She Was Sea

[From the Diaries, July 2025]

Healing

I’d like to believe I’m healing. With a lot of missteps here and there, I still think I’m on the right path. I’m self-aware. I know my wounds. I know where it hurts, and for the most part I know why it hurts too.

But healing brought me something I wasn’t prepared for: the loss of feeling.

I don’t love people blindly anymore. I don’t hold on to people who don’t treat me the way I deserve. And that’s a big change for me, because I used to be the complete opposite.

I used to be the “love me, choose me” kind of girl. But the truth is, most of the time I was also the girl who stayed even when I wasn’t chosen. I was too understanding. Too forgiving. I gave people the space to play with my feelings without expecting any accountability from them.

I used to feel everything intensely. Now I feel almost nothing.

I’m not in love anymore. I’m not even in love with the idea of being in love. And honestly, I don’t even know what love means to me right now.

This relationship showed me some of the best and worst parts of myself. That’s what relationships do. Even when they don’t work out, they teach you something.

At first it showed me how big my heart is. How unconditional my love can be. How forgiving, nurturing, caring, and trusting I can be.

But eventually there comes a moment when you realize what’s really going on. And when that realization hits, everything shifts. It might feel like it’s too late, but in reality it’s the moment things finally become clear.

And then another part of me shows up. The part I’ve always known existed.

The cold part.

Once I switch off emotionally, I really switch off. To the point where it might look like I was never in love at all.

But I was.

And that’s what makes this strange. Because even though I’ve detached now, a part of me still wants to feel those things again.

I want to be in love again one day, but this time with someone who treats me right. I want to feel excited about someone. I want butterflies again. I want that childish happiness and that slightly crazy infatuation that comes with liking someone deeply.

Because the absence of all of that just feels empty.

Personal

[From the Diaries | June 03, 2024]

I am honestly so tired of this relationship.

I don’t know why I believed things would change. Maybe because I believed your words. Maybe because I wanted to believe them. But here I am again, carrying the same burden I thought we had already confronted.

The other week you slipped. You cried. You apologized. I tried to understand. I told myself people make mistakes. I told myself growth takes time.

But then two days later you did the same thing again.

And that is the part I cannot understand.

I am so tired. Truly exhausted. Tired of having to mother you. Tired of analyzing every word you say, trying to decode what is real and what is another half-truth waiting to collapse. Tired of carrying the emotional weight of loving someone I cannot trust.

I take my healing seriously. My peace is not negotiable anymore. These are some of the hardest days of my life, and yet not once have you put me first. Every decision you make seems to revolve around your own impulses, your own comfort, your own momentary desires.

Meanwhile I am here trying to hold my life together.

I am finishing my thesis. I am pushing myself through something that should be a proud moment in my life. And I am doing it without even the smallest ounce of support from you. And when I say support, I’m not asking you to solve my problems. I’m asking you not to create more of them.

But you don’t seem to understand that your actions have consequences. And for far too long I have been the one forced to absorb the damage of those consequences.

I’m tired of being the adult in this relationship.

I’m tired of holding the emotional structure together while you keep shaking its foundation.

Every morning I wake up wondering what you may have done the night before. I wake up wondering what new story I’m about to hear today. What new lie I’ll have to untangle.

I wake up already tired.

This relationship is slowly draining something out of my soul.

And the saddest part is that I have so many other things I should be focusing on right now. My growth. My work. My future. My peace.

But somehow the focus keeps coming back to you.

I don’t understand why your words never seem to match your actions. I don’t understand why the version of you that promises change never shows up in reality.

Maybe it’s because you simply don’t have the capacity to be there for me right now. Because you don’t have your own life together.

But how long am I supposed to wait for that?

How long am I supposed to wait for you to grow up? For you to be responsible? For you to make sensible decisions and follow through with them?

Because right now it feels like I’m waiting for someone who isn’t even trying to arrive.

And I didn’t want this life. I didn’t want this kind of relationship.

I’m just so tired.

Personal

[From the Diaries]

I don’t usually talk about how bad it gets.

There’s too much shame around it. The kind of things people don’t really understand. When something doesn’t look normal, people immediately react with discomfort. Icky. Ew. What’s wrong with you?

But for me, it’s just, reality.

