Congratulations

I am also really angry. I am so angry. Angry at you for being the one who walked away blameless. Angry at all of our friends who chose you, who chose against me. Angry that my private life, the impossible business of my heart, is everybody's fucking business. I don't actually think either of us is blameless here. I think even if things had happened the other way around the result would have been the same. You would still be happily posting pictures of your new lover and all our old friends, and I would be leaving Facebook so that nobody could tag me in pictures of my own wedding. 

I think what happened is that I was the one who stepped. I was the one who stood up and said this is over. I was the one who fell in love; at least I was the one who was willing to own up to that. And I'm the one who gets to take the fall. I know that makes it easier for you. It makes it easier for everybody. I have carried that for two and a half years but I am past denial and bargaining and slamming head on into anger. The truth is that nobody knows what happened between us except us. Nobody else knows what that was like. I don't know what it was like for you, and you don't know what it was like for me. And fuck you and everyone else who seems to think they can judge me. 

You know, some people leave their little babies. Some people leave their partners who are dying of cancer. Some people are abusive and some people are addicts and some people lose all the money on get-rich-quick schemes. And all these people, they're just people too. They're shitty and they're doing the best they can. But no, I'm the one who's the worst. I have done the worst possible thing. I ended a long term relationship after I went away to graduate school and met someone else. Like, yeah, that's kind of shitty, and yeah, it didn't go down that smoothly, but seriously? Seriously? I didn't fucking kill anyone. I didn't turn out to be a secret sociopath. I made a hard, ugly decision (a decision that you agree was the right one, by the way), and it tore me up and it tore both of us up. 

And no, I wasn't there when you were going through it, and it was really hard. Yes. Everybody has told me that. But you know what, nobody was there for me. I was fucking alone. I was fucking crying in the hallways at school. I didn't have anyone who would come and wake me up everyday. I didn't have anyone who would come and sit with me at night so I wouldn't cut myself. (But hey, you know, I didn't.) Of course you have better friends than me. You are a better friend than me! But maybe we could just table the moral judgment. Because fuck you. I tried really, really hard. And honestly--I did a pretty fucking good job, all things considered. But you still win the prize. You get to go about your life with your head high and everybody scattering fucking roses at your feet. Congratulations.