delusions of grandeur

My dearest Jonas,

I don’t even know how to start this. And maybe that’s fitting, because i still think it’s crazy how our story even started in the first place.

I came to your country with one purpose and that’s to watch Taylor Swift. Maybe, if luck was kind enough, i could also find a job. You were never part of the itinerary. You weren’t in the plans i carefully made or the dreams i packed in my bags. Yet somehow, we swiped on each other, and there you were.

We met at the most inconvenient and maybe incomprehensible way possible and best believe it wasn’t on my 2024 Bingo card.

I still remember you letting me try the curry nuggets dip, and i immediately decided it was the best nugget dip i’ve had. I also remember that time while we were cuddling after the deed on my last night there and when you asked for my insta, i swear i was telling myself, “I’m never coming back anyway.”

But life has a strange sense of humor.

I came back. Then you came to my country. Then we explored another country together.

Then somehow, without either of us really noticing, we became tangled into each other’s ordinary days. Or maybe that’s just me but i don’t think either of us expected that.

But vulnerability has a way of making feelings louder. Somewhere between all the uncertainty, i fell for you harder than i ever intended to.

No, it’s not because we do things to reap some benefits. That has nothing to do and i never associated that with the feelings i have for you.

It was a wildfire, to say the least.

It wasn’t your fault. You never promised me love. And somehow, despite that painful truth, i stayed.

Not because i was waiting for you to change your mind, but because more than everything else, i genuinely found someone i admire.

You’re warm in a way that makes people feel safe without trying.

You’re gentle, even when the world has every reason to make you tough.

You have this quiet generosity that shows up in the smallest things, never asking for recognition.

You’re funny in a way that makes difficult days lighter.

You’re courageous enough to keep moving forward even when life isn’t kind sometimes.

You’re firm in your decisions, ambitious with your dreams, and disciplined enough to chase them.

You’re incredibly good-looking, fit, and somehow completely unaware of how attractive you actually are. Maybe that’s what makes you even more charming.

Most of all, you care.

Not romantically, but genuinely.

When i finally got the job here, you didn’t make me feel like i was navigating a new country alone. You slowly welcomed me into your routine so naturally that unfamiliar streets slowly started feeling familiar.

You told me you wanted to show me more places before i leave for wherever life takes me next. You made sure my time here was worthwhile.

You gave me something i didn’t know i needed: a sense of belonging.

Your bed we casually end up sleeping in isn’t really what i think i’ll remember years from now.

I’ll remember the conversations. The laughter. The drives. The amount of ritalin sheets you gave me when i ran low on them. The brisk walks where you usually tell me to turn my Strava on and ask how many calories did we burn. The meals that made our stomachs and hearts full. The adventures where our lives are sometimes at risk. The comfort of simply existing beside someone who made a foreign country feel a little more like home.

Thank you for every version of care you’ve given me.

For every time you choose kindness. For making space for me in your life when you didn’t have to.

For proving that sometimes the most beautiful things two people can share are the quiet, unexpected ones.

Our story hasn’t been perfect.

We’ve stumbled through broken trust, difficult conversations, disappointments, and even friendships that didn’t survive. Life has shaken both of us in different ways.

But if there’s one thing i hope you always know, it’s this:

I’m on your side.

Not because i expect anything in return. Not because i’m trying to earn your love. Simply because i believe in you.

I hope you become everything you’ve been working so hard for.

I hope your ambition rewards you.

I hope your courage never leaves you.

I hope you continue being exactly who you are, because i really think the world could use more people like you.

You don’t need to become someone louder or tougher or different to deserve good things. The person you already are is someone worth knowing.

Maybe one day our paths will separate.

Maybe i’ll move to another country like i’ve always planned.

Maybe i’ll celebrate this day, 4th of July somewhere as a holiday and you’ll be going to work as per usual.

Maybe you’ll get a full-time position in the field you’ve always wanted to so you won’t have to worry much about uni, or even go back to your first love, architecture, and you’ll decide to get your masters. I know it’s still with you.

Maybe we’ll become stories we tell other people years from now, or maybe not, because you’ll eventually forget about me. And honestly, i’m scared that you’ll do.

But no matter where life takes us, i’ll always be grateful that against all odds, a trip that was only supposed to be about a concert introduced me to someone who changed my life in ways i never expected.

Let me put a line of a song from your favorite artist to end this section:

“Please don’t ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anywhere.”

As my last anecdote, I’d like to thank you for being one of the safest places I’ve ever known. :)

And wherever life leads you next, i hope you never doubt that somewhere in this world, there will always be someone who is cheering for you and always proud of you.

Always.

- Naomi

Sometimes i wonder if exclusivity was the closest thing we’d ever get to a certainty.