Some days I can’t even begin to explain how it feels inside my own mind. I think deep down I know when a low is coming. It’s like something in my gut senses it before the rest of me does. But the timing is never convenient, never when life pauses and says, okay, now you can fall apart. So I ignore it as much as I can.

And because I’m able to keep functioning through it, it gets labeled something neat and clinical: functional depression.

Functional. As if that word somehow makes it manageable.

Because from the outside it looks like I’m choosing when to let it take over. Like it happens on my terms. But the truth is, it only looks that way because I fight it until I can’t anymore.

I’ve been in bed for over twenty-four hours.

Yesterday I forced myself to go for a run because the ugly voices in my head were getting louder. I started feeling heavy in my body, fat in my mind, exhausted in a way sleep doesn’t fix. I thought maybe movement would quiet it. Maybe a workout would shake something loose.

Instead, it made everything worse.

I’m not paralyzed, but I feel mentally handicapped. Like my brain is wrapped in fog and every simple task requires a level of effort I don’t have.

And then there are the relationships around you. The weight of them.

Lucky for me, there’s really only one that matters right now. The one I have with my boyfriend.

But even that feels broken some days. Damaged in ways I don’t even know how to begin repairing.

But then there he was.

When I get into these states, when my mind refuses to cooperate with the world, I stop trying to analyze it. I used to ask why. I used to try to solve it. Now I just let it wash over me and wait for it to pass, hoping that eventually I’ll come back to myself. Hoping the energy returns. The will to exist normally again.

On a TikTok live. With a woman he knows exactly how I feel about.

There had been rumors about them before. The thought of them together already made my stomach turn. And a few weeks ago I had found out that he had texted her from one of his fake accounts. His explanation was that he heard her grandfather had passed away, so he thought of messaging her.

“Helloooo,” he wrote. At 06:04 in the morning.

Does that make sense?

I wanted it to. I really did. I wanted to believe the explanation because believing it would have been easier than accepting what it actually looked like.

But it didn’t make sense.

And my mental state, my inability to function sometimes, is not an excuse for someone to take advantage of that vulnerability.

The person I’m supposed to be with should understand me. Especially the flawed parts. Because they are part of me.

But that wasn’t even half of what I discovered.

At one point I realized he had saved his ex’s number under his sister’s name. Clever. Calculated. And another girl’s number saved under a friend’s name, just so I wouldn’t suspect anything.

The level of intention behind that kind of deception is its own kind of cruelty.

So when I saw the TikTok live, something inside me snapped.

How dare you?

But what shocked me the most was that he was more angry at me for reacting. As if my anger was the problem. As if he couldn’t understand how that would look, how disrespectful it was, especially when we were supposedly trying to rebuild trust.

You say you want to fix things. And then you go and do something like that.

I don’t even have the words for the exhaustion that follows something like this.

I was already mentally drained.

And now, somehow, I’m expected to carry this too.

Personal

[From the Diaries]

So deeply uninterested.

Nothing feels exciting. Nothing feels new. There’s nothing I wake up looking forward to.

I feel alive when I look back at certain roads I’ve taken. But I don’t actually want to walk them again. The nostalgia feels electric. The reality probably wouldn’t.

It’s been this way for a while.

I try to put myself out there. I really do. But there’s this strange empathy that holds me back. A softness. A knowing that I’m not fully available. I reason with myself, tell myself it’s okay, tell myself healing isn’t linear. But I just can’t do it yet.

My therapist once asked me something that stayed with me. He asked if, with every relationship that ends, I feel like I lose a part of myself. Like a part of me dies with them.

I had never thought of it like that.

But I told him every breakup leaves me as a different version of myself. Some versions stronger. Some versions smaller. Some empowered. Some feeling less.

The only connection I’ve felt lately was one that promised permanency almost instantly. The minute I responded, it felt solid. And because it felt so easy, I thought it wouldn’t be so hard to feel that way again.

But it is.

Nothing sparks. Nothing shines. Nothing ignites that reckless fire in my soul.

And that’s why I keep looking back.

The most alive I’ve ever felt were the times I was doing something I probably shouldn’t have been doing.

I remember setting a time and waiting. Wondering if they’d show up. Wondering if they’d be early. Or late. Or not come at all.

One of them always showed up on time. The other barely did, and when he did, he was always late.

