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Have you ever wondered what the most destructive force in the world is?
I can tell you right now, it's regret.

Looking at you now, all I can see is my mistakes, my shortcomings, my bad decisions--my faults.
That's how it's been all this time since we separated, since I chose to walk away. But that isn't what I'm regretting--not at all.

You wanna know what I regret now more than anything else? More than any of the decisions I've ever made in my entire life?
You.

That's right--You.
After all this time, after five years of knowing you, you hadn't changed at all. It took me so long to realize it, but you're no different than the rest. You'd be willing to change anything about yourself at the drop of a hat just so you wouldn't be alone.

I see it now. That's all I was to you--just company.
You were lonely the night I found you--the night I pitied you--and so you attached yourself to me. Being the naive young fool I was, I accepted you, and eventually took you in as my own, but even then you wouldn't let go of your past. You were still attached to him, to the one who abused, tortured and battered you to no end. You even continued doing sexual favors for him behind my back, while we were still dating. Was it worth it to you, looking back? Because I forgave you. I still forgive you.
Apparently I'm not worth forgiving for making the same mistakes then, am I? You never did get over that, and I doubt you ever will--knowing you.

I find it endlessly ironic that you're so willing to change yourself to fit the will of others, yet in five years of my knowing you, not once did you ever listen to me. Not even once, or even a little. You simply shrugged my opinion off as though it didn't matter. And if that weren't enough in the same breath you expected ME to change MY appearance, my lifestyle, my personality to fit YOURS, and acted like I was a monster for not wanting to listen.
Have you ever looked back and wondered just how hypocritical that all was? At least I never FORCED you to do anything, to change anything about yourself. No, I loved you just as you were. In fact, I gave you everything I possibly could. I gave you my world.

I endured so much for your sake. I tried so hard to make you happy, even made compromises that went entirely against my belief system on more than one occasion, and received little to no appreciation for it. No, after the first year or so, all that cute cuddliness, all the happy texts and public declarations of affection went away. After that it seemed to just be argument after argument--most of them even being over the most trivial of things.

Looking back now, I can't stand it. Is it any wonder to either of us why I drifted away like I did? Is it any wonder to you why I allowed myself to become allured by others? I craved the affection--the appreciation--that you never gave. If you had held me a little tighter, if you hadn't forced me along like you did, perhaps things might have turned out a bit differently. Now by no means shall I ever attempt to condone my actions, but perhaps they might have been avoided all along? Perhaps neither of us should have wasted our time arguing over things like that, should we? But to you, I was only company and nothing more. I was expendable.
You even tried multiple times to get me to dump you. Do you remember that? I almost wish I had. What difference would it have made anyway?
You always brought up the bad things--the things that made ME feel like dirt in our relationship, well now here's how I saw things. This is how I now see what you really thought of me, and everything I now learn of you only serves to prove my point.

I gave you parts of me that I can never get back. Not only can I never recover them, I can never give them again. I trusted you--I loved you--enough to give you the best parts of me, and this is how you've chosen to look back on it? Why, then, should I be forced to look on it any differently? We're both just a couple of miserable screwups after all, aren't we? A doomed relationship right from the start.

The saddest part about this whole thing, my dear Christina, is the fact that I continue to care even today--when you don't. I know you don't. Your actions speak louder than your words.
Regardless, I continue to care, I continue to suffer because of these things. I suffer because of what I've done, and I suffer because of how you've chosen to remember me.
I'm nothing to you now--not even a memory.
I have always cared far, far too much. You of all people ought to know this by now. And it is because of this that I find myself unable to feel anything but sorrow over your complete abandonment of everything I ever tried to teach you.

What was once a shining memory of love, sacrifice, and triumph now stands a darkened shadow of my mind.
Much like your once beautiful blond hair now fades, so too does my heart. Slowly but surely, I inch my way toward hating you, but I always stop myself for the sake of honoring our relationship. But if you cannot honor your end of our final promise to one another, why then should I be obligated to hold to my own?
Yet here I am, as empty as ever despite my apparent happiness.

I don't understand, and perhaps I never will, why you can carry on as you do after so long. If our relationship, if our love really meant as much to you as it did to me, why then do I appear to suffer more?
Perhaps I may never know. Perhaps you might one day read this and maybe, just maybe you might feel something.
Regardless, this is my lament. This incoherent babbling of both my shortcomings, and yours. This is how I've been ever since we separated. This is why I lie awake every night, unable to sleep properly. This is why you keep showing up in my dreams, haunting them.

If you could only answer a single question I have now then, my dear Christina, it would be this one: Why?
What was I to you?
Because you were everything to me...