An Open Letter to Myself as the Date Approaches
There are dates in our lives we never forget. Some are celebrated. Some are mourned. And some sit in a strange in-between, carrying a weight that’s hard to describe because the grief isn’t just about a person—it’s about a version of ourselves we didn’t get to become.
December 31, 2025 was supposed to be my wedding day.
A day I once envisioned as the beginning of a beautiful new chapter… except the man I thought I was going to marry never truly existed. He was a story I was told, a mask worn convincingly, a dream I wanted so badly to believe in that I ignored the quiet whisper in my chest that said something wasn’t right.
And now that the date is approaching, I’ve found myself confronting emotions I thought I had already dealt with—grief, anger, confusion, relief, embarrassment, gratitude, and a hollow ache that feels almost like missing a ghost.
Grieving the Imagined Life
I’m learning that you can grieve something that never happened.
You can grieve the home you pictured, the holidays you thought you’d spend as a family, the future you mapped in your head. You can grieve the hope you carried—the hope that this time, things were finally going to be different.
I am grieving a life I was building in good faith.
I am grieving the love I believed was real.
I am grieving my own innocence, or maybe my own optimism. I’d maybe even say my own ignorance, gullibility, stupidity…
But I’m also grieving the time I lost.
The energy.
The emotional labor.
The way I started shrinking myself to keep peace with a person who was never truly who he claimed to be.
The Monster Behind the Mask
It still feels surreal to look back and see how quickly the façade crumbled. How fast the “dream man” turned into someone verbally and emotionally abusive. Someone I became afraid of. How dizzying it was to realize I had moved my entire life—my daughter’s life—nearly 2,000 miles for a person who was nothing more than a collection of lies held together with manipulation.
There are moments when I still feel shocked by my own story, as if I’m remembering a movie plot and not something I lived through with my child beside me.
I remind myself often:
You didn’t fail. You were deceived. And you fought your way out.
The Hardest Part: I Survived… But I’m Still Healing
People talk a lot about leaving.
They talk less about what happens after.
Healing isn’t linear.
Some days I feel powerful, grounded, grateful that everything fell apart before it was too late. Some days I feel like I’m floating above my life, watching the version of myself who almost said “I do” with a knot in my stomach. And then there are days—days like the ones leading up to December 31st—where grief slips back in through the cracks.
But the difference now is that I don’t shame myself for it.
I let the feelings come and go like weather.
I’ve learned to hold the storm without becoming it.
What I Know for Certain
I know I’m stronger now than I was then.
I know my daughter sees a mom who chose truth over illusion, safety over chaos, and resilience over collapse.
I know that I’ve built a life—slowly, intentionally, painfully—that is mine. Not borrowed from a lie or shaped around someone else’s instability.
And I know that the outdoors saved me in ways I’m still discovering.
The mountains.
The miles.
The quiet.
The space to breathe.
The reminder that I am small in the best way—not powerless, but part of something bigger than heartbreak.
What I’m Allowing Myself This Week
To feel.
To rest.
To take a breath before the next chapter.
To acknowledge the shadow of a date that used to mean something.
To release it gently, rather than trying to run from it.
December 31, 2025 is coming.
But it is no longer a wedding day.
It is simply a day.
A day I will reclaim.
A day that represents everything I survived—not everything I lost.
And Maybe… A Beginning After All
I didn’t get the life I thought I was walking toward.
But I’m finally at peace with the fact that it wasn’t the life meant for me. It wasn’t built on truth, or love, or partnership. It wasn’t real. I’ve fought back so many tears over the past couple weeks, telling myself that crying means I haven’t accepted reality but I’ve come to realize as I am writing this, that allowing myself to grieve is in fact, an overt act of acceptance of my new reality.
What is real is the life I’m building now—with my daughter, with my work, with my newfound strength, with the outdoors as both witness and healer.
Maybe this year, instead of mourning what never became, I’ll step into what is becoming.
Maybe I’ll wake up on December 31st with gratitude on my breath.
Maybe I’ll take my daughter somewhere beautiful and say, “Look how far we’ve come.”
Maybe one day, this date will stop feeling heavy at all.
But for now, I’m giving myself permission to feel the weight.
And then lay it down.
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