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I'll never forget our odd first encounter, it was a really cold night in March 2015. We were both in line at the University nightclub. I was there with my friends to get my mind over a crush who had done me wrong, you were there with your girlfriends just looking to have a fun time. You knew my name, you knew a friend of yours had a crush on me. So as a joke you yell it out, thinking I wouldn't notice. But I did, and when I asked (in a confused manner) how I could help you, you just giggled. I had only just glanced at you, but I never forgot your face.
You were hanging out with my good friend's girlfriend, and there was something about you that I couldn't ignore. When I asked my friend who you were, he told me your name, but he also told me you had a boyfriend. So I shrugged my shoulders and went on with my night. After all, you meet a 100 faces during a night out anyway, and for the most part you never see those faces in your life again.
But I never forgot your name. During the summer of 2015 I would sometimes search your name on FaceBook to remind myself how beautiful you looked, upset about the fact that I would never again run into you. Even though I didn't consider it a big deal, there was still something about you that I couldn't keep your name out of my head.
When I moved into my new apartment in my 4th and final year, I expected my last hurrah in university to be an uneventful one. After 3 years of partying, experiencing, and learning about myself, I was ready to just mind my own business, complete my studies and move on to the next part of my life. By this point, your name has subsided from my thoughts. When my friend texted me saying she was living downstairs and that I should come meet her and her new housemates, I was rather uninterested. After a few negative encounters with women throughout university, in a setting where commitment and responsibilities to others have no right to exist, I felt done trying to meet new women in the academic environment. But, reluctantly, I came to say hi to everyone.
I met her friends, they seemed nice, I didn't think I would ever become friends with them, but I figured they were good people to get to know in the building.
And then you walked out of your room.
I guess the feeling I can associate with the moment I realized you were the 4th and final housemate would be light-headedness. I'm not religious, but when you walked out of that room, I felt like it was a sign. I felt like I had to talk to you, to get to know you, but, unfortunately at the time, you didn't share the same desires. No matter how hard I tried, you were never interested. You thought I was a frat boy, just a partying senior looking to have a convenient person to sleep with throughout the year, and no matter what I did to make you see that wasn't me, you always kept your guard up. By this point you had broken up with your boyfriend from March of 2015, and you, like me, weren't looking to get tied up with anything else.
We would go out, a bunch of us, but whenever we did all I could ever do was watch you smile, laugh, dance. And every time we went out all I could think about was smiling, laughing and dancing with you.
Finally, I got you to agree to get coffee with me. I was so excited. I know I tried to play it cool, to make it look like you agreeing to get a coffee with me was no big deal. But inside I was ecstatic. I felt like a schoolboy at heart, so excited, excited enough that I could barely stop myself from awkwardly smiling while I waited for you.
You came, but you left as soon as you could. You saw where this was going and just wanted to be nice. I knew it too, but I was just happy that I got to finally sit with you. Not with your housemates, or our friends, just you. On our thanksgiving break in 2015, I asked you if you wanted to get sushi with me when we got back to school, but it was at this point where you drew the line. You told me you didn't want to give off the wrong vibe, and you didn't want to lead me on. You would love to go to sushi, but just as friends.
So I cancelled on the sushi.
What made me change my mind at this point was thinking about the time you walked all the way to my building on campus to try an apple you had bought from the farmer's market. Why would someone who didn't want to give the wrong vibes walk all the way to me, to give me an apple? Because you were excited to give me that apple, because the weekly farmer's market was something you loved going to every week, and you wanted to share a bit of your life interests with me. It then hit me that you in fact did have feelings for me, but you tried to hide it from yourself. You thought I was just somebody with a partying personality that would hurt you, so you told yourself you didn't like me. So I knew what I had to do after that, I had to let you know sushi was back on.
That sushi date was the day you really got to know the real me, that you saw me for who I was. This "frat boy" actually had depth, meaning, emotions, intellect. You realized you were totally wrong about me, and that was the first time your guard wobbled. You wanted to let me into your life, but you still were fighting the feeling.
Weeks passed, we talked on the phone a lot but in person you were always very distant, as if the person I talked to on the phone was not the person I saw in real life. I got frustrated and I felt like just letting it go. By this point I only had 6 more months of university before I left anyway, so what was the point? So, like the sushi, I gave it one more chance. I invited you to a party my friend was throwing that Friday night in October.