Maybe they’ll always be my favorite mistakes.

They were similar in the way they made me feel. But one reciprocated it more. It felt mutual. Like we were both burning at the same temperature. There was no escaping it.

June 2019.

A time I sometimes wish I could relive.

From a distance it feels perfect. Cinematic. Glowing. But it wasn’t. It was complicated. It was wrong in ways that should have made me ashamed. But I wasn’t ashamed.

Because I wasn’t demanding anything. I wasn’t pushing for more. I was just existing in it. Going with the flow. Letting it be what it was.

And he made me feel alive again.

That’s the dangerous part.

I’m starting to realize I might have a type. Smart. Corporate. A little reserved. Slightly intense. The quiet kind who surprises you with how deeply they think.

Short. Slim. Controlled.

Age doesn’t matter.

What matters is how they make me feel.

And right now, nothing does.

Personal

[From the Diaries]

I would die for it to happen again.

I had never felt more alive in my entire life than the moment I met him.

It was so many years ago, and yet I remember it like a dream. Not the blurry kind. The vivid kind. The kind where every detail is soaked in light. The air. The sound of his voice. The way my heart reacted before my mind even had time to process it.

I didn’t know then that a single moment could change the temperature of your whole world.

But it did.

Personal

[From the Diaries]

I see you. Lurking. Watching. Every day.

It’s been fifteen years. Over ten since we last spoke. So why am I still on your mind? I know I am, because there you are, every single day, in my views.

I don’t understand it. I don’t understand how even a mild obsession could survive this much time. You didn’t want me, remember? I wasn’t good enough. That was clear.

I was the obsessed one. Deeply infatuated. It took me years to get over you. Years to unlearn you. But I did.

You were special, though. You shaped so much of who I became.

There’s this story I tell sometimes about the boy who made me start wearing makeup. You didn’t tell me to. But the way you ended things made me feel so ugly that I spiraled into an identity crisis. I was seventeen. Seventeen. And trying to rebuild myself because one boy decided I wasn’t enough.

I couldn’t forget you even if I wanted to. I remember how pathetic I must have looked. Calling nonstop. Fantasizing about you 24/7. Hoping for some dramatic run-in so we could fix everything. We eventually had one, but I’m sure to you I was just an annoying girl.

To me, you were my whole world.

I was young. Foolish. Dramatic. But my feelings were real. I don’t feel things like that anymore. Not that intensely. Not that blindly.

I was there whenever you needed me. And you disappeared whenever you felt like it. I was convenient. A drive-through when nothing else was open.

And that’s fine. That was then.

But why are you still watching?

It’s ironic, really. You were the one who sent me “The Man Who Can’t Be Moved” all those years back. It probably meant nothing to you. Just another song.

But are you the man who can’t be moved? Even after you moved on?

I’m just curious. Which corner of your mind do I haunt? What version of me still lingers there after all this time?

Because honestly, I never think of you anymore. Not really.

Unless your name pops up.

And lately, it does.

Every single day.

Personal

[From the Diaries]

And to answer your question — why did I take you there?

Because I wanted this to work. I wanted to believe we had a future. I didn’t introduce you to my dad for nothing. I didn’t bring you on a family trip because I had better ways to waste my time. I took you there because I was serious.

A week before we left, you were relapsing and lying to me. A week before that, you disappeared and stopped answering your calls. This wasn’t about a game. It was a buildup. Layer upon layer of instability that I kept swallowing.

You invalidating my help with your loan is what’s sick. If you didn’t need that help, you wouldn’t have convinced me to give it. You can pretend it meant nothing, but until you received your payment, that is what carried you. Don’t rewrite history to protect your ego.

You’ve lost your temper with me more times than I can count. You’ve turned my room into chaos. You’ve slammed doors. You’ve thrown things. And every time, I cleaned it quietly. I protected your name. I made sure no one saw that side of you.

This was the first time I was in an environment where I was dependent on you. For food. For water. For mobility. And you know how much you hate public chaos. Yet when I didn’t have anyone else around, you weaponized my worst moment. You punished me for it. You humiliated me for it.

You didn’t ask if I was hungry. You knew we were running out of water and didn’t get any. You let me sit there, isolated, because you didn’t care.

You only started caring at the airport.

And even then, at one point, you said you didn’t give a fuck if we broke up.

