To You, Thank You

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You. Yes, you. The one with dimples so cute, I knew I was a goner before it even began.

You. The one who made me laugh silly on dark days, I could feel my heart swoon all over again.

You. The one whose voice turned my world upside down. The one who made me realize I’d never felt this way before. The one who had me fall in love like I didn’t know was possible.

Thank you.

Thank you for constantly keeping me on the edge.

I was the girl you wanted to talk to. But never those three words.

I was the girl you wanted to kiss. But not the one you wanted to hold.

I was the girl you drunk dialled at midnight. And the girl you pretended to not know when the sun shined.

Thank You.

Thank you for not nodding your head when I cried my heart out.

You see, it would have been so easy. If you’d said yes. Your life would have been easy. Because I would have done everything I could to make sure it was. I would have stood by you during your pitfalls. Your tears  made me cry. Your laughter brought me joy. You were the centre of my universe. You always would have been.

And I would have been so lost in my love for you that I would have never noticed. I would have never noticed that anger you often can’t control. I would have never noticed the way you knowingly speak hurtful words. I would have never noticed that opinion you had of me when I wasn’t around. I would have never noticed the way I’d given it all up for nothing in return.

And when I did, it would have been worse.

Thank you.

I know you don’t get it. You think this is a hate letter. You think I’m sore and angry. But here’s what you never noticed about me.

I’m not that girl.

I don’t spread rumors about the boy who broke my heart. I don’t make snarky remarks just because he does. I don’t bitch about the one I love.

And I will always love.

It won’t be as overpowering as it once was. I’ll move on. With someone who makes me smile by just existing. And I’ll live a life filled with love and chaos with him. But ten years from now, if you decide to make me your one phone call, I swear I’ll come bail you out.

Because, contrary to what you so strongly believe, love isn’t an on and off switch. You don’t just fall out of love and go on like those emotions never existed. It’s always there. In the bottom of your heart. Buried under a lot of hurt and broken pieces. And I have learnt to live with that. I have learnt to dust off those extra shards of glass and pull my chin up. I have learnt to wipe my tears and make myself smile. I have learnt to love but know when to hold back. And I learnt all that without you. I learnt all that because of you.

And that’s exactly why I deserve better.

So Thank You.

For letting me have the ability to find someone who’ll love me for me. For giving me the time and the space to know who I was in your eyes. For forcing me into knowing how to take care of myself when everything within me is falling apart.

You.

I promise, someday, when I’m sitting on a patio surrounded by my grandkids, I’ll tell them about the guy who showed me what love feels like. And I’ll have a small smile as I remember the first time I found myself wanting to lose myself to that voice. To that laughter. To you.

And that’s who you’ll always be. A far away memory. Because sitting with me and correcting me as I spoke about our story will be the man I once longed for you to be.

Hence, my love,

Thank you.

For not saying “I love you too.”

The Fear of Falling

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There are these moments in life. These moments when you see someone for the very first time and you feel your heart skip a beat. Not because you’ve fallen at first sight. But because in that instant you know, with time, falling for this person would no longer be a choice.

I met someone for the first time recently. He caught me off guard and if only I didn’t know better, I would have said the skip of a heartbeat was from feeling startled. But it wasn’t. It was the moment when I saw trouble.

Ten seconds later, I felt my heart hammer. Because I knew. This was a trap I was going to walk into, willingly.

There are three kinds of people when it comes to circumstances like these – the ones that never take the first step forward if they knew it was trouble, the ones that would walk in a little and then choose to back away because they know it’s unhealthy to their heart and of course, there are people like me. We know it’s trouble. We know how this ends. But we will still keep going with the hope that this will be different from the last time while always knowing deep inside that this path is taking us to a place we’ve known before. A place that’s going to emotionally cost us a little too much than it’s worth.

It’s been a few months now. We get along quite well. He’s one of my closest friends. And I feel that pit in my stomach because I know what’s happening.

We have so much in common and yet, we couldn’t be more different if we tried. We want the same things from life. Just not in the same way. We’d be right for each other but it won’t last. And somehow, I’m still here. Because I enjoy the time we spend. I value the little things that only I know. And beyond all, there is something about finding company that’s been where you have and understands the nooks and crooks of all the emotions you feel at very specific moments.

Which is precisely why, at this very moment in my life, I feel nothing but fear. I’m afraid of falling for this person and ruin a friendship that I hold dearly. That I’m going to make this awkward. That we’ll never get back to this place of comfort again. And I’ve thought of the million things I could do to stop this including the middle of the night ridiculousness that is “I could always move to Mars!”

But quite honestly, I don’t think that’s going to work. I’d miss my dog too much.

So I’m going to do what I do best. I’m going to sit back and hope this goes away. That this turns out to be different than the rest. That what I’m feeling is not the hint of a crush but rather a fondness for a friend.

And if it doesn’t..

Well, you’ll probably find a blog post about heartbreak within the next year.

Thank You, My Love

I remember the first conversation. I was my awkward self and your charming way with words made me smile. I called you two days later. I was upset. I wanted you to make me smile. You made me giggle like a child. It was a surprising sound in a rather dull moment of life.

You told me about the girl you were in love with. The one who broke your heart. I found myself grimacing. Wishing I could hold you close and tell you she didn’t deserve you. I wanted to tell you I’d gotten through it and you will too. But I didn’t. I didn’t want you to know about the guy who broke my heart. The guy who made me feel like I didn’t matter. I didn’t want you to ever think of me with someone else.

