Dear You

Dear you,

We never started out the way we intended to. We were two strangers. In fact, we were two strange people. Because we were what people would call “weird”, we started talking and before we knew it, we couldn’t stop. We talked and we talked some more. We talked about things as tiny as why yellow lights over green or red to matters as complicated as the world’s politics. The more I talked to you, the more and the harder I fell. You never ceased to amaze me! I was moved by your depth. I fell in love with the deep dark beautiful soul lurking within you, and I kept thinking, “How could anyone think this is too much?” I loved watching your eyes sparkle when you passionately talked about How I Met Your Mother or Taylor Swift or that movie we had just seen. To you, it wasn’t just a tv series, a song or a movie. It always meant more to you the way it did to me. Something a lot of people would never understand. I found that shared understanding in you. The empathy you had for your friends and people in general was admirable. I kept telling you how similar we both were in the way we felt towards the world. I liked how specific you could be about the things you wanted. How you already knew what your craved so that we wouldn’t have to spend time thinking of what to eat. How certain dishes had to be prepared certain ways. How slippers made you feel more vulnerable. How you seemed to know your way around the tiny things around you. I loved how we chose driving to out-of-town places over sitting at one of those crowded coffee shops on weekends. Where we were headed was never our problem. You would normally ask, “Where to?” and I would look at you, smiled, and said, “Does it matter?” And you would just smile and started playing me those songs from your precious playlist. Yeah, it was so precious to you because it was what you called your “lifetime collection”. Then we would engage in this whole analytical process of lyrics interpretation. Your wits and intelligence were outstanding. A three-hour drive was never enough. And I loved how crazy stupid we could sometimes be. We used to go to “the other side” of the river a lot, especially after midnight, when all the buzz of life just died down, and we could have the breathtaking view of the city just to ourselves. We were mean. We never wanted to share that view and that atmosphere with anyone else. People would never understand that. But we did. We dug deep about our families, our fears, our strengths, and the conversation just got better from there. The nights always stood still, and I always seemed to lose myself in the moment, never wanting to go back home. There were times we thought we were haunted by some sort of ghosts. On one chilly night as we were sitting by the river bank, taking everything in, appreciating every tiny bit of it, we heard a girl wailing in the distance. Then we had this crazy idea of investigating who it was or rather, what it was. We walked towards the water, where the voice was originating, and i fell into one of those holes, calf-deep. You freaked out, because I kept saying it was a snake’s hole! And then there was this other night when we saw two horses, one white and another brown, out of nowhere, galloping back and forth. We were convinced we were being haunted by some sort of horse ghosts or some manifestations of ghosts! Even then your mere presence was all that mattered. You knew how to talk to me. You knew how tiny things made major impacts on me. You broke down my wall, and saw me through. After a long time that seemed like forever, I fell in love again …

There is no way this tiny bit of writing could do us justice. I could write an entire book down to the details, but then it would be too painful for me. So i choose to write the good memories, the ones that live with me, because in the course of time, in 4 months or 1 year, I am sure I will not be able to recall the resentment, the disappointment, or maybe the pain I am feeling right now. I am going to move on with all these good memories with me. I think I have grieved over the loss enough, and I need to look at how much this has enriched my life and taught me lessons. Even in the most beautiful story, there could be heartache and separations. Ours doesn’t last long, but it does impact me. It has changed me. I still see you everywhere. Your smile. Your laugh. Everything reminds me of you. Yellow lights. Songs. Movies. Even the most random things. I weep sometimes, but I am getting better each day. And if there is one thing I learn from my experiences, it has to be the fact that time could heal all sorts of heartaches. So, I am going to give myself time, and I am going to move on with my life. We will meet if our paths intersect again after we both recover from all this. Meanwhile, I am wishing you all the best, and i hope you are doing the same for me.

Thank you.