Our Unwritten Years
Holding onto feelings for years, keeping emotions buried deep. Letting things be as they were, letting time pass without a single word spoken.
Until finally.
Those buried feelings left me uncertain of how to speak even one sentence.
Speaking.
The fear of speaking, of voicing a hesitant heart. Trying to speak with a pile of unsaid words and countless questions that made me afraid to say anything at all.
For time slowed by hesitation.
Questions filled with doubt, fear, and the terror of being wrong. Not knowing where a single word should begin. Time felt accompanied by the thought of “too late” — or perhaps “never at all.” Like a longing that was never spoken.
For the woman who always came and returned.
Holding back feelings until tears finally fell. Trying to forget someone so annoyingly unforgettable — someone who disappeared yet always found her way back into my life.
Someone I wished to forget. Someone I wished to forget, yet always returned to. carrying a thousand questions. Why is it always her?
Each meeting, each conversation after years, felt the same. Her attitude, her gestures — never truly changed.
Those feelings were still there.
Even after all these years, I kept meeting her — again, and again, and again. And I asked myself: why?
For the woman who loved to disappear.
Every meeting began with awkwardness, leaving me unsure how to act around her. But years later, she said that seeing me always made her nervous. When I asked why, she answered:
“Maybe… it’s love.”
From that moment, I felt closer to her — closer than ever before. We finally spoke about those long-buried feelings, and the “why”
That lingered for years was answered.
Listening to her, I realized how deeply she had kept everything inside. And how little I had understood her all those years.
Her teenage years — she said — were unforgettable happiness. Every memory of me, though simple to me, she wrote in her diary.
She hid my name, yet kept every detail. Those days, to her, were beautiful — full of effort, full of things worth keeping. She wrote almost everything: me teasing her all day, her forcing me to walk her home, asking to be carried when she couldn’t walk, asking me to tie her shoelaces, borrowing my sandals when her shoes got wet, and me sometimes ignoring her for no reason.
Memories.
The closer I got to her, the more I wanted to create something for her — a story titled “The Pirate in the Blue Ocean.” A story she would read first, and last. I wrote one line for her: “Sad without shedding tears.”
I told her: “You may laugh and smile, but don’t show your teeth. You may feel touched, but don’t cry. Just feel the story, imagine returning to that time.”
She read the story silently, and I saw how it made her happy and emotional.
She said: “Once again, thank you, pirate! You made my day — and your story completed it ✨ Those repeating goodbyes explain exactly how I feeeeel!”
Every recent meeting brought her joy — a joy she said she hadn’t felt in a long time.
Happiness found in a single meeting.
During our last meeting, in a moment of spontaneity, we talked about what “life companion” meant to her.
She said: “A life companion is someone who stays with me through life. Someone I look for when I wake up, someone I tell before I sleep. Someone who’s always there — when I open my eyes and when I close them.”
Because of my playful nature, I teased: “Is that all?”
After talking so long, I understood what she wanted. And maybe… I wanted the same.
Without thinking, I asked: “Shall we be together?”
And her answer: “Yes, I want to.”
Hearing that, I went home carrying a happiness so full it felt endless. A quiet joy followed me through the long, dark road back home. And as always, she stayed with me for the entire ride.
She stayed until the gate of my house.
She stayed through those twenty-three minutes, before giving me a few final words — soft words she said before resting and drifting into sleep.
She said “Before I sleep, I want to say thank you. Thank you for trusting me to be more than just a ‘friend’ in your life HAHA. I’ll hold onto everything you said in the car earlier!”
“Let’s commit to each other! And thank you for today!✨”
May 5th, 2021.
