The Most Important Day

The Most Important Day
by Ashley Lord '08

Winner of the first Most Important Contest, in which readers were invited to share a story of the most important day in their life.

The most important day of my life was when I realized I didn't need him. It was more than a day that led up to this realization. It was the whole past two and a half years of my life--the good and the bad. This particular day brought me comfort in knowing that I would be OKAY.

It is the hardest thing to willingly let go of the one you love. But more than often it is the right thing to do. Yes, the second-guessing comes with it, but in the long run you have to determine how it will benefit you and hang on to that. Never in my life had I cared about someone so much. But never in my life had I put so much of myself into something, while most of the time getting nothing in return. I don't want to sound accusatory because I believe that relationship went downhill because of the both of us. There is a quote that relates love to spinning around in a circle and everything around you becoming blurry, which eventually leads to you losing sight of things and to avoid this you have to always keep your eye on a constant. I can honestly say I lost sight of a lot of things and didn't keep an eye on the constant: myself.

We all want to fall in love and have that perfect relationship at some point in our lives. We want the fairy tale ending and the forever. I fell for that, and I thought that I would get my forever. I wanted it so bad. It's funny how our hindsight works. Take the hindsight bias for example. It is the trap we as humans fall into believing, after a particular outcome, that one could have seen it coming. Maybe I should have seen it coming the moment things started falling apart. Maybe I shouldn't have held so tightly to the relationship. For what? A forever that would never come? Or even worse, a forever that was a lie? I think I was living too much for the future and didn't live in the present, didn't see what was happening right before my eyes.

Yes, love is an amazing feeling. But ladies, even guys, don't let it consume you to the point where you lose yourself. We have to take a step back and analyze ourselves and see how it is affecting others around us. It is great to have someone to care for and put before you, but how far will you let that go? Always, ALWAYS be true to yourself and do what is best. You deserve it and it's that plain and simple. Don't let anyone take that away from you, intentionally or unintentionally. I have learned that you can't let anyone cause you to sacrifice your morals, beliefs, or yourself.

A friend once said, "When you put yourself into a relationship with all of your being, the end of that connection hurts harder and more entirely than any other feeling you will experience in your existence, yet the impact that relationship will have on your life is worth the leap, the fall, and the hit." Her words had a huge impact on me because I believe the relationship I had been in for two and a half years was for a reason and I learned a lot of lessons out of it. Good ones such as how great it is to love, and bad ones such as who you can really trust. For awhile after it all ended, because it wasn't as planned, I felt that it was the worst thing that could happen to me at that point in my life because of all the other issues I was struggling with. Maybe it was, but I am learning that everything I went through and learned, in the end, was worth it.

I walked outside of an appointment that afternoon and I looked to the sky. It was dotted with birds and the clearest blue color. As I stood there, I realized that I had friends and family I could lean on and who would always be there for me when I ran to them, that when someone walks out of your life, another always walks in, and that as much as I missed him and still cared for him, I didn't need him and that I was going to be okay. These thoughts left me standing, smiling up at the sky for a minute, and led me on my way to letting go, but never forgetting.

By Bishop McNamara HS |  December 7, 2007; 8:41 PM ET Student Letter
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