Dear Mr. Heartbreak,

Two months of promises and hopes and dreams and sunset dates, long car rides, dinner dates in Boston, trail rides, me going to see your family’s ranch, and an actual future all flushed down the drain because of you “not knowing what you wanted.”

I told you before that my heart was fragile, and somehow you twisted your words to make me trust you. And I trusted you. 

Now it’s on the floor shattered into a million pieces. No amount of super glue could ever put it back together. Rather, you could melt it down and turn it into Jade because my view on love is so jaded.

I fell faster than a pound of feathers. I showed you every vulnerability I had. You were so easy to talk to. Conversation was like a river with the natural ebb and flow and each bend gave me a new side of you. A new side I wanted to explore more and more until we hit some rapids. Rapids I could have seen for long time coming yet I was too blinded by the prospects of 

And yet even when you said everything was fine, it clearly wasn’t. I had to confront you with drunken tears at 2AM to squeeze the truth out of you. A truth that I knew was coming down the road for a long time.

All you managed to come up with was you didn’t know what you wanted. And yet I stand here, still single, seeing a girl on your story and Valentine’s post. Everything I wanted. Everything you promised me, you gave to her instead. You knew what you wanted. It just wasn’t me. 

Anger. Frustration. Tears. So many tears. I could fill the Great Salt Lake in Salt Lake City. I still cry about you. I cry about you in therapy, to my mom, to my dog, to my horse, to my friends. Everyone is tired of hearing your forsaken name. 

The only men that haven’t broken my heart and trust are my horse and my dad. 

However…

Despite it all, I want to thank you.

I spend my precious time not wasting texting you into the wee hours of the morning but rather investing in myself. I finally took off my rose colored glasses and took a deep look at myself in the mirror and could see I was struggling. I gave and gave and gave and tried with every ounce of effort to make things work but never took care of myself. And now for once I am actually putting myself and my needs first. 

You showed me that I could get over a guy that led me on with the possibilities of seeing him again for a year and a half. I was too naive to see that there were other guys out there, and hoped that one day he would turn the corner and choose me.

You showed me that I deserve so much more than you could have ever given me. I know now that I am not the person that deserves minimum-hoe-wage. Rather, any man better have the budget for a girlfriend-salary at minimum. 

The biggest thing is you made me feel wanted. And in those intense moments, it was something that I have never felt before. For once I felt like a 1st-line player and not some last resort benchwarmer, and looking forward I know that I should only be a starting player, and never second best. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still upset about how the situation and how you just flat out lied to me, but through this pain I am able to grow into a person who now looks out for themself first and knows what they want and what they actually deserve and never settle for anything less.

I wish you the best with the girl that isn’t me, but I’ll be honest you didn’t deserve me in the first place.

Thank you,

Nicole Biagioni 

…

There’s a country song by this country singer Cody Johnson that I think relates to my situation more than “Me and My Kind.” I would always cry at some of his songs because the way he describes love or the woman he is singing about or even the way he sings about treating women is the way that I want to be loved and treated; a rare quality among men in our age demographic and geographical location (no shade gents, but y’all need to actually figure out how to treat a women right; take a class or something). 

Now this one song is about Johnson’s ex-girlfriend and how, “her hair’s a little longer but still looking stronger than sin.” But also he describes how she’s done with him and his kind because of how he treated her, ie: being cowboys. Now me being the petty person that I am, I posted to Instagram on Valentines Day to get one last little jab at Mr. Heartbreak and all other couples on Valentines Day. I knew Mr. Heartbreak was just a, “heartache in a pearl snap shirt,” because I was, “lassoed and let go,” and that was the last time…

So anyone reading this who needs a good breakup country song, I recommend listening to it a couple of times. You don’t need him or her because there is someone out there like Cody Johnson that will love you and treat you as that first-string player and can afford that wifey-salary. I can guarantee you that the love of your life will not be Amherst, let alone New England (but if you do find your special someone out here, good for you, be a unicorn). 

And reader, I recommend that you write a little letter to a Mr. or Ms. Heartbreak…they’ll never read it, but it feels so damn good.