My dearest you,
I think of you long and often. To be more precise, it hasn’t been a day that I haven’t thought about you since my last message that MidJuly.
I have stated several times that we burnt our bridges, but it wasn’t true. Not until this time. And it wasn’t a knife fight, where the rules don’t apply, so we could say anything to just hurt each other. It wasn’t a big fat “goodbye” moment. It wasn’t a well-structured eulogy.
It was just a day. A day where the “seen” was the last thing I got from you. It didn’t break me like it used to. It didn’t infuriate me like it used to. I accepted it.
You would argue that, that was because of love. I know. I have had this argument with you hundreds of times in my head. I know you would say “It was for you. I let you go because you asked for it. And because I love you.”
And as smart as I seem, I would once again believe that. I would believe that deep down in your heart you hated it. You were hurt. You wanted to throw the phone away after reading my message. You wanted to write “Shut up. We will still be us even when we’re 60. I believe that for us”. But then, something inside you stopped you. And something bigger than your desires. Something bigger than your needs. Something bigger than your ego. Your love for me resonated with the whole situation. And told you “Don’t reply! She’ll take this loss and move on. But this is where you let her go.”
In my mind, you’re always gonna be held to the highest pedestal that any man has ever been placed on. To me, you’re the highest form of honesty. To me, you’re the biggest love I have ever known(or maybe will ever know). So I would always believe that your decision, to let me go, was finally the truest act of love.
Yes, love is cruel. And especially for the hopeless romantic ones. The ones who are excited for a rainy weather. The ones who dream of an old-fashion date night with their knight in shining armor. The ones who live their life fearless for they fear nothing more than love. And yet love so effortlessly.
Yes, my love failed me. No matter how much I tried, to adapt to any form of love that you knew, I failed. That will not ever mean that I stopped loving you. It just means that you will not get to hear it anymore.
It means that I get to hate myself when I am not there for you. It means that on your birthday I get to blow the candles and drink an old scotch, crawled up in your t-shirt sprayed with your perfume and praying to God that you’re the happiest. Yet secretly, hoping you will miss my wish this night. And secretly hoping I am a little part of your heart that aches when you think of all the good things you’ve lost in this life.
It means that when my anxiety kicks in so hard, and I find it hard to breathe, I hope that this isn’t a sign that something has happened to you.
It means that when my world falls apart, I will be reaching out for my phone to simply send a message that feels like a hug. It means when new things happens, and when you have special event, that my damn brain won’t forget any of them, I would have to whisper my prayers and wishes to God. And hope that they reach to you.
It means that when the memories pop up on my phone, my tears stream my face and I just have to let it be and not grab the phone…
I have been close to it, probably over a hundred time in these 230’400 minutes that we haven’t been in touch. But my ego wouldn’t allow it.
My pride wouldn’t allow it. It was this part of me who was tired of being broken, and humiliated and hurt and passed over so many times, that always kept repeating “He did his choice!”
But deep down, late at nights, where ego was replaced by melancholia and the pride was replaced by your absence, I knew that the feeling stopping me from texting you wasn’t anger, or pride, or ego. It was love. It was love for myself, but more importantly love for you.
How would I dare to destroy the peace that we finally managed to reach? How would I dare to break once again a heart knowing how much I prayed at night for its wellbeing and happiness.
It took a lot of strength to let each other go. And I am over it. But I will never be over you.
I will never learn to not wait for you, because you are the part of my heart that beats outside of my body. I will never learn to not love you, and your eyes that shined so bright when looked at me.
In one of my therapy sessions, she asked if I miss you or the feeling of being safe. I told her there was nothing safe about us. It was all a game with fire, but I trusted you with everything in me because you loved me anyway.
And I don’t just miss someone who makes me feel safe and lets me shut my brain down when I’m with them. I miss you. And I probably will miss you forever.
But as I count the minutes you’re not part of me anymore, I count the minutes I am all on my own. And when anything bad happens to me, I tell myself that if I could let you go, I can do anything.
You taught me love. You taught me pain. You taught me strength. And you taught me happiness. But above all, you grew me up. You toughened me up.
And if I had the chance to do it all over again…. I wouldn’t.
Because even though I will forever be grateful for how you loved me, I will never be able to think of love without thinking of you!
Because I will always love you. I will always love that boy I met many years ago who wouldn’t give up on me until I said Yes to a date. And I will always love the man I saw you becoming. And above all I will always love the man who became so self-aware and finally let me go.
My dearest You,
This isn’t a goodbye. This is a thank-you note. This is a I-am-sorry note for the times I should have texted but I couldn’t find my way back to you. (Or maybe just didn’t want to).
This is an I-love-You note. Take it. Read it. Keep it. Hopefully we will find some peace…. Knowing that our love was big enough, to allow us put each-other’s happiness above our own.
Yours truly,
Me.
©️ fiordalipi
