The time in between the beginning and end of that relationship in my previous post are all a blur to me now. I do not wish to remember that time because I refuse to spend another moment worrying about him.

He’s moved on. He’s found someone else who will give him everything I wouldn’t. I’ve moved on by using my writing as an emotional platform to rid myself of lingering feelings.

The beginning - that seemingly magical moment we met in college - and the end, are the moments that will truly remain with me. Our end arrived, and although it pained me to let him go, I know now that he was not God’s plan for me.

And I thank God every day for the path I am on now, without him.

I wrote this piece on March 9th of last year, when I realized it had been his birthday and it was the second one I wouldn’t be celebrating with him. I was saddened by this realization - I, admittedly, did cry and spent the better part of his birthday in bed. But, the next day marked the turning point for getting over him the moment I chose to write down my feelings on paper.

That day, I wrote our ending and let it remain a relic of my past - a past that I do not ever wish to return to.

So here, dear reader, is our end:

March 9th, 2018

Yesterday was his birthday. It was the second birthday I’ve spent without him. Two years since I last saw his face. Two years since everything fell apart. I still wonder if he kept the DVD set of Downton Abbey I got him for the first (and last) birthday we were together. I then smile, and think back to when we watched the series together - he’d never seen it, and I kept begging him to watch it with me. He adored it, and it was yet another thing that we could say we had in common.

And then, I feel my heart break all over again when I recall how we ended things over a phone call just a few months later in May.

Tuesday, May 3rd, 2016 to be exact.

My worst day.

Just a few days before I’d started my comprehensive exams for my history graduate program.

The day that he finished his term teaching history at the community college.

He didn’t have anything to worry about if he was hurt by us ending things - no exams, no classes to play student in. He’d achieved what he wanted. He already had his MA. He had his job. He had the whole summer free to be away from writing papers, and thinking of a thesis for graduation. A broken heart wouldn’t affect his studies - he didn’t have any.

Me? I cried non-stop, and listened to The Beatles (Rubber Soul, by the way, is the perfect melancholy break-up album) on repeat as I typed three exams from a variety of topics ranging from post-colonial Europe, Communism, Josef Stalin, modernity, and totalitarian governments. I wondered how the hell I even passed my exams. I couldn’t be bothered with thinking about what impact and role Fascism played in Mussolini’s Italy as I worked on the essays. I didn’t even think about the possibility of me failing my comps, and what it would mean for my future in the grad program, thanks to my altered state of mind. All I wondered was:

Does he hate me?

I miss his hazel eyes already. And those freckles.

Is he thinking about me?

Does me miss me?

Is he going to show up on my doorstep, profess his undying love for me, and ask me to marry him?

I submitted my exams - all thoughts of him still fresh and painful the moment I emailed them to my professor and clicked “send.” The last hope I had for him did not occur in that four-day period, burrowed up in my room, as I struggled to write each exam.

He was gone. There would be no grand gesture from him. He didn’t love me. He didn’t want a life with me. He told me that, plain as day, especially when he told me I’d never be the girl who would be the mother to his children (my heart broke at that statement). He was over me. He didn’t want to fight for me.

He didn’t want me.

I can easily state these realizations now. It took me almost two years to get to this point.

Almost two years. And my feelings remain unchanged. I don’t know if I’ll ever really get over him.

(But, oh, dear reader. I did. I’m so glad I did.)

Many happy returns…

-Kate