"Of course, after all, letters belong to the one who writes them, don’t they? That’s the way it is. That’s why they are the first things to be returned when there is a break-up."
(Gabriel Marquez, Love in the time of Cholera)
Hi. How are you?
Before you wonder what my response to that question would be, let me tell you that I have been doing just okay.
I know life stings a little every day but I hope you’ve braved the sadness and the cynicism well.
There’s a thousand ways in which I thought I’d word this letter but I guess there’s no certain way to know or find out what the result would be like.
I am not sure whether this letter will find you or not, even as I write it, but I figured step one either way would be to pen it down and not have the words simply floating around in my head.
Yes, you’ve been on my mind, to say the very least.
Now don’t be surprised, I did love you, very much, and not too long ago. The ship that was us might have sailed but the port isn’t yet out of sight.
What can I say, you’ll always be my first big love story. And I am happy that it is, that it will be you.
I know that we severed all ties between us the last time we bid farewell to each other, and I fully understand what that entails. So, fret not, I am not looking to disrupt or infiltrate your life with this piece of paper.
Like I said, it is possible you don’t ever get to read this or come to know of its existence but I am leaving the country, soon, and it does feel odd not having you around to say goodbye. I hadn’t wondered it would be this way. I guess I had wondered wrong.
The past few months that we haven’t been together have been both interesting and challenging. I have had my good days and bad, just as I assume you would have too. Life, when looked at in retrospect, can seem rather different from the way that its actually turned out to be. Unfortunately, when I look back at our time together I don’t see it go down any other way than the way it did.
Do you think our end loomed over us the entire time we were together?
I know I stand by my words and actions of the past and from what I know of you, so would you.
No point dwelling over a false possibility, right? I’ll stop.
I do believe that we could have handled our differences better; maybe helped each other out more instead of pushing each other away. But I guess we did do our best in that time, right? We had both wanted it to work, our friendship and our relationship. Maybe we were made of the stuff that just isn’t supposed to play out right in the end. Two negatives don’t always make a positive; they certainly didn’t in our case.
I sometimes find myself sitting and wondering about how it is that you choose to narrate our story to strangers and lovers alike. I am certain you’ve got both in abundance—who could ever stay away from your charm? But let me tell you this, I fail each time in picking the narrative of your choice. I don’t know if that means that I didn’t know you too well or that I know you enough to not know for sure but let’s not get into that right now.
What can an outsider know, except the shell of things? I remember your words very clearly. You think I've hung on to the wrong words?
I usually end up circling back to how I know I like to tell our tale, one riddled with great pain and greater love. To be honest, this is something that’s become somewhat of a favourite pastime of mine on gloomy, grey days. But you should know this, I never ask or assume any of my listeners to take my side blindly when I talk about you and I. I like to constantly remind them that each one of us lives a different reality, and that it is possible that you consider our tale to be one riddled with great love but greater pain instead. And that is okay. I couldn’t possibly have kept an unbiased eye on myself in my time with you by my side. I am no super human, I know.
I’ve revisited our old letters and emails a few times. I say revisit and not reread because it has never been simply about what each says. I am transported back in time, precisely to those moments of anguish and ardour each time I pick one out. If nothing else remained of me one day, I am certain that those letters and emails would stand testimony to my love for you. We did happen, once upon a time, and all of it is contained in those words, each heavy with true emotion.
I even recollect the silence that would prevail after the end of some conversations when we both knew we needed some time off from each other. But what puts a smile on my face is how each time we did manage to find a way back to each other, usually sealing the deal with a long, warm hug and a peck on the cheek. Maybe we failed to bury the hatchet this time around because the physical distance between us made a hug and kiss impossible.
You think you would consider flying down to see me before I am to leave?
We were indeed like fire and ice, as you’d rightly said; aglow with the warmth of a million stars one day, harsh and hurtful like the cold on others. You stay too long dipped in sunlight or on snow covered mountains and you are bound to injure yourself, right?
I remember you clarifying how you hadn’t sat wondering about us day and night when you’d made the fire and ice comment, that it was just something that had come to you in a fleeting moment. Uff! How I wish that wasn’t true. How I wish that is exactly what you had done, what you did—sit around wondering about us day and night!
I am sorry if this sounds silly, but it still makes me smile.
How is it that whenever I count the number of times I have kissed you, in my head the number seems significant, but my heart disagrees each time. There always seems to be that one other time when we snogged, but just not enough times, right? It always felt wonderful, you holding me in your arms. I could never shake that feeling off.
A kiss is a secret told to the mouth instead of the ear; kisses are the messengers of love and tenderness.
(Ingrid Bergman)
Maybe I should have kissed you more, and let out all my secrets. If I had known how much my heart would despise me for not having kissed you each time that I had wanted to but didn’t, believe me, I would have turned us both sore. But I guess each kiss missed is a bittersweet memory in the making, a reminder of a love that once was, both complete and incomplete in its own sense.
