Oops. I just found out that you're with someone new. He looks Korean. Tall, has cool sunglasses. You always liked your expensive Gentle Monsters; I always thought they were kinda lame.
My bad, this one is on me—I went to your channel to see your face and found two. I know, I know, boundaries.
I did it because I missed you, and it's hard when I know you have a vlog. Like trying to quit smoking with a vape locked in your top drawer, and you know where the key is, and you find yourself going to "check out" the drawer every now and then, but this time the key is in your hand, how did that happen? Ah.. Well, too late now. What can you do? Only human after all.
It's a little strange to feel heartbroken by this when I was the one who decided to break up with you, twice. But, if I’m being honest, I think I know now that I’ve been carrying you with me all this time. I’ve been holding on, to memory, to the feeling of the memory, to the memory of the feeling. To gold, tinged with blue, dissolving ever so slowly. Haunted—but what a pleasant intrusion you are, C.
And, I can also see how I've continued to grieve you all this time: how joy rang more hollow, and the trees were less green, and the sunsets less spectacular. I looked through my journal just now, and counted that I wrote about you on 22 separate days. Oh all the ways I tried to process you.
1 month after we broke up, I spent 3 weeks with someone new. It was breathless, confusing, heady, and it taught me about healing, about myself. After that, for 6 months, I didn't go on any dates, made no attempts to meet anyone. I told myself that I was focusing on myself and on growing.
But, I have a confession, C. Deep down, I’ve been waiting for you. And though I've told myself that I'm not, that I don't believe in waiting, I'm not sure my greedy heart understands what I’m saying. I suppose the part that waits isn't the logical part. You always did bring that out of me, C, for better and for worse.
In all, I made 3 Spotify playlists about you. The first one evoked such bittersweet memories; I listened to it in private and wallowed. The next after that had a vague, meaningful title, and I made it public and filled it with songs that said what I could not. I was calling out to you, then. Did you hear me?
The third playlist, I made it this month. I titled it New Spring because the cherry blossom outside my house was in full bloom, and as the petals fell, I wondered how you were doing.
The weather is getting warmer, and the days are long again, C. Sunlight strikes the trees and the leaves glow my favorite shade of verdant green. I think of komorebi, the Japanese word which means “sunlight leaking through trees.” I stop and stare for a while, soaking in the beauty, surrendering to it. And I think of kintsugi, the Japanese word meaning “golden repair.” To live is to break and then come back together, stronger, more beautiful.
Summer is almost here. The bay is vibrant and alive, and I know a hill from which the sunset over the skyline is absolutely breathtaking. You would have liked it here—over the past year, I must have picked out a dozen cafes and god knows how many fun restaurants for us to try out. There's so much to do; all the time in the world wouldn't have been enough, and now there's no time left for us at all.
But, that’s okay. Seeing you with someone new, I feel a bit like Bruno Mars singing When I Was Your Man, which makes me laugh—to know, how human it is to find myself here, how eye-rollingly common, how comfortingly trite.
So, don't worry (though I hope you would!), truthfully, I'm doing quite well. And, I'm happy for you, at least, a little bit. I can't mean it fully yet, but some day I will. Only human after all.
Until that day.
Love,
E