Redeeming myself into a love I promised I would never stray from—it’s harder than I thought.

But today is alright, onto the New Year’s Eve trip hoping to make another ton of great memories.

Sometimes the best you can do is have faith and be patient, but isn’t that the toughest thing to do, doing nothing at all.

It’s the last working day of the year, and what a year it’s been. I’ve been at this job for 15 months—a little over a year. I’m thankful for surviving and being able to stick it out.

I quit my job and the industry I had been in for over 8 years early last year, left everything I knew, and moved back to Male’, where I completely changed industries with little prior experience. I think that’s rather brave and would’ve taken courage. Some days I still wonder if this makes me happy, but then I remember that your life isn’t supposed to revolve around your job; it’s a source of income, not the goal of your life. For those who are lucky enough to make it in their fields of passion, that is such an achievement; their lives would certainly be more fulfilling, thrilling, and filled with passion. And I know because I was there once too.

But this is where I’m at today. Do I hate it? No. Do I love it? A little bit, yes. Could it be better? So much. But it is what it is for now. I’m excited to see where this corporate journey takes me.

On a side note, I’m so sleepy. And I write these daily little notes in my cab on my way to work. It’s becoming a quiet little habit to reflect on my day.

Yesterday, it felt like my heart might explode, and today, I’ve been awake for just an hour, and I’m already so anxious.

These days, “I’m caught between your love and a hard place.”

Life is getting to me. Love feels like it’s slipping. Anxiety seems to be winning.
Oh, what I would do to go back in time and undo this mess.

That’s on today. I hope I feel better later.

So yes, the year is ending, and I’ve been in my feelings. And looking back, I saw a bunch of drafts I’d written this year but never posted, so I thought, why not post them? Maybe it’ll be a fun series of short stories about my life this year.

Honestly, I went through so much shit in the first six months of this year, and if it had continued, it would’ve killed me.

So let’s wrap it up.

_________________________________________________

January

I hope you fade away, just like the love you had for me. 

There really is no point in double locking the door after they leave, because they clearly don’t intend to come back. It’s just that closing and slamming these doors on them gives you the illusion of control; at the very least, you’re safe now. Because no amount of open doors and windows would make them come back when they don’t want to.

February

There’s nothing in the world that would make me believe that you weren’t the one for me, because you were.
I don’t know how we were so lucky yet unlucky. I’ve never felt the kind of happiness I felt with you, it was so peaceful and pure.

The thing about relationships isn’t that we don’t know what’s right or wrong, or what should and shouldn’t happen. Just like textbook, we are aware. People, on the other hand, enter our hearts before they enter our minds, and once they connect with our blood pumping veins, we see them in rose-tinted hues, perfection. We ambush them with our best hospitality and all the “please come again” as if they were a guest in our home.

Honestly, I have you to thank for making it so easy. Thank you. Because if you weren’t such a letdown, I’d cry. 

March

It’s heartbreaking to see them and have them look at you differently. It’s sadder watching them walk away while you’re struck by their absence. It’s sad but nothing lasts forever, not love, not what you thought was love, not even their presence. Everything is fleeting, your feelings, life and people. You can’t help but stay back and watch it all unravel. Life. 

I didn’t expect to feel this way, if I ever saw you again. But I did. It was sadness mixed with confusion. Why did it end, why did you not try?
But I know that if you wanted to, you would’ve. If you loved me, you wouldn’t have let me get away. You didn’t love or care about me enough to hold on. And that’s all I need to know. 

I think of you often, but then I remember how sad you made me, from the way I couldn’t enjoy a single moment without you making me feel like shit to never being there for me, and I realize I never want to feel that way again, ever. And that’s how you’re a stranger to me and will always be. 
Thank you for the nothingness you left me with. 

You don’t know how glad I am to know that somewhere in that mind of yours, I still take up a corner  from time to time; even though it’s brief, my heart lights up when you think of me. 
The last time I saw you, it was the coldest your eyes have ever felt. Maybe it was terrible timing—the distance felt penetrating even when you were inches away. And the more I wanted to hold on to the moment, the further away you kept slipping. 
That day, my heart broke for the hundredth time over you. And I had a feeling it would be the last. I watched you as you walked away, lighting up a cigarette as you crossed to the other side. Little did you know, you walked on the pieces of my shattered heart with every step you took away from me. 
Behind you stood a girl with a broken heart, tears streaming down her face, crying for a love that was never hers, but losing it felt like losing a part of her.

