This Time I’m Keeping My Promise Of Letting You Go

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It’s been a long time since the last time I wrote something like this, something about how I felt – about you, about me, about us, to be precise; something about why I always stayed up late until dawn, typing a thousand words on my laptop – my longings, my regrets, my what ifs. I probably have three hundred documents in my secret folder now, one for each day that passed where I knew, we could never be anymore. I thought I had enough, you know?

About how badly I missed you and how I never got to see you since we ended, and just before I knew it, 12 months have passed and I found myself swearing at New Year’s Eve that 2016 will be the last moment I would let you cross my mind; that 2016 will be the last year I would hold on to the thought of still getting you back; that 2016 will be the last time I’d think about loving you still; and that 2016 will be the last time I’ll be writing with the image of you.

But just when I thought my fingers were free, I saw you. On the 4th day of 2017. And I thought it only happens in movies, but God, I literally froze in my track as I watch you run in slow motion towards the other side of the corridor. Our eyes didn’t meet, but your presence, after a year of trying to forget about how you look, act, or even smell, felt like it was the missing part of my new year. How foolish of me to say this, but how I wish you turned your head and met my gaze. But what’s even more foolish is acting and feeling like this, despite the fact of knowing that you now have somebody else you’re wishing to spend the rest of your life with.

Everyone would say that there’s nothing wrong with loving someone who would never love you back. But in my case, I know, my heart knows, that somewhere between the eight months we spent together, you loved me with all your heart. You once promised me the world, and I had that. I had you, as my world. And so I thank you for that. I thank you for the love, the happiness, the care, the sadness and the pain.

And through those three hundred letters I wrote for 2016, I realized this: that loving someone can never guarantee that you will never be hurt by him.

I’m wrapping this up to formally finish what I’ve started last year, ending it with the conclusion that seeing you again after a year, only made me realize that I did not deserve to be hurt by someone who is not a part of my life anymore. And so this is me, officially beginning a new chapter of my story. And if I ever wanted to write again, I’m making sure it won’t be about me, plus you, or us to be precise.

Because in case you didn’t know, I’m someone who keeps her promises.