Hello love,
By the time you read this, you’ve already gone: as you’re supposed to, as is what’s good for you. Penning down my feelings has been such a struggle, perhaps because there are so many things I feel that I must say but there are too little words in my vocabulary to encompass them. Writing this, I am both filled with immense longing and relief. Where the longing comes from is apparent and needs no explanation. The relief, however, comes from knowing that you have left places that that no longer bring you any sort of happiness. You’ve always loved the beaches and your current proximity to them hopefully provides you a sense of comfort. May the arms of the ocean help calm your restlessness.
To say that the last few weeks have been extremely difficult is an understatement, yet, try as I might to find words that approximate how it’s been for you is both careless and impossible. I could never come to understand the amount of pain you’ve gone through, and, are still going through nor do I attempt to. I just want to let you know that I’m always going to be willing to listen to you whenever you need somebody. Sometimes there is just so much iniquitousness in the world, incessantly unfolding, one after the other, no matter how much we bid them to stop and it leaves us bursting at the seams with anger before it we’re left heavy and leaden, and wanting to badly to scream at the unfairness of it all. You’re justified to be angry and tired given what you’ve gone through love. I could never come to understand how you feel, because, like you said, those are experiences that are merely conceptual to me. And you’re correct to point out that I’m no reliable authority when it comes to struggle as, time and time again, life hasn’t been all that unfair to me. Yet. Here is where the age disparity between us becomes apparent I guess; at 23, I don’t think I have room to make monumental failures because nobody really expects anything from me at this point nor is it a time for me to make life-changing decisions. When the time comes that I do fail, I honestly don’t think I’ll handle it well. In reality, when my academic career comes to a point where I feel like I am poised to fail, I would probably quit while I’m ahead. I’ve never really handled failure all that well; my grandeur self-image coupled with my chronic imposter syndrome demands that I succeed in everything. When the rug gets pulled out under my feet, I know I’m going to legitimately break. I’ve not even experienced anything too severe yet here I am already jaded beyond compare. I hope the comparison serves to strengthen the point I’m trying to make; that mistakes and failures aren’t easy things to handle, more so handle with as much kindness for the world as you have. Granted, life given you so many curve balls and has handed you quite a difficult lot, yet, you’ve overcome every single one of them with a kind heart. If you feel bitter about life right now, I think you have every right to be. You’re only human and kindness takes its toll on each of us when all we keep doing is giving it away.
With that in mind, it makes sense to me why you have the need to be alone. To be alone not only means time for ourselves, but it also means that we draw ourselves away from all the people and the places that keep taking so much from us. I can’t imagine the difficulty of being a giver in a place where everyone and everything surrounds you just takes and takes and takes. And I’m sorry if I’ve been one of those people. I understand why you want to draw away even from me. My criticism of your current relationship now seems quite hypocritical; I myself am guilty of threatening to jump ship the moment I feel like I should. Being vocal about my own self-preservation has taken its toll on you as well, no matter how much you’ve denied it in the past. In my moments of weakness, I’ve wrongly shifted the burden of my happiness to you, leeching away your light to cover up my dark jadedness. I can’t stress how sorry I am for hurting you love, and I know that no amount of apologies could ever undo the damage I’ve inflicted. I no longer want to be a love that demands, or a love that takes, because that’s the only love you’ve ever known for most of your life. I think the only kind of love that you have room for right now is a quiet, constant love that doesn’t consume you, but instead respects the boundaries and spaces you’re learning to build for yourself. A love that doesn’t take but instead gives; gives you the freedom and time you need to be alone. And that’s all the love I want to give you.
Before you think this is an act of martyrdom that’s going to leave me empty in the end, let me tell you how it’s not. At this point in my life, I think it’s important that I learn to be independent. I’ve paraded the trope of independent womanhood in my short years of employment, but I confess there is very little I know about what that means. For the longest time, I’ve always had someone to wipe away my tears, or someone to chew at on days when I feel like the world’s been horrible. In hindsight, I don’t regret it; that vulnerability was what precisely led us to each other. The first night I asked you to hold me (platonically) was a by-product of that inability to take care of myself. And thank you for that, and for every moment that you’ve kept me together on my worst days. I’ve realized only in your absence that it should be a responsibility that I alone should bear. Otherwise, I will never be a healthy love to you or to anyone for that matter. Your absence from my life, in that sense, hits two birds with one stone; in the time it takes for you find your peace of mind and it also gives me the opportunity to make choices that would bring me closer to the person I’ve always wanted to become. I can only do that in your absence. Hopefully, by the time you’re ready, I can be the love that you need; a love that doesn’t lash out at you or drains you, but a love where you can rest your worries after a long, tiring day.
In truth, I think you’re handling this better than most people. Most people would just whine about how unfair life is to them without really doing anything about it. But not you. Bravery, I’ve come to realize, appears in a multitude of faces; that means that sometimes, it’s not as straightforward as fighting all your battles whenever you can. Contrary to popular belief, leaving can be the bravest thing you’ll ever do. Even if things are awful right now, the benefit is that at least there is some certainty to things. That’s probably why people cling on to their nows even if the now constantly drains them. Leaving means you’re hurtling head first into an unknown, and that perhaps is the most courageous thing to do love. Especially for people like me, who would give anything to have my feet glued firmly to the ground. Bravery also comes in the face of acceptance; acceptance that we can’t change everything we want to, when we want to. Coupled with this is a resignation to how things are going to unfold. As you come to ebb and flow with what life throws at you, I hope you find the peace you’ve been looking for. It might not come in the form you want it to, such as with most things in life, but it will come love. It’s just a matter of time. I have faith in you. And I know in the deepest recesses of my heart that it is not misplaced. Your kindness in the face of everything that life has thrown at you is proof enough. All I need know is to have faith in myself that I can do everything I have to in your absence.
