When I was in eighth grade, I started dating my best friend. He had cute, fluffy brown hair, big brown eyes, and always could cheer me up with his big smile that was typically plastered on his face. Owen. He was a people person. He could talk to anyone who would listen for hours and hours. He was, and still is, the smartest and most hardworking person I have ever met. Owen and I were inseparable for about three years, I know him inside out. Every. Stupid. Little. Detail. His favorite food is sushi, his favorite color is pink, his favorite candy is coca cola gummies etc. I knew and fell in love with all his quirks. Like how he puts on music and dances around when he is in a bad mood. Like how he only ever wore shorts, no matter the weather. It took me two years to convince him to buy a pair of pants.

He was the person who made me laugh and the person who I trusted with my most vulnerable self. He complimented my insecurities and made me feel confident with his consistent support and praise. He was the person with whom I could always be unapologetically myself. We would make funny tik toks together, sit and talk for hours on the phone, and just laugh and share inside jokes with each other every day. But now everything is different.

Now, we live completely separate lives. We catch up occasionally and wave to each other in the hallways, but that is all. So…what happened? Was true love not enough to keep us together and overcome our issues?

During Covid lockdown, Owen helped me through a lot of my anxiety, and I did the same for him. When I was struggling socially in my friend group, Owen always lent an ear and gave me support. When my body image struggles hit an all-time high and my food fears felt debilitating, he validated me and always lifted my spirits. He worked through these fears with me and held my hand along the way. And in return, I would help Owen with his OCD and phobia of getting sick and being exposed to Covid. I always tried to support him and make him feel heard. I would knock on wood when he feared I would jinx something. I would sit with him while he spent five minutes turning off the light switch correctly. We fell into a routine of taking care of each other. 

When you love someone, it is hard to see past the comfort they provide and the unyielding support they offer. And for a long time, that part of our relationship masked some of the cracks that had started to appear. I made excuses for and overlooked certain behaviors that just didn’t align with what I felt a healthy relationship should be. Having been in this relationship for a very long time, I got too comfortable and forgot what it meant to consistently be someone's priority. 

When school shut down because of Covid, Owen stopped leaving his house because of his fear of getting sick. At the same time, his parents began putting massive amounts of pressure on him to do well in school. He stopped making plans to see me, would cancel plans at the last moment, and put less effort into our relationship. For example, I had to beg Owen to see me on New Years Eve because he was scared of getting sick, even after I had taken a Covid test. Owen stopped seeing his friends and was harder to reach over the phone. His anxieties had come to rule his life.

He reassured me with his words that he was working on himself and said he would work harder to show me that he was still committed to our relationship wholeheartedly. But, he repeatedly let me down. Even so, I convinced myself that his behaviors that bothered me and his inattentiveness could be fixed. 

I tried and tried to fix the issues that existed between us, but eventually I felt like I was the only one trying. We really did love each other and often made each other happy. However, I started to feel overwhelmed by the negatives. What I came to learn later on is a harsh reality; you can’t fix someone who doesn’t want to fix himself. 

People don’t really talk about how hard it is to mourn someone who is still alive. There was a time that Owen made me feel like I was on top of the world, but this feeling slowly faded away. I once believed that love would be enough. That if I cared about this boy enough then everything would be okay. I had to accept that I could not change him, nor could I expect him to change himself. I could not make him realize that even though he loved me, he was also hurting me. Owen wasn’t the right person at the wrong time or the wrong person at the right time. The time and person was right for a long time, we just didn’t work anymore. No matter how wrong that felt. It was time to stop holding myself back by trying to save the unsalvageable. I had to end this relationship, not for a lack of love, but in order to prioritize my own happiness. There was no saving us no matter how hard we tried and I am at peace with the fact that I can wholeheartedly say I fought my hardest to try doing so.