i've been considering writing this, since much earlier this year, when i was contacted by someone i didn't know. i listened to their experience & wished i had done so much more back then. even if no one believed me (because ex-girlfriends are always crazy, right?!). because i hadn't spoken out, this person had been hurt in ways they couldn't comprehend. (how can you really explain to someone they'll never wrap their head around someone else's behaviour, no matter how long they analyse it?) as someone, who is presumably (at least a couple of years) older than you, i have a responsibility to speak out - in the hope that you won't ever experience his hurt, in the same way that i did. this is not because i am bitter. (yes - there are definitely some things i am bitter about. that is not what i'm writing about here tho.) though really, as you are someone who does not know of this (open) letter's existence, nor that you are the recipient, i'm trusting this message will be passed along, making it's way to you, when you need it.
i believed every moment was real - until it was ended. brutally.
i believed every word of forever & the connection that i cannot put into words (you know the one i mean, the one where you know what he is feeling even though he is on the other side of the world. or he knows where to find you in a city at night - just because his gut tells him where u are - when your phone has run out of batteries). until it was severed. i was informed that the life i absolutely lived for, no longer existed. by email. not even a phone call, or skype. i had no say in it, despite committing to 'us' more than anything. i am sorry that all i had to offer, still wasn't enough.
that email delivered a message: i no longer had a right to anything. everything was removed. i was never offered an actual chance to resolve a situation i believed in wholeheartedly. partially, this is because of you. i knew of your existence before social media did. whether anyone believes it or not, my soul (& i) cried for a reason i didn't know why, that Sunday back in May, a couple of years ago. you weren't to know that i was trying to coordinate his & my meeting up somewhere in the world; to resolve what i could, to possibly gain closure. to not have it be the way it is now - completely nonexistent. you crossed his path, so i never sent the reply i'd written to his request.
i have been informed of - and have now seen evidence of - the current happiness you have & i can't, nor wouldn't, take that away from you. as another woman on this planet, i don't want you to hurt as i have.
believe in each day, in each moment. ensure that this happiness comes from inside yourself. people can affect us in incredible ways. good and bad. i am someone deeply susceptible to this. (i absolutely believed the words he spoke: soulmate, forever, his feelings never changing. he was my fiancé, i was his tech assistant, we were partners - personally & professionally - so what wasn't there to believe?) this guillotining of my soulmate-ship, my life partnership, my collaborative working relationship... all of those things i was committed to as much as you are now, being taken away has been the hardest lesson. it is not an experience i would welcome on anyone in a million years. i was unfortunate to be informed every moment of realness i believed in was not true & that "...you don't know anything about me and my live [sic]". i hope, in your case, that you've been granted the truth right from the start.
the end of the life that i desperately wanted & loved, also affected those around me. friends who were as shocked as i was, & who grieved, knowing i could no longer live close to them. (now separated by oceans - with no (legal) way to resolve this distance. these friends, i consider my family, who i now see only once every few years.) other friends, also lost their friendships that morning too.
while everything is incredible now & you are on top of the world together at the moment, please remember all it can take is an elbow from someone, for you to topple off. while you might believe that your life is what you make of it, realise that no-one gets to where they get to - the pinnacle or the base - without the influence of others. no one 'succeeds' from within a vacuum, or without support. none of today's refugees (adults or children) stepping onto dangerous boats to cross the Mediterranean to escape their wartorn homelands, are in their real-life life & death situation entirely of their own doing. if you believe you create everything in your life, you might also believe, if anything ever turns sour, that this is also your fault.
we all have incredible opportunities, moments of good fortune, traumas & losses of different kinds. they are not always entirely of our own doing. i have been just as lucky and cursed as anyone else in life. definitely incredibly lucky that i have had a soulmate connection with two people, as he has now too. what he & i had, meant the world to me. i can safely assume it means the world to you now.
remember that a healthy amount of questioning and trusting your gut, is something you should never shut down. if i had done, a conversation many months earlier might have brought a respectful closure to something that i never wanted to end. it might have lessened my heartache & perhaps i wouldn't have been a fool to rent two places in two cities for someone else, only to have them never arrive. instead, like the deafening slap of a palm contacting a cheek, the life i loved & lived for, was guillotined. (at least my gut instinct awoke.)
clichéd as it might be, you are the upgrade model. you have a better chance than i did. please live the life you have now to the fullest, which i expect you are, and also with your eyes open.
