She Was Sea

“Through the raging storms and the unforgiving waves and the blistering winds, I came across your shores and that’s where I..” want to be.

I re-read your final email over and over in the last two months. It made me cry every single time. After the first few times I truly paid attention to what was written and was hung by sentences as “I don’t regret living it with you, I will go back in time and do it all over again and again until I have no life left in me. Even when I know how this is going to end. I’ll do it all over again and again”. And “If one day you wake up to find that there could be a place for me in your life. I’d come running to you”. Whilst also listening to every single song in your playlist, which were filled with songs like, “I won’t let you go – James Morrison”, and “Better days – One Republic.”

I misread everything. When I realized I couldn’t do without you, I thought I wouldn’t sit on it and feel sorry for myself. I thought I would go out there and ask you, if you could love me once again, for the mess that I am, and hopefully get it right this time. I had to gather all my courage for this moment. I knew in my heart that I did not want to be without you. But I also thought I’d give myself time, sort myself out before I reached out. I was aware I might miss my chance with you, I was aware you might move on, but I was willing to put my faith in us. But then last night, when I finally watched the last episode of Nine-Nine, and when Jeffords was in denial, Rosa said, “We’d be depressed too, if something was happening – but it’s not” they were all being in denial over Terry leaving, after that scene, I don’t know what it was but I had to call you, to ask you, if we stood a chance. Waiting for everything to align felt ridiculous. It was unplanned, I didn’t think it through. But I honestly thought if I had the courage to admit to it, I wouldn’t be let down or something. I was wrong and obviously very stupid. You shot a bullet right through my heart. And it absolutely hurts. But I also understand.

The following is an excerpt from the email I’d been drafting to send because I originally planned to pour my heart out to you via email and not over the phone.

Hi Bub, I am writing this final email to maybe tell you for the last time, just how special you are to me. Lately, I’ve had this unnerving urge to pick up the phone and dial your number just to tell you just how much you mean to me, to let’s forget the distance we’ve summoned upon us, and be happy together. That’s all I want. To be with you, to love you. For the rest of my life. But something always stops me. I don’t think I’m good enough. I feel like you deserve better. I’m just not in the best headspace and I don’t want to burden you with myself. Someday, if I ever feel okay, I will maybe call you again and tell you I love you. As long as I don’t feel okay, I would feel undeserving of you.

I am a stupid stupid girl, but a stupid stupid girl who feels a million things about you. I’ve reread your email over a hundred times in the past few months and I beat myself for not understanding when you said that if you could ever be the one for me you would come running to me, or for not realising that when you said you couldn’t be friends with me you might have meant it as let’s be more than friends instead of being nothings. I was so upset at you for leaving everything you said felt negative. It took me a while to calm down and deal with it rationally. I was an idiot to not realize when you feel deeply for someone none of it was going to be easy. You’d feel intensely, and that should’ve been okay. I just couldn’t handle it. The last time I felt as intensely towards someone it killed me. I was terrified. I’d shut myself off from loves like that after that, and I didn’t even realize how you stole my heart the way you did. I was yours from the moment I laid my eyes on you. You had this insane pull that I felt pathetic for crossing seas to meet someone I hadn’t even met. But that’s probably the best thing I have done in my 27 years. Having faith in you, I’m sorry I lost it later on. I’m sorry I couldn’t contain the love I felt for you. I had lost so much; I couldn’t contain feeling anything as intensely. I was yours to a point that it drove me insane. What makes me happy is remembering you felt the same way, we dived in together and we drowned together. We were both behind our triggers, shot ourselves before the other person could. We were so scared of letting ourselves down, that we ruined everything. I was mad for weeks after. I couldn’t fathom I had given my all, tried my best, and yet I fell on my face. I felt like shit. I felt deprived and lost.

I miss you. A lot. The way you make me laugh, the way you make me smile, the way you smile. Everything. I miss you. And I hate that we’ve become strangers to each other. You mean the most to me. I can’t forgive myself for giving up on us like that. Another thing I have to live with, for not fighting for you or asking you to stay because I should’ve. I should’ve. I just assumed you knew how I felt about you and felt outraged that you would assume anyone else was even relevant when I was crazy about you. But maybe I’d forgotten that I never actually told you that I love you, but it slipped my mind because I’m always silently telling you just how much I love you. I was never terrified of losing you, it came as a complete shock. I never thought you’d leave, or give up on me. I thought if anyone were to stay in my life, it would be you. But you left. You took your hands, and you left, and my hands have felt lonely ever since.

You were right about the people from the past. All I’ve learnt is the toxicity that I never learnt to set my boundaries. I am sorry that I couldn’t make you feel secure enough or that you even had to think anyone else was even as important as you were. They weren’t. It was always you. I knew it. But you know how old loves can come along and peep through the cracks of your heart with their pleas and your heart finds a soft spot for them for everything you once shared with them. It’s my flaw that I was still tangled in my past. I am sorry for that.

It just feels like I let go of the one person I should’ve fought for. You.

If you ever feel like, there could be a place in your life for me, let me know. I spend all my days in your memory because you’re all I want to know. I am sorry I let you go and didn’t tell you enough how my heart wanted you. Everything that you are, and everything that you make me feel, that is all I want. You, and only you. I haven’t figured out the rest. But I know with you everything will be bearable. Even this shitty life of mine. Like that time when I walked barefoot without a care in the world because I was in your arms, and when I’m in your arms nothing else matters. Everything else falls into oblivion and there’s just you and me. I am a mess, I don’t know if your presence in my life will change that, but, if you think, you could still love me, even for the mess that I am, please do. My heart is in literal pieces without you. I hate that we’ve become strangers, I don’t want to be someone you don’t know.

This is very well my Notting Hill moment, “I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.” —Anna.

It feels like I ripped my heart off my chest and put it in his hand and he said, no, not anymore and just gave it back. Without him, I don’t know how to put it back. But at least when time heals this wound, I will know, I tried. And I would never have to go on with my life and wonder “ What if I told him,” because I did.

If two months WITH someone could change everything, two months WITHOUT them could change even more. And this is the story of how I got my heart broken on the 10th day of this very new year. Here’s looking at you, 2021.