The door has been closed, but it's time for me to lock it.

Dear Ex,

I'm not even sure if I should consider you an ex, from the moment we met my gut was telling me to run, but I didn't listen. You set up the narrative so that if I wasn't interested it would mean I was a horrible human being and so I was trapped in my own need to not be an awful person, at least at first. Within the first 3 days my friends were already warning me that my gut was right. But I told myself I was paranoid or over reacting or maybe misremembering... Anything that made it my fault.

Then I gave you every bit of ammunition you asked for, even told you how easily my boundaries could crumble just by being asked. So of course you asked and my boundaries crumbled, my self care was sidelined, and my newly blooming self esteem was carelessly trodden under your feet. Anything I valued about myself was something I should change or that you didn't like. I even started to notice that I would feel 'drugged' when you were around, and then my mind would clear when you were gone and I would wonder why on earth I did things that I definitely didn't want to do after you left. I started to feel like I was going crazy and those warning bells started ringing louder and louder. I wanted out, but I didn't know how to get away safely.

The first time I tried to end things in a way that was perhaps hard but not intentionally hurtful, however I let you guilt me until you pulled me back in. Then I once I was alone again the fog cleared and my resolve to end it returned, but I still let you back in, perhaps enjoying the harm it was causing me in some perverse way. Then I finally had enough, you pushed at a button but didn't get the reaction you'd expected, you found a boundary I wouldn't let crumble and I was finally done for good. Ironically it probably seemed like such a small thing to be so incontrovertible when I would bend on everything else.

But I couldn't deny the damage you'd managed to wreak in so little time,so I set about to restore my mental health and self care. But you weren't done with me, I'd been awful but I wasn't quite villain enough for your story yet... So while I blocked you you'd find ways around it, waffling between 'friendly but hurting' and outright nasty. Then I'd get another bit of 'peace' before the next onslaught... Even now I am not entirely sure you have given up. But it's okay, because I'm okay now and it no longer matters.

I feel like life put you in my path to 'wake me up' to get me lost enough that I would finally look around and find the path I was supposed to be on instead of the one I'd been walking. I came to see the path i wanted but thought was lost to me forever was in fact open and waiting and I was ready to walk it. It's almost like you gave me a 'bottom' to hit when I didn't know I'd been falling. It's hard to believe it was such a short time ago because I have changed so much since... Perhaps I was the fictional dragon's egg waiting for that final hard bump to initiate my hatching. So thank you but goodbye, and yes goodbye for good. Your purpose in my life is complete, so please find your peace and let me have mine.

So with this, I lock the door.