My first boyfriend and I broke up five years ago today. Our relationship lasted about four years, but I let him control my heart for six and a half years total. Of those five years since he dumped me, I have spent only three not considering a future with him to be a serious option. I think an appropriate way to celebrate this anniversary is to explore the positive ways that I have changed since then.
The biggest way I have changed is I do not have many absolutes that I believe in anymore. I can see all the different ways that people show their love for one another that I could not see before. Then, I could only see how I loved and did not understand other people could not and did not always express their love in the way that I did. I believed in things without thinking about them. For example, I did not like listening to a lot of rap or hip-hop because I believed it disrespected women. They had too many references to bitches and whores. Now, I can understand those references are just a small part of the picture. Rap and hip-hop are much more than what I thought they were.
When we broke up, I had almost no sexual experiences with other men. I saw myself as too fat to be attractive. Overtime, I have come to terms with my body and I know there are men who would even call me hot. On bad days, I still think of myself as fat but usually I can recognize having some extra weight is not the same as fat. My ex-boyfriend’s perception of beauty was strange, to say the least, and I constantly interpreted his lack of opinion to mean I was not attractive. I have heard enough appreciative outbursts from drunk strangers (and occasionally sober ones) to know that this is not true. To some degree, I have even begun to believe it myself and look forward to the day that I no longer need to hear from someone else to know that it is true.
Now, I am okay living by myself. I still have a long ways to go to become the person that I want to be, but I know I can do it and I know I can survive the small tragedies in life. I was a mess when I first found myself sleeping in bed alone. However, I have no regrets and I’m glad that our relationship is over.