How silly of us to sit here again, year after year. 
You were my great love, the love I screamed to the world from rooftops and windows. I was once in love with this man with every atom of my body, but that now feels like centuries ago. 
She broke you, and you fought your way back into my arms. And a part of me knows you’re only here because she broke you, and you’re desperately hoping my love will fix you. 
But, darling, I battled for years trying to get over you. I loved you. I cried a million years watching you move on with her while I felt numb from not understanding just how you could love someone else like that when my heart struggled to find meaning with anyone else. 
I ruined other people while trying to move on from you; I broke their hearts like you did mine. 
But I did move on, and even though I love you, I’m not in love with you. And it’s so hard to find my way back to you when you’re not the person I fell in love with. You’re the version of him fresh off the battlefield, with scars from another lover—the lover you left me for. 
The night I prayed you would choose me and fall in love with me, you chose her. Even though it was a drunken mistake, you chose her. And now it’s too late. Every time I catch a glimpse of the person I once knew in you, it’s washed away by the new memories and experiences you’ve mentioned, ones involving her; she’s a part of you; she’s why you’re the way you are. And it angers me; having to clean up her mess is annoying. 

Firstly, I’m so sorry that it’s taken me a couple of days to reply. I just needed my thoughts to be in place before I could even start telling you what I’m about to.
I know you like me, I know. And it’s not that I don’t, but I might not like you as much as you like me. I’m not in the same place that you are. 
I bumped into you just two weeks after a breakup, and even though the breakup wasn’t terrible, it was something I had put my all into, and I underestimated the amount of time I needed to grieve the loss of it. And that’s why it felt like things were moving too fast with me and you, given the history we have shared. I’m not the girl who left a year ago. I’m not her, nor am I where she was back then with you. I moved on from you because you couldn’t be what I needed. 
You’re not insensitive. You’re kind and thoughtful, and you try. We are just different, and we messed up the first time, and now it’s not so easy to start clean. 
I won’t ask you to wait for me because I’m not ready to be with someone. And I don’t know when I will be ready or if, when I am ready, the person I would want to be with is you. I don’t have a lot of answers.  
I don’t know if this would be helpful at all or if it might make things worse; I’m not sure. I just needed to let you know where I’m at. I also don’t want you to feel any sort of heaviness because of me. 

I’m not much, but I’m me. And the little I had of me, I gave to you. Now I’m nothing without you. 
I bet you think of me less often, less fondly too. After all, why not? I had to go. 

Sweaters are hugs for bad days, and unfortunately for me, I live in this hot country with an undying urge to wear winter clothes every day, heavy clothes that hug your body; the comfort matches nothing else. 

April

You can’t surely take  this many years of my life, can you? I had a firewall in place; you’d come and gone so many times that I had made peace with it. 
And I’d done so well over the years. You’ll never come and stay. I don’t even know why you come around. I honestly don’t. And that’s because you listen to me, because fuck that. No, no. 
Here’s the thing: I can’t pretend to be okay with being someone you play with from time to time. You’re not playing with just my body; you’re playing with my feelings too. 
And usually I’d wake up the next day and forget about it, because if there’s anything I’ve learned from you over all these years, it’s to not expect anything from you and to never look for answers because you’ll never have any. 
But today I woke up, unable to pretend any longer. I kept questioning what the hell it is or has been. 
And you’ll tell me it’s only because I let it happen. 
I don’t know what hurts more: that I’m here yet again after all this time or the fact that you still don’t care after all this time. 
I don’t want you to come around and keep playing with me anymore. It hurts my soul. 

I am happier on my own, without the burdens of other people and their ways piercing through my soul. 
My lines are void and null when it comes to you. You were the exception to every rule.

You never treat me like a nice girl; you always treat me like a shitty girl. 
Someone you occasionally want to sleep with and sometimes want to share with your friends. 
Someone you want to brag about while also pretending she doesn’t exist.

I found myself randomly smiling at nothing, and I just knew. And I really hoped it would be different this time. I was tired. I couldn’t even get my hopes up. But I hoped anyway that I’d be smiling for a long time. 

It’s always uncomfortable, a new feeling. Endless laughter and the joy of just being with someone. As lovely as it is, it comes with its own insecurities. A new attachment is threatening my well being.

There are people I will never love the same way again. 
There are people I can never look at the same way again. 
And finally, there are people I can’t look at without feeling a sting in the deepest ends of my heart.

Loving him was never up to me; I was destined to. If not for him, how could I have ever known what love would feel like? 
My heart chose him the minute she saw him.

