I’m never going to send you this, but I need to write it for my sake.
We went from strangers, to peers, to friends, to lovers, to strangers again. In the past year, I watched you from the sidelines of your life, and now I just don’t want to see you anymore.
I have so many unanswered questions. Questions I want to ask you, questions I want to ask the old me.
Do you regret it? What you did to me? Did you regret every kiss, every hug, every I love you? Do you regret breaking up with me?
Did you even bother trying? Trying to make things work? Trying to ask for help when things got rough? Did you even care about me in the first place?
Why did you do it? Was it too much for you to handle? Could I have made anything better? Is there any way I could’ve made it right?
I see you in school nowadays, and you look happy. You seem so close to people who once I considered everything to me, and now them, just like you, have become strangers to me.
And once again, it’s all my fault.
I don’t know what’s fucking wrong with me. I feel pathetic. I feel stupid. I cry myself to sleep most nights. I have dreams of committing suicide. I hurt myself, physically, mentally. I’m not a good person. I give up too easily. I love too much. My balance of virtues is too much, and now it’s eating me up.
I once wrote this in a letter to you:
The worst part of loving someone, is the day you lose them. And after all I went through, I didn’t want to lose someone else I cared about. I didn’t want to lose you.
And now I’ve lost you. I lost you a long time ago actually. I don’t know when how, I don’t know how. But suddenly, you weren’t part of my life anymore and nothing seemed the same. I went from understanding, to hurt, to angry, to sad. I don’t understand why you did what you did. I don’t understand why you asked me for another chance, even though you were the one who gave up on me. You were the one who lost me, not the other way around. Once, every comment reminded me of you, and now everything I do, is in relation to the relationship I once had with you.
But can I really call it that? After all, you gave up on me so easily. You never once introduced me to your parents, but I understood the difficult situation you were in. Yet you never even asked me out on a date, or told me how much you cared about me. No. Instead, you were quick on giving up on me, quick to push me aside, quick to hurt me. You decided that your parents were worth more than your feelings, and that pleasing them meant peace in your life. You were wrong. You know you were wrong.
Now, we both have to deal with the consequences of your fucking actions.
This isn’t me yelling at you for what you did to me. This is me yelling at myself for doing all those things too. I lost myself, in the process of being something to you. I gave up on myself, in the process of trying to go on without you. I was quick to push myself aside, if it meant that my family and friends were happy and pleased. I was quick to hurt myself, because I knew that I could deal with it, and the people around me couldn’t. Because the real truth is this: just because you fucked up, doesn’t mean I haven’t either.
I can see why you gave up. I gave up too. But the difference between me and you is that people are trying to stop me from giving up, while I never tried to stop you. I accepted your defeat, and while I tried to talk some sense and reason into you, I knew that it would eventually lead to this anyway. From the start, I knew that our relationship would end because of you and your parents.
Similarly, I know that my relationship with myself would end because of me putting effort into other people rather than myself. And yet, I did it anyway. Because I saw you as a person who mattered and cared, and who did the same for me. And slowly I began to value you more than I valued me.
Now I can’t remember what true happiness feels like. While I do feel happy, at the end of the day, I go home to a place called “home” and people I call “family” but they aren’t really that. At the end of the day, it’s just a place where I feel as shit as I do at school, if not worse, with people that make me the problem, and make me view myself in a way that I wish no one would ever see themselves.
Yes this letter is dedicated to you, but this letter is not about you. This letter is about me.
I find myself stuck in the same position I was in 2020. I fell for a guy who didn’t feel the same way about me. Because in the end, not the end of the relationship, but the end of the relationship when things stopped being mutual, I didn’t know how you truly felt. And in those 3 weeks, you played with my feelings, with my heart, and with my mind. You told me things I never wanted to hear, and was afraid of hearing, especially from someone I cared about so much, and you made me face the music: that things weren’t as happy and perfect as I once thought they were.
You made me realise that appearances may not be our reality, and that the way people treat me, is the way I will begin to treat myself. You made me realise that nothing is permanent, and that better things are to come. You made me realise the danger of knowing the outcome even before doing the action, yet still doing the action anyway. You made me realise the dominant nature of love: that love is blinding, and rather than facing the music, you choose to hide yourself in all it’s flaws and crevasses, hiding from the eventual truth that things must end. You made me realise that I never really truly trusted you, and that communication is key in a relationship. Most of all, you made me realise that I deserved far more than you, and rather than looking for it, and holding on to something that wasn’t truly meant to be, I should’ve just listened to both my brain and my heart and let go.
To the past me: I’m sorry. I’m sorry for giving up time and time over. I’m sorry for pushing you aside and hurting you when you needed me the most. I’m sorry for solely listening to my sheltered heart and not listening to what you were saying. I’m sorry for not trying. I’m sorry for not being a good person to you. I can’t promise you that I’m going to treat you perfectly all the time, but I can promise you this:
I promise to open up to others and lean on them when I need my help; I promise not to bottle up my feelings and tell the truth, even if I can’t always find the words to do so.
I promise to try, even when things get hard; I promise to not give up and push myself aside.
I promise to treat myself better; I promise to stop purposely talking negatively to myself and tearing myself down, even if my actions were mistakes.
I promise to learn from my mistakes; I promise to not let my mistakes define who I am and my capabilities.
I promise to give myself second chances; I promise to detach myself from the past and the mistakes I made.
I love you lian. My promises may not be worth much, but I assure you, my actions will be worth more than empty words.