I’d spent two years learning to find comfort in being myself. But you made me want to be better. I wanted to be someone that was worthy of someone like you. I watched what I did. Who I spoke to. How I behaved.  I didn’t understand why, but the most important part of my day was the moment you answered your phone. My days were a blur as I counted down hours until I could talk to you.

When you laughed at something I said, my heart would melt. I made you laugh. That was such a high to me. I liked the sound of your laugh. I liked that I could make you happy. I wanted to. The moment you said, “I wanted to do something else with my life,” I couldn’t stop thinking if it was too late. I wanted you to live your dreams. For at least a day.

We fought. All the time. I know we did. We didn’t agree on very many things. We didn’t want the same things out of life. You were everything I never wanted in someone. But I could’ve done anything for you.

I remember the phone call. The one where you cried about how difficult your relationship felt. I remember silently crying with you. When we hung up, I slammed my head on my bed. I knew it. I knew this feeling. It had trouble written all over it. This was never going to work. But I hadn’t wanted anything more in my entire life.

Maybe.. What if.. Somehow.. you could feel this way too?

A part of me always knew you didn’t. But it didn’t stop me from hoping. Wishing on every star. Believing that it will change with every phone call. My friends thought I was an idiot.

When I told you, you already knew. When you replied, it felt like a thousand waves came crashing over me. I almost hated you for the way you made me feel right then. Almost.

It’s been more than a year since that day. Everything feels so different. I remember spending the 14th of February last year looking out the door every ten minutes. Hoping you would walk in at any moment to tell me what you hadn’t all those days. It was a hope I held on to every time I yelled, every time I cried, every time I dreamt.

Maybe you’ll wake up one day and feel what I do. What an incredible life that would be. I would fight the world to keep you close. To keep you happy.

I was talking to someone today. Someone who didn’t have the strength you did. Someone that said yes knowing he couldn’t give her his everything. And I felt glad.

Because at my weakest moment, when I was a crying mess, I forgot that I deserve someone that feels for me the fierceness of what I feel for that person. But you didn’t. You stuck with your decision. You stayed sane when I lost my mind. You stayed strong when I was vulnerable. It would’ve been so easy to nod your head, but you never did. Not once. And it felt so difficult then.

But I didn’t see what you were doing. I didn’t see the big picture. I didn’t care enough for my emotions. You did.

And for that, for not being that guy,

Thank you, my love.

P.A.I.N

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Pain. That’s probably one of the most dreaded words on the planet. Pain. The sound of it makes me cringe. It’s emotional. It’s physical. It can numb you from head to toe and take away your ability to think or act rationally. Pain – that’s the word. But what is it really?

The doctors often say, “Rate the pain you’re feeling from 1 to 10, with 1 being the lowest.” I have never said 10. Because I know nothing I will ever feel is 10. There’s always something worse right around the corner. It’s like education. The older you get, the worse it becomes. But you also understand that everything in the past was just a preparation for the present. And the present is preparing you for the future.

Because pain is evergrowing.

Like the moment you watch your perfect family crumble and fall. Your world stops and you think the worst has happened, only to realize that it is a permanent fall and can never be rebuilt.

Like feeling hope for the first time in years when someone promises not to walk away and watching that hope crash as you sit on your bed, clutching your phone and sobbing silently.

Like giving up on a dream. Giving up on your five year plan for no fault of yours.

Like heartbreak. You think you’ve figured it out after the first time. You understand what it is. You can handle it. And then the second one happens and it’s ten times more than what you could have ever imagined.

Like the very second after you’ve said “I love you” for the first time and the person on the other end pauses. Your hope sinks with every tick on the clock and yet you feel so unprepared for the “Hmm” that you think you heard in a hallucination but was reality.

Like that little eight year old girl sitting on a couch while her aunt called her “a brave kid” and she grinned – a fake grin – to cover up the stab she felt deep inside her. The need to be anywhere but there. To wake up from the nightmare. To have someone tell her that this is not her life, this is not her childhood.

Pain. When you’re four, you think the scratch on your feet is horrible. Then you get bruised and it leaves a scar. Eventually it becomes ligament tears. And then broken bones. One fine day, you’re struggling to get out of bed because every part of your body hurts. Everything feels painful. But it doesn’t mean the world is over. You don’t give up on school because your classes got harder. Like you don’t stop living because the pain got worse. You go on. You learn to put one foot in front of the other and walk it off.

Because sometimes, pain is good.

Pain lets you appreciate happiness. It teaches you the value of those small moments in life. It helps you learn the concept of empathy. It brings people with similar battles together. It gives you wisdom. It makes you stronger. And when looked at right – Pain gives purpose to life. Maybe pain was created, not to sink us, but to let us help others who are going through the same thing. Maybe pain was meant to irk a positivity that I have failed to see for a very long time now. It’s the only thing you can do about pain without creating a more traumatic experience for the people who love you. Maybe that’s why the word exists to explain that emotion.

Maybe PAIN is just an abbreviation of – Positive. Attitude. Is. Necessary.

Maybe that’s why, like positivity, pain cannot be killed. Pain cannot be willed away. Pain cannot be destroyed. Pain cannot be ignored.

“Pain Demands To Be Felt”

– John Green

Inspired by the comment by Ceolittle :

“I was feeling down today kinda lost what the real meaning of life is all about through all the pain”