“How can I call him my Diego? He never was and never will be mine, he only belongs to himself.” ~ Frida Kahlo

I’m not the possessive or jealous type.

I have loved and been loved in the past, but never before had I craved someone the way I craved you. For years I tried to unravel this mystery of wanting you so bad. It struck me as funny that I still longed to have you even though we were already together.

This is the thing—we were together, but you weren’t with me. You were present in the relationship, yet you weren’t. You loved me, yet you didn’t. You gave to me, yet you didn’t.

Your existence was simply a combination of two polarities that couldn’t exist without the other.

I wished to never have you at all rather than having an image of you. And this, I believe, made me want you more. But the truth is, you never belonged to me.

You only belonged to yourself and I was just sitting there poking you in the hope that you would see me. You kept telling me, “I am yours,” and I’d look at you in silence, words stuck in my throat, because I knew I could never stay the same.

Because darling, you were never mine and I could never be yours.

It saddened me to realize the depth of your selfishness—which was significant enough that it didn’t even kneel before love. It didn’t kneel before the metamorphosed state of being that is greater than you and the universe.

There is a thin line between loving oneself and being selfish—and you, you have crossed both lines.

However, when you crossed those lines, I learned the importance of giving in love. Through your absence, you have taught me the significance of being present in a relationship. With you, I realized that only belonging to one’s self is the most hurtful thing that the person we love can do.

You made me see that anything and everything is capable of kneeling before true love. Because in love, there is no self.

There is only a state of being that forces you to be present and become one with the other person. Hence the notion, “You are mine and I am yours.” It’s just another way to say, “I am you and you are me.”

And although you were never mine, I shall thank you.

Thank you for opening my eyes to the fact that we must choose our battles in life. I have long fought for you to notice me but sadly, my bloodshed has been in vain. I refuse to keep fighting. I no longer wish to own you, nor crave you.

Your detachment from me, no matter how much I despised it, was a silent whisper to love myself.

I realized that if I had loved myself enough, I wouldn’t have wanted your presence so bad. There was something missing in me that I longed to find in you. I will now give myself what I longed for you to give me—I will be present for myself the way I wanted you to be present for me.

I will no longer mourn the past, rather I will delve into the lessons you have taught me about love. Sometimes we learn the most from those who hurt us because their mistakes are our greatest teachers.

And me, I shall not repeat your mistakes.

Instead, I will be present for the people I love. I won’t poke anyone to see me. And I will love myself.

So thank you for never being mine.

~

Author: Elyane Youssef

Editor: Nicole Cameron

Image: Redd Angelo/Unsplash