you will never be without love.

i've recently realized that maybe i don't need you as much as i once thought.

or maybe i really do need you,

but i have to accept the reality where you do not need me anymore. although maybe you never did.

its time to let go of the part of me that once thrived on your attention and your constant company.

but i do love you, in every way, shape and form.

but my heart can no longer be filled with this one-sided love.

so many nights i slept with a drained heart and an exhausted mind from trying to understand you and trying to understand me

and trying to understand this being-in-love deal.

and so many mornings i awoke on a new day ready to stand up and try all over again.

this was the hardest task i have ever faced.

it doesn't exactly sound difficult to wake up, get out of bed and face the day,

but with a broken heart it's almost unmanageable.

facing failure was not something i was comfortable with.

and every single day of every single week, i faced it. over and over and over.

but i was addicted to it...

those all-night phone conversations, those friendly texts,

the changing of my daily course just to look you in the eye and feel that sense of relief with your familiar hellos.

little moments i once considered times of total happiness

turned into moments of failure i faced because i couldn't leave my addiction behind.

if only i could have avoided you and simply crashed and recovered.

it could have been that easy.

i wish there had been someone to hold my hand and tell me it was okay to stand each day.

that maybe there was a reason for it all and maybe tell me that i was strong enough to do it.

i needed a 'person' just for me.

ironically, i gave the role of being my 'person' to you.

my person who could make me laugh, wipe my tears and look me in the eye to tell me it was alright.

but how could you be that person when you had no idea of what was occurring behind my aching eyes and forced laughs?

you played your role well, well enough for me to keep needing you just to get by a single day.

the only real smiles came when you would give me your full attention and bring everything rushing back into my memory.

i literally required, needed, thirsted for the one who broke my heart.

because it was my 'person' who was the only one who could put it back together.

and you were my 'person'.

but now i think i am my own 'person'.

i can make me happy.

and that is something i could never have said before you

or more like before you stole my once together heart from me and constructed it your own way.

so now i think it's time for me to take that heart back from you and clean it up for the next person to steal it.

thank you for giving me a direction and a purpose for so long,

but now i'm ready to change courses and let you simply become a lesson learned and not in any way regretted.

thank you for being my motivation to be patient with myself and figure out just what it was i always searched for.

Chrissy Taubert