me, all because I couldn’t let go, even though you were never really there.

Time heals. It soothes old wounds and patches up scars.

Time is ironic. Time brings strangers together to heal each other. 

Time teaches there’s no need to hold. Holding is heavy. Holding is agony. Holding prolongs all the pain.

Time forgets the things I rather remember. Time remembers the things I’d rather forget.

Time is messy and always gets confused.

But, time clears. Eventually.

Thank fuck. I’ve suffered enough, though my most of my injuries were self-inflicted.

But now, this is the last drop. I’m empty of you. And I am ready for the twists and turns the future might hold. 

I guess every pain has a silver lining.

We lost you.
But I finally found myself.

I was temporarily weakened but I am now permanently strengthened.