half of an ending letter, half of a thank you note:

i've had this blog for 9 years now. it has been with me through college, through relationships, through break-ups, through korea, and i feel like now may be the best time to let go of what was and move on to what will be. this will be for no other reason than my sanity, which, though well-preserved at the moment, has seen better days throughout the posts of this blog.

thank you to all of my friends and family who have been supporters of my writing over the years, though it has waned considerably in the past few years; i've found that it may be better to keep my personal writings in journals locked away rather than in the public sphere.

thank you to you, too - you know exactly who. thank you for breaking down my walls, the first time to foster an emotional bond and the second time to break it completely. thank you for the sleepless nights and the panic attacks and the moments where i didn't know whether i would be able to hold my tears back at work. thanks for pushing me to my breaking point and allowing me to understand how much i needed outside help. you were the most painful catalyst i think i've ever had, but from the experience, i've learned some of the best lessons.

i still have bad days. some days i'm walking around at work or at school and i have a small thought that reminds me of you and sometimes it feels like the end of the world and sometimes i smile. some days i drink and have thoughts of screaming at you for being such a... it doesn't matter that much now, does it? some days i still have trouble falling asleep because you've been engraved in my memory like an inscription on an ancient stone...

but i get through them, and that's the most important part. every time i start to get sad or i start to feel like things won't be okay again, i just remember that i'm still alive and that most days, i'm really incredibly happy. i've found that i have one of the best support systems in the world - both old and new friends - but that i'm also fully capable of supporting myself. i have a job that i enjoy going to every day and students whose perspectives i look forward to understanding.

thanks for the nightmares and the haunting visions of you with another person - reminders that the past stays in the past for a reason. thanks for never letting my friends or my family in - that really made the transition much easier. thanks for reminding me that people often suggest that they are dependable and then do the exact opposite, thus teaching one of the most influential life lessons of all: in the end, the only person you can depend upon is yourself.

this all comes out a bit sarcastic and rude, but the reality is that i'm actually thanking you for this. i lived in a dream world with you for four years - we had our issues, yes, but for the most part we were blissfully happy (or at least i was - i now question that you ever were). the reality is that life is not blissfully happy and that things that seem like heaven often aren't heaven. with that comes the heavy realization that the "princess" love story that is often fantasized about is not actually ever a reality - i honestly thought that that was my situation, but that all came crumbling apart at the beginning of this year.

i've always said that i sit through a death a year, and though the year isn't over yet, i guess the situation really was a death - the death of an illusion, the death of dependency, the birth of a new reality. i'm happy with my new reality. my new reality often consists of doing anything and everything that i like, and is also filled with a new awareness of toxic relationships, friendship and otherwise, which potentially saved me from a lot of emotional distress in the past month.

the reality is that i occasionally miss you, and then i realize that it's more likely that i don't actually miss you - to be fair, i'm not even positive i know who the real you ever was - but that i missed the moments we had because, to be fair, we had some wonderful moments. being without you, though, has proven to me that i am perfectly capable of taking care of myself and accepting responsibility for myself. what i once thought was a curse has turned into a beautiful, beautiful blessing.

i've been clinging to this idea of closure recently, which has caused me to backslide a lot on my strong grounding, but i had a realization today that even though i feel like i need closure and answers, i will so rarely get those answers. my need for understanding runs deep, but maybe that's just my next journey: realizing that even though i was given no explanation for the progression of events, that doesn't mean that i have to continue searching for them. sometimes we have to learn to shut the book even if we don't understand the ending, especially if there are no pages left to turn.

with that, i'm closing the cover on you, westsideangst. thanks for a great 9 years. here's to the future: cincinnati, colombia in december, korea next year, and a masters degree... life has never looked so beautiful.