I asked because i was hurt, not because i thought it would save us. You lied, and somehow it wasn’t the truth that hurt most. It was the dishonesty, especially since i found it out myself and knew exactly why you did it. You never promised to reciprocate. You only promised honesty, and for a while, even that disappeared. But in the end, i keep on reeling and blaming myself for this tragedy. It was my fault for being curious on finding out because of my stupid intuition and my obsession of proving myself right. If i hadn’t meddled and just let the hurt do its own thing, things wouldn’t crumble like it is now.

You told me you were selfish. You told me you wanted your freedom. I believed you because you’ve always been honest about that part of yourself. I think that’s what made the lie sting more. It wasn’t that you couldn’t love me. It was that you thought protecting your freedom was worth risking the one place that had always been safe between us.

I didn’t ask you to choose me because I thought you’d come to your senses and pick me. I asked because i couldn’t think of another way to stay.

I expected an excuse. A long silence. A gentle rejection. Instead, you said yes, but not without hesitation and doubt.

Now I carry a future that has nowhere to go.

Sometimes I catch myself imagining things that will never happen. The apartment we’ll never share, where our bed would stay unmade because you’re too lazy to make it, and i’d complain every single time without ever really minding. The taking turns in washing dishes we’ll never argue over. The lazy weekends we’ll never waste on the beanbag, delaying our trip to the gym because we’d somehow spend hours doomscrolling and doing absolutely nothing.

Our anniversary messages were never written and sent.

They remained somewhere between dinner conversations and walking trips that i always look forward to every weekends, in laughing at each other’s silly stories and jokes, in nights and days when i made you made me your own, in every “okkk see you” that quietly pretended tomorrow would always exist. Yes, and they all remained in my head.

I’ve always had a vision that Cathy and Tuna were real. But even them, they don’t know they’re waiting for a family that won’t come home. The treats still rattle in their container. The life they were supposed to wander through is one they’ll never know they almost had.

Sometimes i think about the girl you saw when you weren’t seeing me.

I wonder if she made you laugh louder. If she was easier to want because she asked for less and you two also have things in common. If she taught and inspired you to be more confident, more secure, and be more of yourself. I wonder if you looked at her the way i caught you looking at the views we’re seeing whenever we go to places, quietly, without needing to say they were nice and pretty. When you told me you met her because you had your needs on one of your dark times, i wish you would’ve asked me first instead, i would’ve tried my best to meet them. I don’t ask these questions anymore because i’ve learned that some answers don’t bring closure. They only become rooms you accidentally walk back into. (please bear with my metaphors)

The cruelest part is that you still care for me.

You know whether i’ve prayed before touching my food, or you remind me to do it more than i can even remember. You check me out and ask “are you okay” whenever i go silent. You still ask me what i’m craving for whenever we go out for dinner after the gym, and you make sure i’m fine with it. You threw blankets into my barbed wires. You still make room for me in your life, just never enough to call it a lifetime.

You’re kind in all the ways that make distance impossible.

But maybe i’m selfish too. Because i keep showing up. Your solitude comes first, and i’ve always understood that. I know you value your space, your silence, and the life you built before i ever came along. But i’m sorry for being selfish enough to keep showing up every single time, hoping that maybe there would still be a place for me beside you. Sometimes i want to hold you close, but i’m afraid my touch would only feel like an intrusion. Although i’ve been doing that impulsively, i know you don’t like being touched, and wanting that from you feels selfish.

I tell myself that if i stay close enough, eventually my heart will grow tired. That every “are you okay?”, every drive, hoping that every night spent beside you will sand away another piece of what i feel until all that’s left is friendship. Maybe i’m not staying because i believe you’ll love me someday. Because best believe i know you won’t and you’ll never.

Maybe I’m staying because i’m trying to survive loving you. You’re my best friend, and the love of my life, and somehow i’ve become the audience instead of the latter.

Because loving you has never been the difficult part. It’s learning to build a home inside someone who only ever wanted to be a place i visited. Maybe one day, someone else will live in the future i used to imagine for us, and thinking about it now got me feeling like my guts are in knots.

Someone else will know your weekend mornings, your sleepy voice, the version of you that belongs to no one else. Someone else might stand beside you where i only ever stood nearby.

And i’ll probably smile when that happens. Not because it won’t hurt. But because i loved you enough to know that freedom was always the thing you chose before anything else.

So I’ll keep this little life i’ve accidentally built, this strange exclusivity that exists without a name anyone else would understand. I’ll keep laughing at your dark jokes, say a big fat “NO” whenever you say that you’re fat, keep listening to your stories, random trivia, and even rants, pretending my heart doesn’t quietly rewrite every moment into a memory of a future that never arrived.

Our apartment will just remain in my head.

Our anniversary messages will remain unsent.

Cathy and Tuna will never know why no one came home.

And I guess, maybe that’s the strangest part of all.. that the life i miss is one we never even got the chance to lose.

This song stayed with me for quite sometime when you started to let me stay over until we got into a situation where some things went slightly shaky. Other than the meaning of the song itself, it represents an alternate ending that will only remain in my head. It’s included in the playlist I curated where every song holds a piece of what i’ve been meaning to say.