Sometimes Goodbye IS a Second Chance

A open letter to the person I secretly like: 

I realized that today was probably one of the last times I was going to see you. I can now count the number of times I’ll see you before you leave on one. I think about how you’ve crossed my mind every day the last seven months and how you’ll never hear or know about it. I think about my heart and how I’ve labored in fear to push you away and as I ran away from you. I think about how I may have hurt you along the way, or even the reality that you probably never even noticed I felt this way.

I don’t have the courage to say this to your face, so I’ll say it behind you back. I don’t want to know what your response is – I don’t want to know if you’ll laugh or say thank you for the feelings. It couldn’t be truer that time and distance will heal, and in a year or two, perhaps you’ll be a distant memory. But as for now, and as for the last seven months, to you – who will never hear this – I want you to know I liked you.

I liked you. I really liked you. I cannot even begin to understand how it started. Where it began. How it began, in fact, it scares me that I could actually fall for someone, that I actually fell for someone, and that someone was you. It scared me that you appeared in my thoughts that I hoped to see you walking around campus that I went to all the group events hoping to see you there – oh, you would never know, I didn’t even know, or understand, why I liked you. It scared me that there was someone else in my heart other than myself – and I still don’t know how you made your way into my heart – I don’t think I’ll ever understand why but I look back at these last seven months – at this “crush” I had on you – so to speak – I can’t deny the fact I felt something, perhaps love, towards you.

If you told me to run a mile for you in heels I would do it. If you told me to go to New York right now and buy you a chocolate doughnut, I would do it. If you told me to marry you right now – well I wouldn’t, but I would, have confessed to you. If you pushed me to the brink, I would jump off.

And the reality that you’re leaving has settled in. It’s not only that you’re leaving here, but your leaving means I won’t see you anymore. I won’t see your wonderful smile, you gracious laugh, I won’t see you in the corner of the room and make sure not to wander in that corner, I won’t feel self-conscious when I’m less than five feet away from you, I won’t put up my guard when we’re talking in the same group, I won’t spend nights like these, where I should be studying, and instead I’m writing away about you. I won’t feel these feelings toward you anymore.

So while I have them, I’m going to go for it. I’m going to talk behind your back so that you never find out how I felt about you but I’m going to tell everyone else about it anyway. I’m going to talk about how I think you’re so wonderful even know I see all of your flaws and I pick at them anyway but I still, illogically, irrationally, want to be with you.

My heart is this:

You make me jump. When I see you approaching, my heat picks up pace. My mind shuts down, and my body freezes. I coil within myself, and I become mute. I look for a friend, a source of security to run to, the broken record of keepawaykeepawaykeepawaykeepaway running through my mind. When you ask me a question, I feel happy. I love the attention. When you talk to another girl, I tell myself it’s alright, he’s not yours anyway, give him to Jesus. When I realized that I had set up a barrier between you and me, and that there was simply not enough to tear it down, and no words to bind the chasm between us, I was sad.

I don’t know what love is. And I don’t know if I love you. But I do know you make me feel these things – joy, sadness, happiness, fear, exhilaration. And because you make me feel these things, I think that I like you.

With your leaving, it’s going to be easier to put away these feelings. I know. Everyone who’s gone through heartbreak knows that. But for now, I don’t want to, I can’t. I don’t know where to start. And I actually liked liking you, and as the feelings begin to disappear, I’ll begin to forget you, and I don’t want to forget you.

So for now, even though you will never know, I just want you to know that I like you. I never asked for anything from you, and I never will. I’ll always be the girl who purposefully stood far away from you because she was scared to realize her feelings for you. I’ll be the one who felt a heart full of regret when I realized I had pushed you away.

But I’m hoping, that one day, if we ever do cross paths again, I could speak to you confidently, boldly, with joy, expressing how delighted I am to see you again. I hope when we do meet again, that we would meet smiling, and that this time, I wouldn’t run away. I hope where you go the wind blows, and I hope where you go is a dry desert, because love, you are a bright light, drawing people from near and far. I hope the person who haves you in the future cherishes you as she cherishes herself, and I hope you embrace her and protect her like your own life. I wish you well, and for now, goodbye.

Because my feelings are still here, I know I cannot force a lid on this chapter, but the reality of your leaving becomes more apparent day by day. I will think of you often, until the feelings fade, and I will pray for you often, when I hear of you and how you’re doing. I’m sorry I couldn’t be a better friend, and I’m sorry for running away from something that never happened. I wish I could have controlled my emotions better – but know this: I tried. I tried, and I don’t think you did. So with that, I hope when you go back to where you came from, that you would have some nice time to reflect on your own life and on your actions and inactions. I know you would never understand this – you would not read between these lines to see that this is about you –but that’s fine, this wasn’t about you anyway, for these feelings since conception have been one-way; they have been mine and mine alone.  And with all my heart, I mean it: have a nice life. How I wish for you to be happy, to be full of joy and love of God all your days.

Dear Charlie,

I already said a hundreds of goodbyes to you. I know you can remember some of it, but most are written inside my little notebook which only myself can read. I’ve been saying goodbye again and again, but I keep coming back. I hope this will be my shortest, and my last.