I wondered for hours if you would come, and when you did, something about me felt different. This time it didn't feel like I was just going to hang around you hoping the opportunity to make a move would just present itself. No, that night felt like the night I was going to let you know how deeply I cared for you.
I asked you to play beer pong, you didn't want to, you threw a ball or two but felt embarrassed, so you stopped and went back to your circle of friends, leaving me standing there alone. It was at that moment I went up to you and asked if I could talk to you privately. You said sure, and we walked up to the staircase between the 2nd floor and attic, where we could have privacy and talk.
We sat down, made some small talk, had some laughs, but it was at this point I didn't want to beat around the bush anymore. I knew I had to make my moment and this was the moment I chose, and I'll never forget the words I told you:
"M, the thing is, I think you're gorgeous, and to be honest, I really like you, and I really just want to kiss you right now."
You kissed me. October 23, 2015.
I had fooled around with a lot of women by that point in my life, but that kiss felt like my first kiss all over again. That night I couldn't sleep. It was just a kiss, but it changed my life.
Over the weeks we got closer, kissed some more, laid in bed talking, laughing, but it hit a stalemate. This time, you wanted to give yourself to me, but it was I who was now apprehensive. I had trusted women before, they had killed me inside. I knew I was falling in love with you but as great as that felt, it also terrified me. One night we sat on my couch and you asked why I wouldn't open up to you. I had held it in for months at this point but I couldn't anymore, and with a tear coming down my eye, I told you my insecurities. I assumed you would tell me what every girl in the past had told me when I opened up to them: "No I totally get it! I'm a good listener! I understand you can trust me!" Lies they would tell me to make it less awkward, before I would never hear from them again. I waited for you to say the same thing. But you didn't. In fact, you didn't say anything. You just kissed me. And all of a sudden, I felt all my insecurities disappear, I felt weights I had carried for years lift off my shoulders. I felt safe with you.
Even though the future was uncertain, I knew that I couldn't not have you in my life. So I asked you to be my girlfriend for the remaining university time I had, and you said yes. We figured we could see where we were in a few months and then go from there. As time showed, I ended up doing an extra year, meaning I could spend an entire year with you. Getting to know you even more, to enjoy your company, to love you.
The next 2 and a half years were the best of my life. The things we did, from the big things like trips around the world, to the little things like late night drives, always felt so in the moment. I enjoyed every single one, and the thought of not having those days with you in the future upset me, so I always made the most of it. My favourite little thing I did with you were the late night drives to get tea, where we would park my car by the pier and just sit and talk, and look at the stars and moon. It felt so genuine, so peaceful, like it was just me and you in the world, and nothing else mattered.
But it wasn't always easy. We would fight, but we would always forgive each other by the end of the day. Sometimes stupid things I said or did made you cry, and sometimes the things you said or did to me would frustrate me. But we always saw the bigger picture. We knew we were very different people, but we loved those differences, and experienced each person's life to make our own lives more fulfilling. No matter what we did, or how we were, we always ended our nights laughing in bed, cracking jokes, singing, gossiping. I know most couples say their significant other is also their best friend. But with you, I really did feel like you were my closest friend on top of being my love.
As much as our time was unforgettable, we knew life had different plans for us, and that our biggest test was coming. By Spring 2017, we had both been admitted to our master's programs. Mine was a one year program here in our home country. But yours was a 2 year course in Spain. Of course we were going to do long distance, knowing it was going to be our biggest test, but also our last. If we could pass this, we knew we would spend our life together.
It was hard at first, emotionally. I missed you and you missed me. But these were natural feelings. We talked every day, updated each other, let us know how the program was going. But when it became hard for us personally, that's when everything unravelled. I realized my program was the hardest thing I had gotten myself into, and that to achieve this masters would take tremendous sacrifice and dedication. I became more negative, projected that negativity on you, expecting you to just unconditionally be there for me. On your end, two years really started to feel like a very long time away. So you asked if we were too young to be doing this, were we making the right decision. We both had growing pressures we never addressed, and this cycle kept spiralling out of control.
And then came the day I know I broke your heart.
