This Is Me Letting You Go

A sample of This Is Me Letting You Go

This Is Me Letting You Go

Heidi Priebe

Thought Catalog Books

thoughtcatalog.com

Copyright © 2016 Heidi Priebe.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior written consent and permission from Thought Catalog.

Published by Thought Catalog Books, an imprint of Thought Catalog, a digital magazine owned and operated by The Thought & Expression Co. Inc., an independent media organization founded in 2010 and based in the United States of America. For stocking inquiries, contact stockists@shopcatalog.com.

Produced by Chris Lavergne and Noelle Beams
Art direction and design by KJ Parish
Circulation management by Isidoros Karamitopoulos

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First Edition, Limited Edition Pressing
Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 9781530896653

Contents

1. Introduction — 7
2. Read This If Nobody Texted You Good Morning — 9
3. I’m Texting You This Because I Like You — 13
4. The Truth About Meeting Someone At The Wrong Time — 15
5. Read This If You're Worried That You'll Never Find ‘The One’ — 17
6. For Every Fierce Woman Who Has Tried To Be Tame — 21
7. You Should Choose The Lifestyle You Want Over The Person You Want — 25
8. How To Fall Half In Love With Someone — 29
9. Read This When You're Tired Of Everything — 33
10. Here Is How You Love Without Expectation — 37
11. Read This If There's Someone You Can’t Forgive — 41
12. The Worst Kind Of Failure That Nobody Talks About — 45
13. 14 Things It's Time You Forgave Yourself For — 49
14. Here Is When You Need To Be Alone — 53
15. Why It's So Hard To Get Over A Cheater — 57
16. Read This If You Feel Like It's Taking You Too Long To Move On — 61
17. Here Is When You'll Get Over Your Ex — 65
18. What They Don't Tell You About Love — 69
19. Just Be The One Who Cares More — 73
20. Take A Chance On Me — 77
21. What We Forget When We Say The Timing's Wrong — 79
22. Let Me Fall In Love With Your Darkness — 83
23. I Flat-Out Refuse To Marry Anyone Unless These Are Our Vows — 85
24. What The Beginning Of A Relationship Feels Like After The End Of So Many Others — 89
25. Please Delete My Number — 93
26. Here Is How You Stop Waiting For Someone To Come Back — 95
27. Maybe You And I Don't Get Another Universe — 97
28. When You Have To Leave The Best Things Behind — 101
29. What If I Won You Back? — 105
30. How To Love Someone You Cannot Hold Onto — 109
31. This Is Me Letting You Go — 111

For B.

Introduction

This is a book that I wrote when I was heartbroken.

I’d imagine that’s how many books get made.

We lose something we love, and it seems natural to try to reconstruct it—mulling over memories, sorting through missteps, bleeding our expired hopes and habits onto paper, hoping some part of what we’ve loved will still be salvageable.

If only I can make this pain pretty, we tell ourselves, then it mattered. Then there’s some reason to carry it forward.

But real pain isn’t pretty at all.

And through the process of writing this book, I learned just that.

This book is a compilation of articles I wrote throughout one of the most tumultuous years of my life.

I was freshly out of college and newly dumped. I was welcoming the job of my dreams and saying goodbye to a community I loved. I was falling in love at some points, and I was falling apart at others. I was ready to move on, and I was wholly unprepared to let go. And isn’t that how so many of our changes take place?

Life happens before we are ready for it. These pages are a testament to that.

This is a book about moving on when you don’t want to. It’s a book about receiving a future you’re not ready for. It’s a book about accepting that the hand we are dealt is not always the one we want to play, and yet we have to learn to keep on playing anyway.

This is a book about letting go.

It’s about letting go of pain and expectation. Of self-loathing and self-glorification. Of the traumas that we never thought we’d heal from and the love that we never thought we’d lose.

This book is a mixture of lighthearted, joyful articles and serious, somber ones. Because the truth about letting go is that it doesn’t take on a single shape or form. It happens in stops and starts. In stretches and setbacks. In moments where the world feels wide-open and days where all your doors are slamming shut.

Letting go isn’t simple or straightforward. It’s a dynamic, lifelong process.

And I hope that some part of this book can meet you wherever you are in that process.

Because nobody else can let go for you. But we could all use some company along the way.

1. Read This If Nobody Texted You Good Morning

First of all: Good morning, beautiful.

Is it too late to say that? I know you’ve probably been awake a while—likely hours or even all day. I know you may have gone this whole time without hearing it—shrugging back to friends and family who asked you how you’re doing with a non-committal "Fine" because that is what we’re meant to do as humans—answer meaningful questions with arbitrary phrases. I know that you may not be fine. I know you may have had a lackluster day. And I know that something as incredibly mundane as a "Good morning" text may have made all the difference in the world. It’s okay if that’s the case. It’s okay to sometimes ache for those simple and kind-hearted gestures.

