I want to thank you.
I want to thank you for the hours of happiness, for the times we laughed until we couldn't breathe, for dancing round the living room at 3am with me, eating doughnuts and singing along to Led Zeppelin, for the way you kept me calm when our car was obliterated on a main road whilst I was driving, for the way you held my hand as I waited in hospital for the surgery that would abort our baby, for saying that my roast potatoes are unrivalled, thank you for offering your shoulder so many times when the world was falling down around me and for allowing me, for the briefest of times, to feel utterly and completely loved.
Now, I also want to thank you for the rest of our relationship. I want to thank you for the countless times you frightened me with your vicious temper, for breaking that gate and throwing that pitch fork. Thank you for never actually laying a hand on me in anger - I know how much you wanted to. I want to thank you for all the hours you spent with her, comforting her, helping her, laughing with her, while I sat next door in our home, in our bed, crying myself to sleep, feeling the weight of the empty space where you should have been in our bed.
Thank you for suddenly and inexplicably deciding you never wanted to be intimate with me again, and allowing me to go on loving you and hoping that together we could fight your depression. Thank you for all those times you made me doubt myself, made me feel stupid, ugly, irritating. Thank you for crushing me so absolutely, because, you see, you have made me strong.
Now, after a year without you, I am truly happy, and I am STRONG. I have scars still, but no fresh cuts - those disappeared the day we split up. I have courage in my convictions, I stand up for myself, I speak up when people treat me badly, and I will not be walked all over. I dance all night, cocktail in hand, friends at my side, in Parisian bars or Athenian clubs, feeling free. I laugh often and loudly. I say no to people. I know that I AM beautiful, I AM worth something, and I really do make the best roast potatoes on earth.
I also got £180 knocked off a BT installation in my new house after admitting to the engineer that I had been paying your phone and broadband bill for eight months after we split up. I definitely owe you for that!
So, to the man who changed my life forever - I will look back on our time together and smile, because yes, some of it was magical - the stuff movies are made of - but most of it was abusive, cold, and intensely lonely. Because it made me realise that I am worth more, and that I am strong and independent and worth knowing.
Yours,
your ex girlfriend.
PS - your bike is still in my shed.
