To the Person Who Broke My Heart

Styled by Emma Oleck, assisted by Noelle CalkinsModel: Kriss Hidalgo

Photos by Valorie Wiseman

TO THE PERSON WHO BROKE MY HEART,

I miss you. I don’t know how to write this. I know you would never do a thing to hurt me or to make me sad. You were my best friend. You were the most incredible father a daughter could have ever asked for. I know you didn’t mean to break my heart- but you left me too soon. You left me when I wasn’t ready for you to leave me. Cancer took you, and although people always say “one day it will be okay”, it will never be. Things just get easier, they become normalized.

Walking past your untouched closet every day just became normal. Mom cooking us dinner at night instead of you just became normal. People asking, “what do your parents do?” and me responding with “well, my mom-” just became normal. Thanksgiving and Christmas with your empty seat at the table just became normal. Drives to school or practice without your taken-for-granted dad jokes just became normal. These things should never be normal for a 16-year-old, and I am mad that they had to be. Not at you, but for the sickness taking away the chance for you to ever walk me down the aisle or be able to kiss my children on the forehead (if that day is ever to come, don’t worry, it won’t be anytime soon, I promise). I am angry that I will never be able to hear your powerful, contagious laugh again. I miss listening to rock with you and air-guitaring with all of my might. I miss listening to you tell me all of your crazy old hippy stories from the 70s. I miss hearing you sing in your baritone, opera-like singing voice. I miss watching movies with you. I miss dancing on your toes while you sang to me. I miss you taking a whole hour to tell a simple story because you wanted to make sure I got all the details. I miss swimming in the ocean with you, where you would tell me, “our souls belong here.” I miss being able to call you if I had any question in the whole wide world, knowing you would have the answer, because you were, and you still are, the smartest person I have ever known. When you died, we were broken, but we were relieved. Your soul no longer belonged on this earth; it never did. You had always been too good, too pure, for this place called earth. You were in so much pain, endured so much suffering. When you finally let go I thought, “now he can finally fly,” the way you told me you dreamt of doing every single night. I was so broken, and I still am in some ways. But I am also stronger; we all are. I thought that the day you died, I would too- but I didn’t. In fact, losing you made me want to live even more. Not a day passes where I don’t think of you. Every action, every success, is because of you. I want to make you proud. I want you to know how amazing you raised me. I want to live for you, in every song, in every sunset, in every beautiful moment in time.

I am 22 now. A lot has changed. I am graduating college soon, I have great friends, a great boyfriend (you would really like him), and have found great purpose in my life. I am so proud of myself, I think you would be too. I want to thank you for being my bestest friend, my hero, my inspiration forever. Thank you for your selflessness and your humor. Thank you for understanding me in a way that no one else will ever. Thank you for making me the woman I am today. Thank you for being my father.

I miss you so much, but when I hear one of our songs, I know deep in my soul that you never left me, and you never will. And when I need a reminder, I know I can find you at the place where “our souls belong.”

I love you forever and ever,

Your Little Girl

Hi, I don’t know how to put my heartbreak into words, but I hope this will do. For the ghost that was once our love, there is no one that will love you as much as I do. You weren’t my first heartbreak, but you were by far the most painful. I felt like a ghost around you, maintaining a presence that never existed from your point of view. Like I wasn’t good enough to take place within your peripheral. The first time you broke my heart was on your birthday. I told you I loved you. I cried for you. But I was always a ghost to you. You are a charmer, you were always so good with people. You always brought a different girl home for the holidays, and I was a ghost to you. I couldn’t deny my envy for her, she was always beautiful and better looking than me, and I was a ghost to you. This divided love, to me, is nothing but a one-sided religion only for those who are loved. But what about the unloved? Those who are seeking a haven, someone who could love them unconditionally. I know we will never be together, we are two opposing forces, fighting for what’s different, and I don’t want to feel that anymore. So this is me letting you go. Goodbye.

Dear Me, I’m sorry you lost yourself these past three years. I’m sorry it took so long to see your worth. I need you to know that it isn’t your fault. I need you to know that loving someone with your entire heart isn’t a flaw. It’s the most beautiful experience, but can also be the most painful when shared with the wrong person. I need you to know that the right person won’t make you question anything. I was wrong to make you believe that no one else would treat you any better than he did. I was wrong to break you down just to build him up. I was wrong to make you forgive the most unforgivable things because you couldn’t imagine your life without him. I now know how important it is to let go of what no longer serves you. It hurts me to know how much pain I caused you by believing you weren’t good enough. I know now how important it is to tell you how strong you are and how proud I am of you. You are worth far more than how you’ve been treated in the past. Most importantly, I’m sorry I wasted so much of your time. There’s a whole world out there, waiting for you to see it. I promise to never hurt you like I did in the past by staying in a toxic environment. I promise I will never tear you down to please someone else ever again. I will remind you that you are worthy and deserve everything you want and more. You are smart, kind, passionate, and beautiful. I am so proud of the person you are today and the woman you’re becoming.