You have lost your shit in this relationship countless times. And every time, I cleaned up the mess. Emotionally. Physically. Socially.

This time I lost my shit.

And I cleaned that up too.

Personal

[From the Diaries]

I don’t want to write about what I’m going through now. So let’s write about something else. Something from a hundred years ago.

When I was 17, I fell in love. Madly. Deeply. Irrevocably.

It was love at first sight for me. I enjoy revisiting these details as I write, because it brings me closer to who I was then. This 17-year-old girl who was so messed up, yet had her whole life ahead of her.

There was this boy. We were separated by oceans.

One morning, around 4 AM, I was sleepless and scrolling Facebook when I came across his profile. And instantly, I fell in love with his smile. I am not even exaggerating when I say instantly. It was that quick.

I added him.

It was 2010. October 10. Yes, I am still weird enough to remember dates like that. He used to call me weird. In a good way. I think he added the “in a good way” part just to soften it. I don’t think he ever really liked me that much.

When I added him, he accepted. Then he messaged me.

And we started talking. Every night. Until almost morning.

We moved to messages because Facebook chat wasn’t what it is today. Then from Messenger to Skype. And the day I heard his voice, my heart skipped multiple beats. I was completely smitten. He sang me my favourite song.

Our affair was brief. Just over a month.

But he told me he loved me first. I said it back eventually.

Then, after a few days, he started changing.

Mind you, we had never met. This was all online.

He started distancing himself. I heard from him less and less. And then it was over.

And I shattered.

Nothing was the same anymore. I was alive, but the world felt grey. I didn’t go out for months. I bought book after book and stayed home reading. I changed my entire wardrobe. And for the first time in my life, I bought makeup.

I felt ugly. Like he left because I was ugly.

Of course I was 17. Of course I would think that.

That was also when I started journaling. I wrote about him. Constantly. I marked dates. Every interaction. Every message.

I still have that notebook.

For the next eight years of my life, no one saw me without makeup. I became addicted to it. I hated my bare face. That insecurity ran deep.

And I never really stopped loving him.

He left my life, but never my heart. I carried him with me constantly. There was rarely a moment I didn’t think about him. So much of it was unfinished. Unexplored. There was so much left to fantasize about. Like running into him for the first time.

A year later, we were both in Malé. We were not in contact.

Then we ran into each other.

And the love that had been living in a void suddenly became real. He was just as perfect as I had imagined.

I was doomed.

I was obsessed. Infatuated. I would call him over and over. He would barely pick up. He walked in and out of my life briefly. We never became anything real.

He told me he loved someone else. And I knew I wasn’t enough for him. But even then, whenever he buzzed, I was there.

We never did anything beyond kissing.

Not because I didn’t want to. But because I loved him so much that I knew if we crossed that line, I would crash. Because deep down, I knew he was never going to love me the way I loved him.

Eventually, we drifted.

He got a girlfriend. Then he got married. And we have never spoken since.

And eventually, my love for him was replaced by other people. Or maybe just layered over. I don’t know.

Now, fast forward to today.

It has been a few years now that I have noticed him viewing my stories. He does not follow me. But sometimes I see his name in my views.

And I wonder. Why?

The man whose attention I would have traded the world for once… now thinks of me every now and then.

God knows what purpose it serves for him.

But still.

How fascinating.

Personal

[From the Diaries]

This is for your closure. Take it however you want. But real closure does not come from me. It comes from within. From accepting that something has ended.

There is honestly nothing more to say. I have said everything already. Whether you heard me or not is a different story. I repeated myself for months. I asked, calmly at first, then desperately, for things to improve. Every time, you got irritated. Defensive. Upset that I was even bringing it up.

At some point, I stopped asking.

And that is when I knew you were not my future.

You took me for granted because I always forgave you. You knew I would. But forgiveness without remorse turns into self-abandonment. And you rarely showed real regret. Just explanations. Justifications. Deflection.

The last few hours with you were unsettling. The emotional shifts. The blame. The rewriting of events. The way everything somehow circled back to being my fault.

It felt scripted. Predictable. Textbook.

And that is when something in me shut down for good.

I am not angry. I am not trying to hurt you with this. I am simply done.

Closure is not something I can hand you.

It is something you have to sit with.

Personal

[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.