I’m saying goodbye at the time I love you the most.

No, I’m not doing this, I’m not running away just because of my wounded dead pride, but because I don’t want to bother you anymore with my presence and everything that concerns me. I just want to say I made up my mind. You can never love me the way I wanted you to. Check. You can never feel the same way I do just because of the simple fact that you just can’t. Check.

I want to continue my journey ‘with you’ but a part of me says that I had enough of these assumptions. I tried to open my mind and my heart and I realized I can never force you. I can never asked for something that should and supposed to be given wholeheartedly. I can never ask for your love and everything that comes with it.

So that’s why I’m sending you this letter, together with some poems I made for the last six months. No, those are not last-minute hopeless move to get your pity. I’m wishing you could keep those as a memory of someone, a girl who once went head over heels inlove with you. I’m trying my best to keep my tears as I write this, but I guess I’m too crybaby to not let these drops fall. I’m sorry. Just..don’t mind the 'marks’ that these tears would make.

Thank you. You don’t know how I looked forward about going to school and seeing you inspite of hellish workloads and annoying people. How you made me better. I’ll try not to lose myself even after this.

This hurt me, this is hurting me, and it will hurt again and again. I might avoid you for some time, but one day, I’m hoping I could look straight into your eyes and smile at you. I hope we can be friends. But not now.

Thank you for the beautiful days.

Emily

My biggest fear was that eventually you will see me the way I see myself. And now, you have. Even though I saw it coming, it still hurts. How can I move on when your fingerprints are on my heart and every time my mind wanders it goes directly to you? I’ll never forget you. I wish I knew how to take your pain away.. so I keep saying in my head, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.“ You leaving; it’s like losing a part of me, all I will carry with me are the memories to live with for rest of my life. Give me one last chance to make this love not die.

Please, know that I still can’t imagine not being able share life’s successes and accomplishments with each other. This is the only life that we get to live. It is not something that I can comprehend, to live from today into my grave, without ever seeing you again.. The past cannot be changed, but there is no command that it must define the entire future. I can’t help but hope one day the path that you are walking away from me on will lead you back to me and we can start as new people in new lives and leave the past to the foolishness of youth.

My heart is yours and always has been since the moment I told you I loved you. I am sorry that I have not shown it as I feel it, especially in my actions (my mistakes). I’m sorry that I failed you with betrayal..

Regarding where things went wrong, I think that it was just me who was not ready. I was naive and I didn’t know how to be a woman instead of a confused girl. We both were changed by what happened, but I am still the person you fell in love with. I have grown a lot, I have learned a lot. I will move on with my life, but I can’t move on in my heart. You are the only one I ever wanted.

I will always remember the very first time we met, the very first time my lips touched your lips, the very first time you wrapped your arms around me and rested your head on my shoulder. Your smile your way of looking at me will always be fresh in my memories. There are so many lovely memories.. I still have some hope deep in my heart that someday my undying love will bring you back in my arms. At the same time I want you to come to a realization where my undying love for you will make you come to me. Sooner or later.. It doesn’t matter.. I am still waiting for you… and always will. With me or not.. I will never have any regrets in life of loving you… of holding you in my arms of dreaming to be with you forever.

I realize that everyone has their own problems to handle. I can’t expect someone else to take care of me. The old person that I used to be no longer existed. There had to be a new person that does not live entirely in the past with just memories. I will never be entirely free of sadness and longing for you, but life goes on. Sometimes life isn’t all that great, but if you are still here, you have to do something. I do not know what the future holds or if I will be successful in reinventing a new me, but I will give it a real try.

My dear, I am so sorry that it didn’t work out We both played a part We both tore it apart before it ever even began I fell too fast You too slow I was not who you needed But you were who I needed You were energetic and ferociously yourself and you made me feel beautiful You let me talk about the snow and the rain and the sky You were everything I needed as I was falling apart But you were the wrong kind of glue And you didn’t hold up You left Without warning You left me But I forgive you my love Because I think it’s better that way I deserved to be left I didn’t deserve you And so I’m sorry Because I tried to fight for you and I should have let go I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry For everything Oh my love We would have been beautiful But it just turned into a beautiful mess I’m more of a mess now than ever But you seem to be doing well You seem happy And I’m glad You deserve to be happy I hope you are well I hope you are better now

I was thinking about you the other day.

My sister in law just ended her relationship with her first real boyfriend and she has been having a hard time letting it go. She has gone through so many emotions. 

And it made me think of you. I have gone quite a while since I have thought of you but the feeling on my heart is still the same. I still miss you. It is crazy how a love so short and explosive could make me feel this much hurt 9 years later. When we were in the experience, I didn’t want it to end. I thought I couldn’t live without you with me. I didn’t think I could ever love another.

I was wrong of course. Here I am happily married to another when I imagined that I would be married to you.

Its weird to think that if you asked me back in 2009 what I expected my life to be like now, I would say I would be with you or I would say that I can’t even think that far ahead because I didn’t think I would even be alive.

I still miss you. I still miss everything that we shared. I still miss the craziness of that summer. I miss watching the sunset off the shore. I miss waking up on the beach with you. I miss not caring about what would happen, just caring about the moment.