damn it’s been a while
i don’t even know where to begin. it’s as if my life flipped upside down since i went here—in a lot of good ways. i’ve grown, learned, healed, hurt, and loved so much in the span of five months; so much so that i don’t even recognize the person who wrote all the entries before this one. i can only vaguely remember who i was, but i know for a fact that i am not the same. and while it brings about some natural fear, it has given me more comfort than the former.
i am grateful for the love that i lost. mark, i finally learned to step up for myself. to set boundaries. to say no. to be sure of myself even when i had no idea what was ahead of me. to understand what i needed and what i wanted. to make clear decisions where it truly matters. i am so grateful that you had the courage to let me go. i am so grateful for the love i shared with that person. i like to look back at those memories and think of them fondly, and accept that it happened for useful reasons bigger than i could imagine. to you, whose love transformed me in ways i can’t imagine. thank you for loving—and losing me. in that process, in those three years, we lost one another. we lost sight of who we really were, and along the way we found no reason to continue because perhaps love is not enough. but i am lucky to have shared that love with you nonetheless. i couldn’t even be angry if i tried to anymore. because of you i lost parts of myself that maybe needed to fall apart so i could make space for a new me to grow. thank you is simply an understatement. i think a very small part of me will always love and care for you (and your wonderful family), because you were the first person to ever show me i was worth the fight. don’t get me wrong, i feel as though i’m moving on. i hope you are, too, because you are nothing short of an amazing person. you were the first person to show me that someone was man enough to love me. and even if we lost that along the way, even if you needed constant reminding, i want to think that you loved me so much to go beyond your comfort. but your love deserves space where it can be properly appreciated, and my soul longs for a connection where i won’t need to translate myself constantly. for all this and more, thank you, thank you, thank you. i pray life leads you to the path you’ve always dreamed of, and i hope love finds you enough for your own flourishing to happen.
consequently, i am over the moon for the love that i have gained. ino, you always say you’re the lucky one to be loving me—that i am nothing short of your angel, as if i was a celestial being who descended from heaven, sent by God to be your friend and lover in this life. when you met me, i was cold and unfairly straight to the point. you know how well i built up my walls and i have no idea how you viewed me as an angel, because i felt that my heartbreak forced me to rise up from hell itself. the pain i’ve experienced numbed me even from the thought of love. i absolutely abhorred it, and frankly, i had no time for games that paved way for loss on both sides. the people i’ve rejected know just how detached i can be. my heart was nothing more than an organ that pumped blood for my body’s survival. i no longer viewed it as part of my soul. but you tended to my uncaring disposition with kindness and friendship. you saw me clearly even when i couldn’t. you loved me even before you knew it. for the first time, i never had to ask. i never had to beg. i never had to second-guess. perhaps there are fears, but i never doubted you for a second. my anam ċara. my best friend. thank you for sharing your laughter, tears, worries, musings, geekiness, philosophies with me. every single second i have spent loving you so far comforts me because i know there’s so much that lies ahead of us. the thought that we have a story of love to build on—because two broken hearts just bumped into one another—i can’t help but think that our meeting was fated and opportune. you, in all your calm and kind disposition, remind me to live and breathe. you were the first person to understand me wholeheartedly beyond my strength. and you truly, genuinely, incessantly love me for all that i am. i can say this with so much confidence because you have made so much effort to show me that you are the love i prayed for. with you, the search for love is over. with you, love has unfurled its definition and i am overjoyed to have it be synonymous to your name. ino, if i lose you, i don’t know where my love will take me. my soul has never spoken louder in my life at the thought of you. when i write about you, my fingers dance brazenly to pen the most heartfelt—albeit an unstructured mess—words i’ve ever written. some circumstances are unfortunate, and i know they are out of your control. despite this, you have never failed to be present whenever you could. but for you, my love, i will wait. because of you, i’ve started to pray before i eat, too. because of you, i started drinking more water. i stopped taking my antidepressants because for some reason i am comforted enough to live knowing you love me. not only do you remind me to slow down, but you have shown me a childlike sense of wonder and fun that i forgot when life got too serious. i feel that perhaps no one has complemented me as well as you do, and for the first time someone spoke my language. i love you. i love you. i love you. indubitably, i am yours as much as you are mine. i hope you know that i will always strive to embrace you—for all that you are and all that you are not. for all that you were and will be. i can’t wait to kiss your wounds when you show me them, deep and gorey as they may be. and i can’t wait to tell you that after all this and more, i still find that loving you is easy. i used to tell you i didn’t really know how to love, but being with you showed me i could. it’s you i want to share this love with.
love is something i’ve come to lose and discover. i wonder what good i did in my past life to still be transformed by it, even after i’ve walked away from it multiple times. to the good company—in friends both new and the old and the fleeting, in family that have stayed through all of my phases, in strangers who smile and pay a bit of their kindness to me, in city lights that stayed open at 12:49am to remind me that the world is always somehow awake enough to keep me company. there is love all around me and i am incessantly embraced by its warmth. and amidst all this, i find love within myself. finally, i’ve learned to love who i am, to sit with my feelings, to face my fears, to verbalize the disgruntlement and see them expand into words, sifting through pages. and amid the mess that i am, i find peace. love has never been so clear ever since i started listening to myself, to my needs; ever since i allowed for it to grow within and alongside me—platonically, romantically, or filially.
:)
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