The only constant thing that I know now is that I will always love you. I’ve read somewhere that the quality of relationships is not measured by the time we’ve been in them, but the impact they’ve had on us. It rings true for us; I think our brief time together has changed us in so many profoundly beautiful ways, love. You might say that I’m still young and that I’ll find someone better, but I highly doubt that. Rationally speaking, my investment on my own self growth leaves little to no space for anyone to enter my life anytime in the near future. Additionally, I have no time to invest in a budding romance with a stranger in the years of my doctorate degree. And I know that you’re my right person, as you know I am your right person; it just so happens that we met under the wrong circumstances. I hope you realize how much we already love each other even when every lick of sense screams at us that we shouldn’t. I think that itself is a feat worth celebrating. What more if circumstances weren’t all that wrong? I wouldn’t call our time apart as a waiting period; we must give ourselves more justice than that. It’s our period of individual growth. That might seem ironic to you right now, but it hopefully, one day it will sense somehow. Life is suffocating to you only because you’ve long outgrown those tiny, toxic spaces that were once so familiar to you.
In your time alone, don’t ever feel like you’re obliged to do anything for me at the expense of yourself. I don’t demand anything from you; not simple hello’s, or forced conversations, or mandatory messages updating me about how you are. Please don’t ever reach out to me because you feel like you have to. Your motivation shouldn’t be from an assumed responsibility but should be borne out of a genuine desire to talk to me. See me if you want to and only under those circumstances. I’ll leave you the occasional love letter (which you will find here) and the occasional short voice mail, but I promise to respect your boundaries. I’m not going to force myself into your life when we both know there’s no room for me there right now. I’ve come to terms with the fact that being together is not the best thing for us right now, but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to walk away from us or that I’m going to stop loving you. Don’t worry about how I’m going to receive the person you’ve become; once you feel like you’re ready, I’d be happy to get to know you all over again, and to love each and every version of you that comes along (as hard as it is to believe that right now), as you have loved me in my all of my worst versions and my most volatile moments (most of which you’ve already been intimately acquainted with time and time again). All you have to do is to keep your end of the deal and find me when you’re ready.
For now, I will look back at the catalogue of memories of you I’ve neatly kept. On cold mornings when there is a deep ache in my rib cage, I will remember your sleepy morning face and how you’d kiss me in the mouth after murmuring a quiet good morning. In vain attempts to ward away the creeping loneliness, I will remember how it felt like to be enveloped in your warmth as I inhale that fresh rainwater scent you carry so well. I will remember how good it feels to just hold your hand on the worst of days and the peace that comes from resting my head on your chest. The sound of your laugh will never fade from my memory, as will the warmth of all your sweet kisses and the feel of holding you as my little spoon (despite how big of a panda you are). And on the rare nights when I ache with physical need (they come very rarely now that you’re gone and I’m back to being my plant self), I will remember how well your fingers danced on my skin, how your kisses feel running up and down the length of my spine. I will remember that adorable facial expression you make whenever I bring you to the heights of pleasure and that look in your eyes every time we’d make love to each other. Your gaze, in all forms of intimacy, says so much about how you feel, and I will sincerely miss the quiet moments spent just getting lost in those eyes of yours. Most of all, I will remember you in the smallest of details; in the color pink because you always order everything in that yucky strawberry flavor, in the last slice of carrot walnut cake that you would definitely fight me for, in that everything cheese place because you hate cheese with a passion, in fruit flies because you know, your fetish, in all the beautiful things and places that I know for a fact you’ll love. Those are just to mention a few because if I went on about all of them, you’ll honestly never hear the end of it. Mom’s cooking is never going to be the same too, especially whenever she’d cook spaghetti. Alongside these good things, however, I’ll also remember the bad; all those fights and messy days where we spat shrapnel at each other and bruised each other with painful honesty. All those late nights spent fighting, and all those times when the ground crumbled under our feet as the weight of everything we feel comes crashing down on us. I need to always remember them together; the pain reminds me that this is all real. That we’re not in love with ideal versions of each other or there is this abstract idea of a perfect romance that is compelling us to fight for it. The pain we’ve gone through reminds me that this is all very real. That, the love that I continue to choose is not perfect (as nothing real ever is) but has nonetheless filled me with an indescribable happiness that I would have never known without it; that I would have never known without you. You gave me a lifetime’s worth of love in the span of 5 months and you’ve profoundly expanded my capacity to love beyond what I thought I was capable of. And for another chance at that happiness, I’d be willing to weather all the coming storms, no matter how long they last.
In sum (if you skipped to the ending because it was dragging at some point), I love you and in doing so, I respect your need for space for yourself. You don’t have to be selfless all the time, even in this relationship. You need to learn to be selfish too. And I will love you, despite the distance and despite how badly you think I will not love other versions of you. You don’t always need to be the best version of yourself for me, and I promise I’ll do my best to be your safe place. If I can’t be all those things, then I don’t deserve to love you at all. Despite you being far away, know that you’ll always be with me. I carry your heart in mine, always and always and always.
See you later, my darling panda. Remember that I am yours; mind, body, and soul. Circumstances won’t ever change that.
I love you so, so much. I love you always.
Yours forever, Gato
P.S. Please be kind to mama while you’re there.
