I hope you are well.

People still ask about you after all these years. I tell them you are doing okay, that you have moved on in your life.

Then I steer the conversation away from you so that the wound stays closed.

I used to think about you every day. I missed you so much that it hurt, and thought that I could never go on without you.

I still do many of the things that you used to do. They used to remind me of you, but not as much anymore as the years continue to pass.

Guilt is a funny thing.

Sometimes a day, or even a week passes by and I realized with a start that I’ve not even thought about you.

Not even once.

And that realization opens the wound again. But I no longer bleed as deeply.

The breakup was painful. It landed me in the hospital. I cried for a year, and then another, and then another.

I never thought I’d be able to feel whole again with you gone. But I am healing now and have started my life over without you.

Writing to an ex may seem like a funny thing, especially when I am the ex as well, writing this letter to my past self – the one who died that November day so long ago – in another life – in a twisted wreck of broken glass and steel.

I still see your face every day in the mirror. You look back at me –  the reflection of someone I once was.

I hope you are well.