Life is all about choices, and for the longest time I have given all of mine to you. Every decision I have made, every thought I have had, every dream I have held... they belonged to you. I thought I was okay with this. I thought this is what I was willing to sacrifice for someone I loved, for someone I waited so long to love me back, but then one day it was not enough.
Nothing changed on your end. You still asked me for the same sacrifices that I once was willing to make. In the past if you would have asked me to cut myself open, I would have done so while you watched me bleed. But then something happened, and I realized that I was the one holding the knife. Why am I making myself bleed when you have your own blood?
Why am I the only one making sacrifices? The only one who is willing to give up pieces of myself? Why am I the one who keeps my arms open wide time and time again, when yours are shut tight until you make the decision to open them? Why am I running around in circles trying to make you happy, when I know the second I hang up the phone I am going to cry into my steering wheel and wish I said all the things I was thinking in my head?
At first, I thought I wanted to hate you for this. I wanted to blame you for making me abandon myself in search of you. I wanted to make you see what you had done to me, how you turned me into a shell of the person I once was.
And then I looked in the mirror. It was just me. You were nowhere in sight. There was no means of coercion, no metaphorical gun to my head. I was alone, and I was doing this to myself. I made the decision to allow you to have this power over me. I chose to care about you more than myself. I allowed myself to run in circles. I held my own knife and made my own cuts. This was not your fault, at least not entirely. It was mine.
Life is about choices, and I chose to give my life to you. I chose to allow myself to care about your needs more than my own. I chose to run for someone who would not even crawl for me, and I chose to keep going back when I could run away. I chose this.
I wish I could say I regret my choice, but that is just not who I am as a person. I will never regret you. I will never regret loving you. Loving you will forever be the greatest mistake I ever made, a mistake I would make over and over again if it meant five more minutes with you. But, now it is time for me to make a different choice. It is time for me to think of myself first, to bleed only when I fall. To run only when it is good for my own health. To cry, not because it is over, but for the lessons I have learned. To love you from afar, because loving you does not mean your love is good for me.
Life is about choices, and it is time I finally start choosing me.
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