The Letter That Saved Me

There comes a point in every person’s life when they reach a place of self-love and healing. The healing is gradual, it is a constantly fluctuating line that slowly staggers upwards, but this place of self-love is one that has taken this person a long time to reach.  

People deal with the realization that they are no longer affected by the person who broke them in different ways. Some go out and enjoy themselves, maybe even at a party, some decide that it’s finally time to meet a new person, some stay at home and write in their journal about their feelings and some — like me — write a letter to the one who broke their heart.

I wasn’t intending to.

I’d come to terms with the experience and I’d soaked up all the lessons like a sponge, squeezing out only the bad feelings and the negative emotions that came with them. I was happy, content, and getting on well with my life.

But one day, I sat down and absorbed everything — the lessons, the hurt, the love and what it all taught me — and I decided to write to him.

I’ve accept that healing is not a destination, it is a process and it is a long one at that. And sometimes, while you’re journeying in your path from a jungle of messed up feelings to self-realization and soft happiness, you might want to take a breather and reach out to the one who caused this much growth in you without reaching out to them.

And that’s what I did. I got a pen and a paper and started writing the traditional ‘Dear…’ letter to the person who broke my heart.

Later, I turned this letter into a poem which I shared on my Instagram page, and I realize that maybe he would have read it by now, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that I was finally in a comfortable place to reflect on the experience that I had not many years ago, enough to write about it.

The letter was called ‘indifference’ but I can reassure you, it didn’t come from a place of spitefulness or regret. Instead, it was an accumulation of everything that had happened and how it made me feel at that present moment — indifferent.

I felt indifferent because I was no longer affected by him. I felt indifferent because the heartbreak I experienced didn’t hurt me anymore. I felt indifferent because I knew then that no matter what happened, I was never going to go back into his arms again. I felt indifferent because my heart didn’t know how else to feel about him.

It was like, the hole that he left inside my chest was filled with love and happiness and countless experiences since him so there was no room for pain. There was no room to think about the hurt he caused or the tears or the love. And because there was no room, there were no emotions for him either and instead all that I was left with was indifference.

It felt good. I liked writing this letter because as the words appeared on the paper, I felt stronger and more in control. The letter made me feel like I was the one in power this time, and I was. If you think about it — I was the one asserting, I was the one who was ‘telling him how it is’ and I was the one who had the final say because the last word was mine.

It felt great!

I spoke about my feelings — or the lack thereof — and I even cared to add a little sass, because that’s just me, and by the end as I put that letter in an envelope that wasn’t going to get posted anywhere at all, I felt much lighter than before. I was already happy, but after writing to him, I felt happier. I felt like we’d had a conversation that went my way, and most of you will know that is never the case when you’re speaking to the person who hurt you, and now things were ending in the way that I wanted them to.

After writing it all down, I not only came to terms with the true depth of what I was going through, but I was also able to appreciate my journey and how far I’d come. This was the most fulfilling thing about writing that letter.

I’ve learned now that often to close old chapters you just need a little ‘chapter summary’ of what happened so you can read over it and make sense of everything. This summary doesn’t need to be for anyone but you, and sometimes you don’t even need to write it out. Just think about it if you must but do take the time to reflect and absorb everything that has happened.

Eventually, when you start a new chapter you have that little bit of information about the previous one so you know how to prepare your heart and soul for what’s to come.