"Yes. Yes yes yes. It's true."

(That title made me sound much more positive than I actually am. It was more of a frustrated admission than an exclamation.)

I broke up with Jessa. And it's been easy. I'm so worried. I'm so scared. It can't be this easy. I've cried, my stomach's done that drop thing it does when I'm so uncomfortable and just don't know what to do, I've forced myself to not see the hints of her still around my apartment; but that shit is easy. Compared to other things, compared to the first time, compared to The Ex...

And I feel guilty. And I feel worried. And hearing from an outside source today (she almost feels like a spy, since Jessa doesn't know that this friend has irrevocably picked me and hardly likes Jessa - ow) that Jessa is just so sure that I'm still in love with her and that "she's done this before" in a matter-of-fact 'so we'll get back together again too' tone... It's not good.

I do want to be Jessa's friend. I think the problem is that I feel like I'm ready already. I'm not nervous that I'll get back together with her. I know most of my friends are worried that I will, but I'm over her. I'm done with her. She didn't listen to me, ever, and she really did give me the tools and the space to be my own person. I kept trying to tell my therapist and a select few of my friends that it was good for me to be with Jessa because she was teaching me how to fight for myself. To get anything with her, I had to fight for myself, and she so unapologetically lobbied for her own self that I saw how it was done and learned how to do it back without feeling bad. No one could hear my message that being with a selfish person was actively teaching me, too, how to be (at least somewhat, or more than ever before) selfish.

And I have problems with the word "selfish" because when a man says what he wants he's assertive and strong and to be respected, but when a woman does it she's a bitch and totally selfish, but this isn't one of my feminist-focused posts (openly knowing that feminism isn't something I can just go in and out of).

I'm sad to be without Jessa. I will miss her.

I'm excited to be with myself. I never really have been. No, that's not true. But I think there have been very few times that I've ever been with my happy self. Really the only person I allow my sad self to be open with is myself. (Now I sound crazier than I actually am, but I'm going with it.) In the times I spend alone, I don't pretend. I am who I am; I'm forced to be, there's no one else to focus on or play off of. But because my sad self has always been so unrecognized and not allowed unless I was entirely alone, that's the only time she came out. So being alone was automatically and forcibly correlated with being sad.

Jessa taught me how to love being alone. I know that may sound harsh, but it wasn't just that I didn't want her there, it was that I wanted to try out what she did, even when I was there. I wanted to try watching whatever TV show I wanted, despite who else was around. I wanted to pull out my journal and write, or pull out my sowing and make something, or pull out my markers and play art. She did what she wanted so unapologetically that it's a way of being for her, and by being with her, I could learn how to make it a way of being for me as well. I gained the skills by observation and imitation.

All my friends always took that so negatively, but I think they could never understand that she was what I needed. I've grown so much since being with Jessa. And I'm not being self-depricating and taking myself out of this celebration of growth. I did it, but being with Jessa helped give me the tools. I needed to be somewhere safe in order to practice these overwhelmingly scary skills. I didn't know how to say what I wanted. But Jessa never stopped saying what she wanted that to ever get anything I had to speak up.

I still feel like I'm making it sound bad. Like I'm making her sound like an asshole. This isn't The Ex. I'm not saying she's the perfect creature and anything that went wrong was my fault and all that crap. I'm not saying Jessa was perfect either. But I am saying that the behaviors others so judge her for, were at times precisely the reasons I love her so, and exactly what I needed. I find it irritating, but no more than that, that I don't think any of my friends trusted that I knew what I was doing. But I did. I enjoyed my time with Jessa. Now is the time for it to end, and so it has, and it was hard to do, but I did it, and I think Jessa and I will most definitely stay connected in the future.

Here's the thing. Jessa's not perfect. But she's real. She is motherfucking real. That's what I needed. I needed someone to be the utmost version of her self, and Jessa always was. I know of so many that would argue that point with me, because they didn't like the utmost version of her self, and maybe I didn't like it all either, but god damn it, I am still impressed (not horrified) by her ability to be who she is.

I'll end with a conversation that we had with each other, that I liked so much I wrote it down and have since memorized:

J: I am merely a reflection of you.
S: You are nothing merely. You are everything, absolutely.
[pause]
J: I am absolutely a reflection of you.

She's not a reflection of me, but don't get caught up in her incorrectness--because we're all incorrect a lot of the time--because that is an absolute response.

I respect and love her in her truth, even when her truth is hard to handle. I had over three years of nothing but lying and falsehood. Truth was what I wanted, and what she gave me. I hope that all I gave her was also enough for this connection to last forever. I will never come close to dating her again, but I do still love her--in a new and (I think) even better way--and will always owe her for teaching me how to be true to myself, how to be happy alone, and fuck, how to have some fun!