Because the truth is that good morning texts are more than a half-hearted means of communication. They are a sign that we are thought of. Cared for. Adored by someone who may not be immediately present. They are a reminder—one we perhaps should not need but sometimes do—that we are appreciated in our entirety. So, if you did not get one this morning, here is what I want you to know:

You deserve to have a good day today, not because of some universal law that necessitates good things happening to worthwhile people, but because we all do. We all deserve to have a beautiful morning and a correspondingly fantastic day, regardless of who loves us, appreciates us, or thinks of us first thing when they wake up in the AM. Just because someone is not around to appreciate the complexities of who you are does not mean you deserve anything less than pure joy. And in case there’s no one else to remind you, here is what else I want you to know:

There’s a particular way you laugh that can make an entire room light up, if only for a moment in time. There is a way you tilt your head when you are concentrating that makes you look unbearably kissable—as if you were placed on this earth only to stare at things and frown in the most endearing form humanely possible. There is a noise you make when you are falling asleep—a soft, almost inaudible sigh that sounds like the ethereal embodiment of all that is tranquil and calm. There are a thousand minute intricacies that make up the tapestry of who you are, and not a single one has ceased to exist since the last time that somebody loved you.

I know we’re not supposed to need reminders of that. I know that we’re supposed to be strong and self-sufficient and reassured—certain of our own worth, questioning only the value of others. But we’re human. We forget.

We forget that we are lovable. We forget that we’re desired. We forget that we are anything other than the hard-shelled, busybody workaholics we’ve all been trained to behave as. We forget that we, too, merit adoration.

And here’s what is easiest to forget: Who you are doesn’t cease to exist because there’s nobody there to admire it. The way you bite your pencil is still cute, even when nobody teases you for it. How you hold yourself still exudes confidence, even if there’s no one to assert it to. The way your eyes light up when you’re talking about what you love is—and endlessly will be—attractive, regardless of who is there to listen to you speak. All the little quirks that make you up are not extinguished because somebody once chose against them. You still deserve to have a good day, even when there’s no one there to wish it to you. Even if you forget to remind yourself.

Someday, someone’s going to love all of those tiny things about you. Someone’s going to love the way you cough. They’re going to laugh at the way you lose your keys while you’re actually holding them. Someday, someone is going to stare at you from across a crowded room and know exactly how you’re feeling based on the way your head is tilting or the type of wine you’ve used to fill your glass. Someone is going to appreciate all of your obscurities eventually, but right now, they are all only your own. And that’s okay. First and foremost, you will always belong to yourself.

Here’s what I urge of you if you did not receive a good morning text today: Don’t forget what makes you incredible. Don’t let your own intricacies slide. Because the lovable parts of you are not gone—I absolutely promise you that much.

You are so much more than the person who nobody texted this morning. You are encompassing. You are fierce. You are a blazing, roaring fire in a world full of people who’ve been burnt. So please, refuse to let the wounded people extinguish you. Refuse to be tamed. Refuse to flicker down into a lump of meager, burnt-out coal because somebody else is not tending to your flame.

At the end of the day, we’re all in charge of what we bring to our lives. So be the person who brings light to your own, even if nobody else shows up for it. Be the person who has a good day, even if nobody wishes you to have one. Find a way to fuel your flame when no one else remembers to because the world needs the light you give off.

And you, my dear, are too intense a power to be reduced by something as small and insignificant as the lack of a good morning text.

2. I’m Texting You This Because I Like You

I’m texting you this because I like you. Because when I think of you, I get this sort of insane feeling inside of my gut that makes me want to listen to really bad pop songs and go for a run (you know it’s bad when I willingly want to go running). I’m texting you this because I think about your body sometimes, pressed up against mine, and what that would mean and how awesome that would feel. I’m texting you this because I like you, and I’m wondering if you’ve caught on.

I’m texting you this because I want to seem like I don’t care. Isn’t it insane how we do that as humans—how we have to feign distance and disinterest as a means of expressing how we feel for one another? I think that’s just crazy, and I know you do, too. I think that is a good conversation we could have, you and I. The kind we pick up over coffee that ends up dragging on for hours and getting us kicked out of the café when it closes. You know, that’s the thing that I like most about you—the way your eyes light up with every new idea and the way the conversation never wanes. I like a lot of things about you, but I’m not going to text those to you because I’m playing it cool. Playing it cool is what we’re always meant to do, even though it doesn’t really seem to impress you.

I’m not texting you the link to a website because I think you’re actually going to like it. I mean, you might, and that would be great, but I mostly just want your reply. What do you think of this thing that I find

[The provided excerpt ends here, mid-sentence.]

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