A name that used to give me flashbacks about us.
I met you in an airport, in fact I didn’t know who you were entirely but you struck a chord in me from a past that I had escaped from. We had coincidentally worn matching jackets on the flight, and we said hi.
— that was the start
We exchanged a few words and spoke about mutual friendships, wrote down our Instagram accounts for a follow and perhaps a connection. We were friends, that was all it was at least for a month and a half. You came into my life like a train wreck, destroying my plans to stay single and to focus on myself; slowly we eased into a comfortable friendship. Soon, it became more than that.
I knew nothing about love before, until I met you. Our relationship was nowhere near perfect, and we were doing long-distance majority of the time; I still remember having to wait for a few months before having our first date. We were both busy, being an upper sixth and you just starting lower sixth; we were pushed around with the amount of work that needed to be done every day. We were really forgiving in the relationship, we rarely fought and I started to question is everything going alright?
Do you still remember our date in Worcester? That was my favourite because I got to see you during the hardest weeks and gotta give credits to our photographer friend that day.
You were my rock. You lifted me up during the most sleepless of nights, and when I was struggling to keep my toes on the floor you gave me your support and happiness through a computer screen. Although, we missed each other all the time and missed each others’ embrace; we poured our heart into what we had together as a couple maintaining a long-distance relationship. We had days of tears, joy, laughter, and me complaining about your roommate together. We encouraged each other and learned a thing or two about each other almost every day.
Despite the fact that we rarely met up, we used Whatsapp and Skype to make up for it; sleep dates, study dates and random pick-me-ups throughout the day to give each other warmth. We were a mismatched couple, and was mostly labeled as the cute couple amongst our friends.
I know for a fact that, during us being together was one of the most happiest period of my life; I loved you wholeheartedly (you’d probably refuse to accept that).
I loved you.
I probably still do, but it’s different now.
I could never replace the time we had spent together, and I don’t regret anything that happened between us. You were someone I can have on the phone for hours on the weekend, just you being there accompanying me whilst I was in the design block doing coursework; you were also someone I could call almost every day just to hear your voice and chat about anything.
I’ve created friendships with your friends that are still valuable to me now, the connection we somehow created (although it no longer exists) will always hold memories and it taught us about love; it taught us about long-distance love and although it was difficult, we didn’t break up because of the distance or that we lost connection. In fact, we broke up on my terms. It was selfish of me, I know.
Confession #1: I still loved you even after that.
You were my first official boyfriend, it was hard to not love you after 7 months of us. It was difficult transitioning back into a world without you, I struggled to find myself again.
Confession #2: I broke my own heart, breaking up with you.
Leading up to the last call we had, I had called Cameron beforehand for reassurance because the thought of breaking it off with you made me feel like puking. My head was determined to break it off with you, but my heart said otherwise. It took a long time for me to accept and move on, in fact; I didn’t have guts to face our chat history and your Instagram account. I blocked you and archived our chat, the image of you popping into my head every day after that was like a stab into my gut. After our last call, I had my doubts. I asked myself ‘did I do the right thing?’, ‘was that the right choice?’, ‘why am I feeling so much pain?’. I felt like the bad guy.
Confession #3: I’m a coward, and I didn’t want to lose you when I went to university.
I’m a hypocrite, because I always told you to open up but during our last few weeks I was distancing myself and you could tell. You were upset with me because I spoke to Cameron about this without consulting you, but you said nothing to me. You always said that you were ‘okay’ with anything that I did, as long as I was happy about it. I knew that things would change immediately after I left to university, our distance would be longer, and we both would have our priorities and perhaps we would grow further apart. You were someone precious to me, and losing to a relationship because of the distance would be unreasonable and stupid. I knew that we were both committed, and we wouldn’t do anything to hurt one another, but I somehow knew that it was time for me to let you go. We held each other back in many ways, you were afraid to admit to your emotions and you burdened yourself with your thoughts; which made me think that you didn’t want to burden me with your sufferings inside and with a gradual shift in our distance will only break us both. You knew me, but to be honest; I didn’t really know you. I was able to guess a few times, but you never decided to share them with me or your friends. You were suffering alone, and yet I was suffering because you wouldn’t tell me.
Confession #4: I selfishly made the decision to break it off with you because I thought I was holding you back and that you were too young to understand.
I told you to grow up, mature a bit. I’d admit, that last call was blunt and probably smashed your heart into pieces. I took that chance because I knew you were someone who doesn’t give up, you are determined to do whatever you can because you know you can do it. Whatever you have set in your mind, you will achieve it. I knew that you weren’t just going to fall and break because of our ending, yes; you’ll be sad and confused but deep down I knew that you were going to pick yourself back up. You needed a push. I’ve seen so much change in you, the first time we had met you were a shy little bean, waiting to grow into a sprout. But because you were comfortable with me, you told me everything but you only depended on me. Although, you had your friends beside you; you never really opened up to them. I started to question ‘am I holding you back from being with your friends?’, ‘am I the wall during your sprouting?’. Those were the questions that I had for a while, I shook them away but it was like an itch; scratching behind my ear waiting to be answered. To be frank, I was conflicted whether it was okay to break up; a part of me was saying yes and another part of me was saying no.
Confession #5: I hurt you, and I don’t think my apologies will ever make it up. Although, I knew I was in pain; you were probably feeling even worse than I was and I regret hurting you so much.
It’s been one year and two days. This is the closure I needed, and probably a chance for me to finally open up about this to you and everyone else around me who didn’t really know what was going on. I do, still get jabs whenever I come across your name in my life; be it someone I swiped left on, a friend in university, or a misheard name.
I’m glad that although it was rather short, it was meaningful and to this day I still talk about you. It used to make me feel like puking whenever I mentioned your name, or at least something that reminded me of you; but now, I’m able to freely mention you and the connection we had without my heart being crushed.
I’ve graduated from our love, and now I’m able to move forward.