You were back in our home country for a week visiting your family. We had planned for me to fly to you and spend time with you. You were so excited, and even though I didn't show it, I was counting down the days till I could be holding you and kissing you again. But life, life throws curveballs. It was smack in the middle of my masters, and with the amount of work and exams I had coming up. I knew that if I took this week off with you, I would very likely not complete all my projects and study for my midterms in time. So I cancelled. But I was so ashamed I had to get my mother to tell you that I couldn't come. I was ashamed that I was going to let you down in such a devastating way, but at the time I felt if you heard it from me that I was too stressed with work to come, you wouldn't believe me, wave me off as being dramatic and just dismissing you, so I thought if my mother told you, you would really believe the stress I was under.
For my part, I could never commit to seeing you during that year. I always felt unsure when I could visit, which always left you feeling in limbo when it came to seeing me again. On your end, you made me feel more and more insignificant as time went by and you settled in your new city. I felt like I was old news, like an old phone that was soon enough about to be discarded. We had a lot of problems, but we didn't know how to address them.
Then I woke up on March 3, 2018, and realized my entire life had changed.
It was over. After reading that message on my phone right after I woke up, I remember staring at my ceiling for about 15 minutes. I realized my life was different now. My old life was dead, and that I was literally waking up to a new life. I felt dizzy, I couldn't comprehend it. I was confused. I talked to my parents but it still hadn't settled in. I decided to go to my cousin's house because I didn't want to be alone, but the second I put my coat on. It sunk in.
I collapsed to the floor, tears streaming down my face repeatedly asking why? The reality that might life with you was gone overnight had just hit me like a punch in the face. It was right in the middle of midterm season. So I had to pull myself together, not grieve or question what had happened yet, and make sure I did everything I could to not fail my master's because of this.
M, you'll never know how hard those next months were for me. Between classes I would cry, during our mid-class break I would do the same, I would cry on the subway home, I would cry making my dinner, and I finally cried myself to sleep. What was hardest for me was not the fact that you weren't my girlfriend, but that I could no longer message the girl who used to send me a good morning message when I woke up and and goodnight message when she went to bed. All of a sudden, saying "I love you" felt forbidden.
I did what I could, and I managed to get through my masters. Throughout the summer of 2018 we met up, tried to reconnect, realized that even though you were going back to school for another year we would love each other the days we spend time together. But I knew it was temporary, that when you left the country and were back at school, it would only be a matter of time until you began to question what the point was of us still interacting and talking to each other, that we were only delaying the inevitable. A part of me realized that you didn't love me the way you used to, but I also realized that to give up on something so amazing was stupid. So I tried, we both tried. But the same insecurities we had kept bubbling up until I couldn't do it anymore.
November 2018. Although I had managed to pull myself out of a deep depression since we had ended things in March, the uncertainty of you not knowing if you wanted my love anymore kept growing. And finally the night came where I called you crying, telling you I couldn't keep this up emotionally anymore. We had to stop everything. Stop talking, FaceTiming, interacting. And that was that.
It's been a few months now, and while things get easier in time, they're still hard. I know you're the touch of a button away on my phone but talking to you seems so foreign now. The thing I couldn't stop doing with you now makes me nervous, nervous to the point where if I send you a message before bed, I barely sleep wondering what and when you will reply.
I still think about you every day, about us every day. The moments we shared, the good and the bad, how we grew, and how we found each other at the right place and the right time in our lives. Now, our lives are so different and it's still hard to accept the reality where you're not my love, and I'm not yours. I wonder what you're up to now. If you're happy, if you feel you found yourself, if you met someone else, if they make you happy, if you feel like breaking up with me was ultimately the best decision you made, or if you regret it. As for me, I'm out living my life, doing new things, surrounded by new people, going on dates, making the most of my youth. But not a day goes by where I don't go somewhere and wish you were on that journey with me. We used to think of our relationship as a journey, and sometimes I still wonder if this year we've been apart is part of that journey, but those are thoughts I have to put away and not think about, even if there are times where I really hope this isn't the final chapter of the amazing journey we had.
Life will go on, whether you're in it or not. But M, I want you to know that no matter who I become, where I go, and what I do, a little part of me is going to be sitting in my car parked by the pier, waiting for you to sit next to me again and look out at the water.
I love you
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ReplyThis was honestly beautiful
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