In February of this year, I found out that I had won a Regional Gold Key Award from Scholastic’s Art and Writing Awards for the poem “El Paso Town Tale”. It’s a bittersweet thing to know that the talent I gained from Ruben and the other poets gained me that award. But I’ve learned since they’ve been gone that they didn’t create me. The just helped me become the person that I am now. I haven’t seen Ruben since that last day in September when I was leaving the city, but the poetry team still has that picture of us together on Facebook ironically enough.
It’s been a year next month since I ended things with Ruben. It hasn’t been an easy year, but things have definitely changed for the better.
To Ruben,
I didn’t send you the link to this blog so you could see that I had a whopping 24 followers of my story or to show you that there were people willing to listen. I sent you this blog because I feel I deserve at least that. I deserve to have you know exactly what it felt like to be with you as well as to let you know what it was like to be without you too. Of course, if you’re reading this, you need to go back to the beginning, not that I would ever really know if you actually read it. But, oddly enough, I have some sort of confidence that you will. You deserve to know just as much as I deserve the opportunity to tell you.
I want you to know that though I will definitely never forget you, in writing this blog, and sending you the link to it, I’m letting go, truly letting go of what happened between us. I’m a different person now, and I’ve stopped focusing on the words I left unsaid while I was with you, stopped worrying about the things that I can no longer change.
I honestly wish you the best of luck in your life. And though there are many things I might’ve written in this letter a year ago, all I can truly say is that our situation probably wasn’t as unique as we would’ve thought. I’ve moved on in life, onto a relationship where my nickname isn’t “babydoll” and I’m not lowered to the comparisons of a character in a story… That wasn’t fair, sorry. I don’t want you to think that I wrote this story to humiliate you or to make you look bad, only to remind you that there was much more to me than what met your eye. I want you to know that I no longer cringe at the sight of “Lolita” on a shelf and I’ve since been able to separate myself from her. After all, I’m the main character in my life’ story, not in hers.
I don’t want to say anything mean or cruel. There are things I miss about me and you, the little moments that made being with you great. But I don’t miss what the relationship resulted in. I think we both need to admit to the fact that though I’m partly at fault, you took advantage of me, and what happened between us I considered sexual abuse no matter how it’s made to sound. Even so, I wrote this letter because I wanted you to know that, over everything, I forgive you for what happened. But I will never allow myself to let it or anything like it happen again; I’m a different person now.
Like Lolita, I have gone through much sadness and hardship. But I’m okay now, because I’ve changed. I hope you have too.
No longer yours expecting,
Lili
To the readers of this blog,
Upon finishing this blog, I have exactly 24 followers, each and every one of which I am very proud of. Being Lolita is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to write. I want to thank you all for being so willing to listen when I finally decided to take the opportunity to tell you all about what happened when no one was looking. I wrote this for me, not for anyone else. But you all made it easier for the words to come, knowing that there was someone out there who cared.
Unfortunately, I must say that this, my readers, is the end of my story. There’s no longer anything more to tell about what happened between me and Ruben. I hope you all took this a positively as you could and have gained some further understanding of what goes on in relationship like these. They’re toxic, and often nothing good can ever come of them. I want you all to know that though it was a long and difficult road, I have moved from this. I’m in another, less tragic relationship. That’s not to say that being with Ruben was a tragedy, he’s not my tragedy, nor am I his. I lived through what happened, and while I regret ever being with Ruben, I would regret it even more if I were to find out that I wasn’t the only one.
It wasn’t easy, but I got through it. I pulled my ass up out of the dirt, and finally let it go… and this is how I did it.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to even glance at this. I’m much happier to be the story from behind someone’s computer screen than I am to the photo of a stupid girl…
I couldn’t be happier to end this story with letting go, and I wish you all the best of luck in life in both fortunate and unfortunate events whether you’re behind the screen or in front of it. Life has to move on.
Lili (Elizabeth)
I did read through your whole story and I'm glad you've found some sort of closure. It's a difficult thing to admit things you wouldn't necessarily share with people. I wish you the best.
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