To you,
I remember the first night we met. I was young and shattered over a boy who broke my heart because he didn't know any better. I was crying in a strangers bathroom when you walked in. You saw my vulnerability, and used it to your full advantage. You told me all the things my recently destroyed ego needed to be lifted again. You were a wolf in sheep clothing. Yours was a name that was never spoke of in a fond way, but I didn't care. I was naive, and your deceitful promises were the beautiful words I craved. I must of really made you feel good about yourself, how quickly I fell into your traps. It should of been a warning sign in neon lights when your mother told me that if you could make a career out of anything, it would be lying. I married you at the young age of 19, only to find out that you would abandon your mask after you made your false vows.
I could remind you of the nights that you had too much to drink, and the liquor that poisoned yours words. I could remind you of the times where my head hit the walls because I said something the wrong way. We could reminisce of the times I caught you in lies, but forgave you anyways. We could write novels on all the horror stories you've told people about me. The sonnets that portray how everything you ever did wrong, was somehow my fault. However, we won't do any of that, because I'm really writing you this to thank you for gifting me with true love.
She was six weeks early, born in a blizzard, weighing in barely over five pounds. She was my saving grace after our son died just a year before from a syndrome doctors can still not explain. Things were breaking between us. I was regretting being so young, and dumb in love with someone I obviously should not have been. I regretted you. The moment she opened those gray blue eyes, I realized that regretting you was the biggest mistake I had ever made. While you weren't true love as I had so innocently thought, this precious little bundle was. Its a tragic tangle of emotion, knowing that you received such love from a person, but in a completely different form than you had ever imagined.
After a while, I got brave. I left. I hated you for so long. I hated you for being another dead beat dad, and I hated you even more for making people believe you weren't. I hated you for spewing all these hurtful untruths about me. I hated you for putting alcohol above things that should of been priorities. I understand now, that none of that, none of our past, gave me any right to hate you when you have given me the best gift I've ever received.
You ruined me, and I swore I would never trust or fall in love again. I was foolish, because what we shared, was never love. The Earth literally shook when I finally realized what I had been yearning for. He found me in a furious, self hating, world hating mess. He found me and this gorgeous little soul that you and I had created, and something magical happened. He scooped me and that little blonde haired, blue eyed miracle up, and he loved us. He proved it, he meant it, and he fought for it. I think maybe that's when you understood, that you didn't know what love was either. That is why I am writing you this letter. For that phone call you made on a Wednesday in May. After three years of missing your weekends, of forgetting about arrangements, of broken promises and a confused little girl, you walked away. I could thank you a thousand times for doing possibly, the first unselfish thing in your life and letting her go.
She took his last name on a beautiful day in the middle of August. The man who witnessed her first steps, and pulled out her first tooth. Who has been covered in her vomit, healed millions of boo-boos with his magical kisses. Who has made her laugh until she was red in the face. I hope you know how thankful I am you gave her life twice. Once when you helped create her, and then again when you made the decision to let her have a daddy who was ready to love her.
I honestly didn't write this to point out your flaws, I wrote this to thank you. Thank you for realizing that this was bigger than you and me. Thank you for knowing you couldn't give her what she needed. Thank you for seeing that there was someone who saw the sun rise and set in that small, fragile frame. You gave her the life you knew she deserved, one where you couldn't be in it. Even though you weren't capable of showing it in the traditional ways, this was the one time I knew you were capable of true, selfless love, because you walked away.
