Thank you to everyone who dumped me

a different kind of valentine

To the ex who cheated and left me for their new person…

The best friend who ghosted a month before my wedding…

The casual hook up who stopped texting back…

Thank you for dumping me.

To the friend who love bombed me and then disappeared…

The acquaintance who stopped acknowledging my existence at social functions…

The person who was my chosen family then stopped choosing me…

Thank you for dumping me.

You knew before i did you were ready to move on. you knew before I did we weren’t compatible.

Thank you for doing what i didn’t realize was best for me and for you.

I hadn’t foreseen our paths were moving in different directions. I didn’t know someone else was more suited for your needs. I didn’t realize you weren’t being authentic. I was unaware how much I triggered you. I hadn’t anticipated the healing you needed to focus on. I didn’t realize you wanted someone who was less challenging. I didn’t know my creativity and drive intimidated you and in order to find yourself—you had to lose me.

Thank you for enabling me to avoid further pain.

Thank you for making a choice to free me from the fantasy of a relationship that wasn’t sustainable.

Because I don’t want to be in a relationship with anyone who doesn’t want to be in a relationship with me.

I don’t want to be with someone I am not good for.

Again, thank you.

We both grew up in a culture that didn’t teach us what healthy relationships looked like—let alone healthy breakups.

We both have past experiences that made us want to avoid difficult feelings. we both never learned how to have challenging conversations.

We grew up in a society that told us being broken up with meant you were unworthy of the other person—getting “dumped” implied being disposable like trash.

So for a long time after you dumped me that is how I felt—discarded and not good enough to be with you.

Until I realized that breakups are breakthroughs.

The universe brought us together to learn more about ourselves.

I learned that i didn’t need another person to complete me.

I learned that you don’t always have an answer for why people do what they do, and that is ok.

I learned that just because a relationship ends doesn’t mean it was a failure.

I learned that when someone breaks up with you, it triggers old wounds from childhood when you felt abandoned—and a lot of the grief you feel is from much farther in your past.

I learned that what the world calls rejection is really the universe saying, you are meant for something else. And we can’t foretell how the endings in our lives mark a new and necessary beginning.

I learned that it’s not loving to stay with someone when you aren’t capable of meeting their needs and in that way a break up can be an act love.