(Inspired by Mai, 2024)
Those love stories told us the wrong thing.
In case you’re asking, I’m doing well.
In case you’re looking for me, I’m doing fine.
I told you not to wait for me, and you did. And I’m happy.
Those love stories told us the wrong thing.
That love will eventually find us in the right time, that love will ‘save’ us from this misery. That love adds colours – no, instead, it adds up to different dreams and expectations. That love isn’t really about waiting for a certain name to react to my Instagram stories again. The fact that I’m still at the restaurant. And sometimes, I do miss us. But I can’t and I shouldn’t.
There isn’t any guidelines in love, either. We thought we had.
How can we laugh until midnight on a Saturday night then broke up on a random Monday?
It’s terrifying to remember, but seeing how far we’ve come on separate ways is absolutely healing.
We met at a random evening, after school just before dinner, after class just before the sun sets. White uniforms and grey cloths, romcom movies and texts hidden from parent’s watch. Midnight calls and early crushes. Happily ever after and the relief that there’s finally love within our lives but it’s still scary and confusing. Most of our friends were breaking up and we weren’t yet we question why do things start if they’re meant to end.
I kept thinking what went wrong and what should’ve went right. Kept telling myself, “everything happens for a reason, right?”
But deep down in my heart, I knew, it’s not going to work out.
I kept suggesting ourselves that it takes two to tango. it takes two to make everything work. it takes love to conquer everything. That the fact that leaving for the best hurts too much but it’d be the right choice. Maybe I’m too timid, maybe that’s the reason it won’t work out because I’m just so scared. Or certain?
It’s just gut wrenching, to break up with a person you’re so in love with but you also know things don’t work out anymore. It hurts so much with them but it also hurts so much without them. I think the moment I gave up on you, I gave up on myself too.
But then again, on a random afternoon, you told me ‘happy birthday’.
As a friend. Someone I know.
It feels warmly kind, it feels just like love but the different kind – we know it’s love but just the different kind. We thought our story would be an entire book, but it’s just a small chapter.
But as the sun rises again, something changes. The difference between being in love and loving someone. How media often taints love as a commodifying thing – a prize, instead of little pieces that create our hurtful little hearts.
No one is too broken for love.
But for some people, love waits.
Not now, and not you.
Then on your wedding day, you smile as always, and we all know that love comes in many forms. It doesn’t have to own anyone. It doesn’t have to be selfish. It doesn’t have to be a union. Sometimes, the answer is leaving. For the better.
And on your wedding day, I’m already the happiest I’ve ever been.
So one day and once again, happy birthday.
Good luck on your next journey.
I don’t know if I’ll promise a better love story for myself,
But step by step, I’ll learn about all the other forms of love I’ve learned for myself, for you, for all of us. The pure, kinder form of love. The selfless kind of love. The peace, gentle kind of love.
That includes the forgetting part.
Thankyou for not waiting for me.