To You, It seems almost impossible to fit a heartbreak into just a letter. Yet, so many of us always do. We write a letter to the person that did this to us; expressing how angry and hurt we feel but with no intention of ever hitting send. Instead, we delete it or shove it away, just as with our emotions, which is just what I did on January 4th, 2020. The year was off to a good start! If only we knew. This is when you chose a secret Santa party as the perfect setting to tell me you cheated while on a family vacation to Nashville for New Years. Little did I know this had been going on since the inception of our relationship. For the past almost four years, you have been getting along with other girls. Some underage, some your best friends’ girlfriends, and I was just there for…the comfort? The image? Who knows? Loyalty doesn’t seem to be in your limited vocabulary. At that moment, when you told me, I felt everything and nothing all at once. My world was crumbling around me and everything I had ever known since I was only seventeen, suddenly seemed like a lie. However, we still had presents to open and friends to see, so down went the emotions, and out came the smile I fought so hard to maintain throughout the night. Leaving you later that night was the easiest decision I’ve ever made but the aftermath was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to endure. I started to receive texts from more and more of the girls you cheated on me with, screenshots in tow, shedding light on your ugly truth. This went on for several months. I’m grateful to those girls because now I know the story you were too much of a coward to tell. As crazy as it sounds, I wouldn’t change what you did to me for the world. Through all the tears, the eating disorders, and the therapy, I not only found and reconnected with the most beautiful friends, but I found myself. Getting back in touch with my friends was the best thing I ever did for myself and something that I never should have let go of. They not only lifted me off the ground but pushed me up into the mountains. There was so much I had been missing out on because you manipulated me into not pursuing the things I love. I confronted you in May, with one of those texts you write with no intention of sending. However, I felt that confronting you was the only way to end the constant nightmares. As soon as my finger hit the blue arrow on the screen, I felt the biggest rush of freedom I’ve ever experienced. Whether you would respond or not was irrelevant. I could feel the gates of my broken heart open up and it’s as if I could see color again. All this newfound happiness and opportunity seemed suspicious. It had honestly been so long. I didn’t trust it and wondered how long this wave of euphoria would last. It couldn’t be more than a few minutes, but it’s almost November now, just a few days shy of your birthday as I finish writing this. I’m still riding that wave and it’s as strong as ever. The journey of getting through the heartbreak you caused has led me to the best version of myself I’ve ever seen. So much so that my friends and family compliment me not on my new hair, not on the tattoo I got on a soul-searching backpacking trip, but on my glow. The person I am today is not one you would like because you were trying to turn me into someone I wasn’t. Today, I am someone who finds happiness in the simple pleasures in life and living in the moment rather than chasing validation from others to fabricate your social status. I truly hope you find yourself, because the persona you portray is just that. A façade. Maybe one day you’ll be strong enough to come to terms with your mistakes and fully develop into the person I thought you were. Sure, you’re out in the middle of a pandemic partying and getting with Tinder girls that look like the female version of yourself, but I’m getting back into the hobbies I left behind for you. I’m getting to know myself better and surrounding myself with kind and caring friends. I’m appreciating myself for the person I am, regardless of what shallow people like you think. I’m healing. Correction: I am healed. They say when a broken bone heals, it’s stronger than ever. I’ve written a few of these letters to you since January. They live in my drafts, at the bottom of my desk drawer, and on pages in my journal. These letters are never meant to see the light of day. They are not meant to be sent. They are letters exposing you for what you did; angry ones, sad ones, hateful ones, and somber ones. It’s not that I don’t have the courage to hit send, it’s that I was waiting for the universe to show me a sign. If I would have had this opportunity back in January, I’m not sure I would have been in the right frame of mind to accurately convey my feelings and thoughts in the way I am able to now. Now not only have I been able to fully unpack all of those hardships, but I am finally free to be the person I’m growing into. As I continue to ride my wave of euphoria that I found in your hate, I’m hitting send.

Dear You. I don’t constantly think about you anymore. I don’t always miss you. I don’t sit in my room replaying all our memories, one by one. Yet, I can’t lie; some things remind me of you. I could be laying on the beach and the sound of the waves crashing brings me back. I think of us acting like kids in the ocean, pushing each other down and splashing. It could be a perfectly normal drive to the store, until our old favorite Dan and Shay song comes on. I think of the way you looked at me while we belted out the words. It’s the little things like these that make me miss you, even if it is only sometimes. I miss the way you waited for me at your car when picking me up on our first date. I still have that image of you engraved in my head. I miss the way you made me laugh like no other; we really did have the same sense of humor. I miss the way that you were always there, not just to listen, but to hear me. You alone knew all of my deepest, darkest secrets. You even held me in your arms when I cried that one time on Halloween, the time I was able to open up to you the most. Although, I don’t miss the way it ended. You left me broken and confused, still keeping me around for your own convenience. I don’t miss the times I would come home from being with you, feeling drained because trying to please you made me feel as if I was a fish out of water. It could never work. I don’t miss the times where I was alone, just wondering what we were. It was exhausting, and constantly left me running around in circles. I sure as hell don’t miss crying alone, night after night, because you took a piece of me away that I still wonder if I’ll ever get back. There are days where a glimmer in the sun makes me think of the glimmer in your smile, and I miss you. Then, I think about the way you really made me feel and that is why I continue to move forward.

Photo by Valorie Wiseman