If I ever get a chance to see you again, know that I would be working up the courage to ask you for a kiss one more time in my head. I don’t know if that’d count as the goodbye kiss we didn’t get a chance to exchange towards the end of our relationship or if it could possibly be the start of something new.
I am not really sure if I’ve learned where to draw the line with you in my life. Maybe you have. Do tell.
I fathom now, from our time together, instances where I was wrong or rather could have been better. I believe it would be unfair for me to write off my mistakes and shortcomings to youth but I do attribute some of my attitude and behavior to the fact that I was young and probably naïve at the time. I guess our relationship is one reason why my sense of judgement and worldliness has grown in the past few months. Unrequited and/or failed love do teach you a lot about life.
Wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good.
(Gabriel Marquez, Love in the time of Cholera)
I try and seek solace in the fact that learnings from this relationship will probably help me with those awaiting to unravel in the future. But until then I guess I’ll just monopolize on the wisdom that followed from our end and go ahead and write a book about it! You’d be okay with that, right? You can tell me if that’d be a problem and I’ll reconsider. I could not even think of hurting you again.
You want to know when was the last time I dreamt about you? Umm, it was actually just today morning. You’ve rarely featured in my dreams even when we were a thing, so whenever that you have, it’s been somewhat of an earmark event.
This morning in my dream we were together in bed, just fooling around and talking, aware of some tension between us but not giving in to it. And just as I was about to turn to your side, to kiss you, my eyes shot open and I was wide awake in a second. It was a little unsettling because I’d turned to an empty side on the bed and there was no you and no kiss and I don’t know why I woke up just then because I had caught a glimpse of you from the corner of my eye as I was turning towards you in the dream, so it was actually perturbing to have opened my eyes to nothing.
Weird, right? How you tell yourself you’ve gotten over someone when you clearly haven’t, at least not yet.
I guess I am still a bad liar. What about you?
So much of our time was spent behind cell phone screens. I wish it hadn't been that way. I am sure we could have kept up with each other better if we’d been around each other more, in person, in flesh and blood. I genuinely dislike the virtual participation we turned to, to function as a substitute for the tangible distance between us.
The times I have missed you the most has always been during one of our arguments or long stretches of silence. I wish you were around then, to see my eyes drowned in tears and my face caught in a worrisome frown to figure for yourself without me having to say a word that all I’d wanted to do was for us to stop hurting each other and simply hug it out.
There’s no finer reassurance in life than being held by someone you love, who loves you back, and lets you know that their embrace will always be there for you. How happy and wanted and safe I had felt in your arms, love. How dearly I miss those hugs!
You think we’d be in a different place right now if we could have seen each other’s sadness and didn’t have to spend time interpreting it over written word?
I remember that drunken night so well when we first spoke to each other. It was a long conversation, surprisingly personal, and I think those few hours spent together talking quite late into the night were enough for us to know that we should stick together for a bit. Life, post that night, hasn’t been the same. Our chance meeting is one event that demarcates my life into a before and after. Doesn’t that make you feel special?
The first time we’d exchanged a conversation was when we hadn’t even known each other’s name. So I don’t count that as our first encounter. I’d love to travel back in time to that moment though, to give my old self a heads up and let her know that she should brace herself for something beautiful and wild coming ahead in her life. I think I’d be a little envious of her; my old self was yet to fall in love with you. “Ah, you are in for a treat”, I’d tell her before getting back to the present.
I would like to apologize to you, for assuming that it was okay for me to seek refuge in you and that you were doing the same or at least were willing to.
Nobody is anyone’s savior.
We all have to fight our own battles and deal with our demons the best way we know how.
It is acceptable to seek companionship and love in life, but in no way, is it okay to use those as a crutch to get by difficult times in life. We all can be strong for each other, but we have to be strong for ourselves too.
You were never going to be my home and I wasn’t going to be yours.
Our attempts to escape hadn’t seized then, and they haven’t seized now. At least mine haven’t. I don’t know about you.
I don’t know how I feel about you or us today. I can’t put my finger on it, and I don’t know if it’s a decipherable and describable emotion. But whatever it is, it is starkly different from how I have felt for you and us in the past few years since I have known you.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was love. Some varied version of it, but love nonetheless.
There’s no racing heart or butterflies in the stomach on the mention of you. Maybe I love you more in meaning now than in passion. You were once a loud buzz inside of me, spread out everywhere. But now, now you are a soft hum. A constant tune playing softly at the back of my head. Sometimes I think even my hands, my skin misses you and your electric touch.
I also miss having your name pop-up on my phone. There’d be days when that would be the only cue to the fact that you were alive and doing fine. Now, those notifications are the only proof that we ever existed.
I understand that we both disappointed each other. I know my loss of you is as much as your loss of me.
But remember, always, that I’ll carry you within me for as long as I shall live.
Tomas came to this conclusion: making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite. Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman).
(Gabriel Marquez, Love in the time of Cholera)
Be well, love.
May I see you in another lifetime, if not again in this one.
Au revoir.