[From the Diaries]
Truth be told, I don’t even understand it myself. How I was crazy about him, and now it’s just… gone. When it faded, I didn’t notice the exact moment. It must have been gradual. A slow dimming. A quiet exit of feeling.
After most breakups, I usually sit there wondering: did they love me? Did I love them? This time, I don’t question that. I know we both did. He may have loved me too late. I loved him too soon. His fire is burning now, and mine has long turned to ash.
And I know we hear this all the time, but men rarely believe it until it’s too late. Women do not walk away overnight. It happens slowly. The detachment. The grieving. The accepting. And during all those stages, there is still hope. But it is probationary hope. Every move is evaluated. Every word scored against the possibility of a future.
When you fail that stage, whatever is left quietly dies too.
I think we had been drifting for a while. He was foolish to keep taking me for granted. After all, I am a woman who has stayed through worse. He never imagined I would leave one day. Especially not over something he calls trivial.
But it wasn’t trivial.
It was months of accumulated, unresolved weight that finally collapsed. And in that collapse, I saw a version of him that terrified me. Once you see that version, you cannot unsee it. I knew in that moment I would never look at him the same again.
There are no regrets. There is no point in hating something you once enjoyed. Every failed relationship brings me closer to myself. It teaches me to love myself better. To value myself more. I learn so much in the process. Maybe that is what healing looks like.
There is no bitterness. No anger. No sadness.
Just indifference.
At first, I loved him beyond logic. I would bend at every whim. Slowly, piece by piece, he chipped away at that version of me until I came back to my senses.
How can I regret something that kept me on my toes for eleven months? I had fun. It was a rollercoaster. I learned that I can love a man wholeheartedly, without complaint. But I also learned something just as important: I will stop loving entirely if I am not loved back in the same way.
That is my truth.
I did not walk away from love. I am simply returning to myself.
Timing is everything. If you do not love someone while their heart is open to you, you may not realize when it quietly closes. I would not have loved him so quickly had I not been misled. He said “I love you” within a week. I waited a month to say it back. Foolishly, I believed him. Of course he did not love me then.
Now I know better.
It is still tricky, though. I do not consider these later loves the greatest loves. Sometimes they feel like the discounted versions I accept because I missed out on my great one.
But even as I write that, I question it. Who was my great one? There were a few contenders. From where I stand now, none of them were. Some gave me deep love and beautiful memories. Others taught me how to cheer for myself. Each of them shaped me in some way.
I am grateful for that.
Maybe I am not unlucky. Maybe being single in my thirties is not a curse. I had a lot to heal from. I am still healing. That made me difficult for some people to love. I used to call it charm. Maybe it was just growth in progress.
I do not consider myself unlucky. I genuinely believe that what is meant for me will be for me.
And I am letting go of the stigma around dating, around trying, around not settling. Society may look at it one way. But what is a woman supposed to do? Compromise on love? I did not settle before. Why should I now?
Que sera, sera.
Whatever will be, will be.
She Was Sea 