Leaving was the bravest thing I’ve ever done. Looking back, I can’t even imagine what kind of strength it must have taken to leave everything you knew—the convenience, the support, the love. 
But, oh, I’m so glad I did. 

The sadness follows me no matter where I go. 

May

Some things we leave behind along the way, and some get lost. 

We’ve said countless goodbyes over the years, and this one is no different, except that it is. It’s more painful. 
They used to be so comprehensive, and this was far too brief and almost too short, which is why I’m in vein.
I’m not grieving another chance we lost, I’m grieving the version of you I knew because I can’t recognize him anymore in the corners of your tormented soul.  
I’m laying my greatest love to rest, for it’s done and dead, like the version of you that perished through time. 
Maybe it was this time around that I got to meet the real you, the cold and distant self. It was so foreign that it broke my heart like never before. 

It’s easy to make someone your entire world when you have nothing going on. When it’s empty and you have nothing going on, they become everything. 
So quickly and so undeservedly.

Some get lost along the way, and some we leave behind. Never carrying the same baggage twice, life’s twists and turns taking us on their own path. 
This trip was just something I tried, hoping I’d find some light within me, but in the end, what I discovered was that whatever light there was in me had died long ago, and all my struggles today are because of how much of myself had withered along the way. It’s not the people around me or the circumstances; it’s me who has changed. I’ve changed so much that I don’t recognize the person that I was just a few  years back. 
A dark cloud follows me wherever I go, and so does my sadness. Which feels incurable. And I feel so so lonely. But I no longer crave the wrong company. I’ve met so many people that I know almost everyone will disappoint me in some way, even the ones I dismiss, hoping that hey, maybe, just maybe, this could be something. 
It feels a little sad to admit, that I miss having someone constant around, someone I can totally be myself around. I haven’t had that in a long time. I haven’t met anyone who’d light up my soul in so long. I’ve just made do with discounted loves but even those ended up causing so much damage. How I got this broken, I don’t even remember. Maybe it wasn’t one thing that happened over night, maybe it was all the things that happened over the years. 
I don’t even like writing here anymore, exposing my weaknesses to the world, for people to only take advantage of. What a stupid thing to have done that for all these years. They were initially meant to be tributes to my lovers. Now they are all failures of a scorned woman. 

How wonderful would it have been, if you could’ve stayed. 
How wonderful would it have been, if you could’ve been mine. 
Falling on your shores, time and time again. 
A never ending wreckage. 

I have loved and loved and loved you, when all you have done is left and left and left me. 

It’s another day, and I’m doing the same things that I did the day I lost you.

And doing the same things today when I’ve already lost you feels a little bit wrong, but nothing’s weighing me down anymore. I’m not wondering if you’re slipping away because I know you have. 

When I’m gone, I hope you’ll think of me every time the sun sets.

June

Tomorrow I’ll remember less, and my heart will hurt a bit less too. 

All I really want is to let go of the weight of the world and fall into your arms. 

It must be real easy to let go if they aren’t holding onto you, right? But that’s the thing; I’m afraid if I let go, it’ll be done. But maybe it already is. All I have to do is accept that. Oh, how easy that is to say and how hard it is to do. 
Every single time I got my heart broken, I thought of you. I thought of you with a broken heart because, to me, you were the person who could never let me down. To me, you were my greatest love, even though an almost. 
But like everything, that too changed. Today, you’re the one letting me down. And even though it breaks my heart, I have no one but myself to fall back on. 
And I will. 

August

I wonder if you felt it too, the way my love fizzled out before my eyes.

“You asked me to never change, and here you are changing.”

September

I’m far from perfect. But I have tried my best. My efforts remained sincere and somewhat desperate for the people I dearly loved until they let me down. 
There came a point, even though it was gradual, it felt instant, when I could no longer allow certain people or certain things; my walls built themselves once I understood myself better.

With you, I don’t crave chaos; I crave peace. I’d never known peace until you showed it to me.

Some days are hard, not because there’s a particular reason for it; they just turn out that way. 
Your bad days do not define your growth. Your bad days are learning experiences. 

No matter how grown up I am or the toughest things I’ve gotten through, I still have my moments where I feel like the littlest girl in this big, scary world. Moments where I wish I could just yell for my parents and ask them to save me. But that has never been the case, and that won’t change today either. 

You can have all the love in the world and still feel so low. 

I don’t know how to put into words how I felt. But somewhere down the line, I started overthinking and thought maybe you might not love me the same way you have. And that things might start changing, just a little bit. 

October

Another day of protecting my sanity.

