jeannie

if you've followed my blog for a while, you will know that this used to be a platonic tc account before i left high school.

four years have passed by now and while we exchanged a few emails back and forth before and even suggested to meet up for coffee, he has not answered my two recent mails over the span of a year.

honestly, the silence is the most confusing part. i interpret it as no interest in further contact, but part of me still hopes that the mails just got lost or he never saw them. i am not really sure what changed for him to not answer.

moving on feels... painful. i never had any romantic interest in him, but he was very much a replacement father figure to me. i always hoped we could build a sustainable mentor/mentee relationship later in life (think peter parker/tony stark i.e.). it seems like it wasn't meant to happen and part of me is grieving the father figure i (could've) had. it feels like death in a way, an ending without a conclusion. even though i am quite a sentimental person, i don't remember anything about our last meeting or what was said. i guess i still have his mails.

maybe this is what growing up means. letting go and learning to stand on your own two feet. i now can confront the fact that i never really knew him, but a version of him i made up based on random school interactions. i have a few friends becoming teachers and i can now grasp how their life is so much more than school. he was always a very private person, which added to the intrigue, but also made me idealize him. i have no idea what kind of friend he is, where his politics and ideals lie. add to that the years that have passed and he is, at the core, a stranger.