This is where I leave you. This, right here, is where I leave all the good and the bad memories. This is where it ends and I finally let you go. I am leaving you, here in this kitchen. The kitchen inside the house we both looked at together and both fell in love with. The kitchen you have never cooked in, cleaned, or enjoyed a single meal, but will hold all the memories we never had, but intended to create with all of our kids.

After a year of playing the longest game of tug of war, I give up. My hands are tired from holding the rope, the blisters are breaking and so am I. The past year presented itself with pain, agony, recovery, laughter, tears of sadness, loss and of happiness. I surrender to the realization that I need to move on, letting you do the same. So I’m waving my white flag. This is not an easy process by any means. But I know now, after all this time, we can’t be together.

But I will always carry a piece of you wherever I go. I will keep our memories and our broken promises tucked away in a safe place. They will only be brought out when I miss you the absolute most, in hopes that they will keep me grounded and away from you. Away from lonely nights when I want to call you to come over one last time. Away from texting you both good and bad news during the day like I normally would.

And starting today, I will slowly replace those memories and the pictures in my mind with new ones. Not necessarily of a new man… at least not right away, but of the flower garden I have decided to plant, of the cooking lessons I recently started, and of the new puppy that arrived last night. The old memories will fight a hard fight to stay with me as long as they can, but I know they must go. Not right away but soon. They have taken up so much room, that new ones simply have no chance of remaining where they belong.

Weeding out your memory with the lessons you taught me, which were many, will be difficult, if not impossible. Because of you I know how to change out AC filters and change my own oil, I know how to buy a car and spot all the tricks of the trade right away. Because of you I know I am smart enough to have an intelligent conversation with anyone. But also because of you I know how to recognize red flags, and will run at the first sight of a controlling man,and I will remember how it felt to be called names and how it felt to call someone names and will change that too. Through replacing you I will be able to fall in love, with me.

This is where I start over. This is where I discover which side of the bed I like to sleep on, which movies I prefer to watch, which drinks I enjoy, and which vacation I would like to take, alone. This is where I discover what kind of woman I want to be. I see myself as an independent, self sufficient, financially secure, successful woman. This is where I discover both my strengths and weaknesses without anyone here to judge me.  This is where my life without you begins. This is where we go our separate ways and see which direction life takes us.

This is where I leave you.