Today marks the end of a journey I once embarked on in tears. 

It would be crazy to assume that I am sane, right? After all, sanity doesn’t keep you in constant therapy. This mirage of self doubt follows me, and I need another person to tell me the facts apart. I can’t figure out what’s in my head or what’s real.

You know what kept killing me over and over again? Hope. The hope that I kept alive thinking you would come through for me. And you didn’t. And I wept on the floor for hours.

Disney fairytales weren’t such bullshit after all. It is indeed true love that saves us in the end.

How to love yourself again after trauma?
I used to be the happiest girl, and now I’ve become the saddest girl. 
I can’t go two minutes without crying. It feels like I’ve lost something in me. You know how it feels when you misplace your favorite book or a piece of jewellery you wear all the time? It’s similar, but this time there’s no object. It’s a part of your soul. How do you make up for it? 

I’m trying to come back from this broken mess I have woven. It was a glitch, and now everything’s fine. But I can’t seem to return the pain. It’s started to live in me, and why won’t it? It’s home again. The sadness I shoved out of my system finally got a chance to crawl back, and now it’s not leaving. 

How do I answer that? I don’t want to sound like a broken record. How do I tell you that you feel different? 
How do I tell you that for the first time ever, I felt lonely while I sat next to you?

There is something so strange yet wonderful about airports. All the people leaving and all the people coming back. All the people waiting for their loved ones to return, while others are here to bid them farewell. Some are on short trips, while others are on much longer trips, possibly even infinity. It’s bittersweet but wonderful. Some beginnings start at airports, while others end here. You never know who’s coming or going; you just know that they are intersecting. Hopefully towards something better. 

It’s difficult to admit how naive you were to people who would never love you right until you have the right kind of love by your side. But the hope that burns in you wants to believe that maybe, just maybe, they’ll come through. When you’re on the other side, you realize they were never going to come through. The people who would come through for you would do so no matter what. And if they can’t, any decent person would step away and let you find what you deserve instead of strumming you on broken strings.

I think I can honestly say you taught me to be loved. To let my guards down and just be vulnerable. You didn’t teach me per se, but it was like you knew how to push my walls apart and get me out of the guards I built to keep myself safe, you took me out of them and into your arms, and this is the happiest and safest I’ve ever been in my life. And it’s all because of you. 
She asked me today if no one had ever been nice to me before you, and I told her yes. You’re the first person to not let me feel like a burden in this entire world, and it took me so long to find you. 
She asked me if I saw a future with you, and I told her I don’t see one without you. I love you with all my heart.

It breaks my heart even to say this. But maybe for the first time today, I felt that this might be doomed. His refusal to understand me broke my heart.

I think you’re immune to my tears. You feel nothing when I cry. 

I love you with all my heart; every broken fragment of my body absolutely worships you. And I want you to always remember that. 

Maybe it’ll make me stronger; maybe I’ll get tired of my own tears before you do.

Words are no longer enough.

I met the man of my dreams in the most unexpected way. Just another guy, I just said hi to maybe kill time. And he changed my life. That one encounter meant more than any other moment of my life. It was such a brief hello, but perhaps he knew it wouldn’t be the last. 
I just pray that we stay in this love. 

November

Today I feel low. 
I don’t know if it’s sadness or depression. 
I feel like a failure and an imposter. I’m failing to give myself the benefit of the doubt.

There are days when I look at you and realize how incredibly fortunate and blessed I am that you love me. 
Thank you for bearing with me, my moodiness, depression, obsessiveness, and disassociation. I’m deeply flawed, and you try your best to love me through all of them. And I love you so much for that. 
I love you for accepting me the way I am, not wanting to change a single thing. Your acceptance helped me accept most of my flaws as well. 
Thank you for never making me feel less. 
You’re indeed all my prayers answered in one. 

I’m on a mission to find my way back to the part of me that was happier, more alive, and more loving. 
I’m trying to part with the version of myself that loved isolation. 
And this isn’t because it’s been terrible, but lately, I’ve been down the memory lane rabbit hole and connected with so many memories that were some of the best moments and parts of my life, and I felt sad for not having them anymore. 
One thing, for instance,  is how I’ve started to brush up on my writing. How I filter out the truths. How I stay truly vague. I miss the me that was ruthlessly raw and real, and it was something about myself I took great pride in—the authenticity. Let’s say, in short, I’m trying to be less fake, less fabricated, and more real. 
Communicate things as they are and live life as it is, making the most of every day because we’ve only got one life. 

Happiness is a fickle thing; one minute you’re happy, and the next minute you aren’t. 

December

Feeling numb is so much better than feeling sad. 

It breaks my heart to keep breaking yours, yet I can’t seem to stop. And every time I try, I somehow plunge the knife even deeper, and now there’s blood on my hands. 

Although this year brought me happiness and some stability, even for the short while it lasted, I’m grieving the loss of several friendships. This year, I downsized my circle to the most relevant. Like things, people that no longer fit you outgrow you as you grow older. That’s fine. I wouldn’t say this year was the best; it wasn’t. However, I’m thankful for the few friendships and the moments I found myself truly in love and happy. 

Sometimes we are too complicated for words. 

The most pain I’ve ever experienced? Feeling alone in the presence of people I love. That stings right through my heart. 

When they start making you feel crazy, like you’re insane and out of it. You’ve lost the battle. Put down your armour; you’re done.

_________________________________________________

This took so much longer than I thought and it has been such a journey going through the entire year of thoughts. What a reflection. Glad I did it. Now I can leave most of them behind and never look back.

Today I’m grieving the loss of an old love. Funny how we teach people to live without us and then get sad when they learn. Sometimes things take time, time to know the real value of things. But even when you do, you come with your own set of flaws, and despite knowing better and trying your hardest, you give in. You fucked up. Well, that’s on today. Tomorrow I’ll be better and stronger.

You know what’s somehow sadder: speaking to someone in the hopes that they’ll understand you, only to discover that you don’t speak the same language. There’s a barrier of confusion.

You can only cry so many tears; after a while, you need to save what’s left and leave with some dignity.

This is just a thought I had to write down as I sit here at work looking back at this year. As a part of a new resolution I’ve made for the next year. To be more real with myself, I think the image of perception got the best of me this year after some painful moments, and I cared too much about what people thought of me. So I detached a little bit, and that felt empty. I no longer knew myself the way I used to.

And to change it back, I’m thinking of daily blogging. Connect with me and help myself a little more on this difficult journey of life through the cards I’ve been dealt, hoping I can make a difference in making my life a little better for me.

I lived this insanely busy and crazy life. Until the pandemic, it was always about work. I never had a minute to go down a rabbit hole. And if I did, I had to shake it off before my next shift because I couldn’t afford to flunk. I loved that life. too busy to deal with yourself or your problems. And when I wasn’t busy, I was somewhere having fun. But that is a happier past. The pandemic sat me down and forced me to face myself. And that is when I broke down. When my cracks started showing and I started sinking in the water. And honestly, I haven’t been able to pick myself up since. I’ve had a few successful attempts, but they never last very long. It is a heartbreaking reality, yet it is mine.

Positive thinking is the mastering art of a failing trust system. It’s a trick to con ourselves into thinking something our minds don’t agree with. Because if we master that pattern and make a habit of thinking positively, life becomes a little easier. We just tell ourselves it will be fine without the dreadful anxiety of every living situation that could go wrong.

I don’t think we realize just how messed up it is that our first instinct is doubt and questionability over the credibility of their words and actions the minute someone tells you literally anything. “Trust issues” is a term loosely used to acknowledge your doubt over sincerity and intent. Perhaps it’s a normal reaction to endless betrayals. But it’s sad and exhausting that even when you finally agree, your nervous system insists on denying it until proven wrong. It has to have taken a hundred instants of harsh disappointment to lose faith in people and life. But who in this world doesn’t have trust issues anymore? Do we believe what anyone else ever says? Do we believe in ourselves when we say things? Sometimes we just say things and hope they become true. We take chances and leaps of faith in the face of a million doubts, hoping against hope that we are looked out for.

And yet, after a while, you start losing the trust you have in yourself due to the subtle yet significant self-betrayals. So now you don’t just distrust other people; you also distrust yourself for putting so much pressure on yourself over trivial matters. This drains and exhausts you, and before you know it, you’re at war with yourself. And years and years pass by before you realize, okay, life should not be this hard. So why is it? and so begins the journey of finding answers to your questions. The journey of self-awareness and, if you’re lucky, self-healing too, because something must be broken for it to keep cracking so hard with every little inconvenience.

But the thing is, decades of damage cannot be healed. It simply cannot be. You may try, and you will find improvements and some answers, but it cannot be fixed and erased. Your nervous system, mind, and body remember things too well. We often don’t understand why we react a certain way to certain people or situations, and you have no clue. But when you dig down, you find your little therapy breakthroughs and answers. and you rediscover a piece of yourself that you had lost along the way.