The first and the last of things
Hey you,
This was supposed to be a special week. It was supposed to be our anniversary. I went to our favorite restaurant. I was supposed to go with you. I went alone.
I ordered my favorite dish; the grilled salmon I ordered when I went out for the first time with you. You had the quesadillas. You said it tasted really good. I still don’t know how it tastes. I thought about ordering it as a tribute to our first date, but I was full.
Our first dinner; I didn’t know it was a date at all. In all honesty, I thought you took me out for networking purposes. We had a great conversation. You charmed the hell out of me. You took me home and told me it was not bad for a first non-date. So it was a date after all. I could feel myself falling for you so fast, I had to regulate my budding obsession for an hour before going to sleep. But then you reappeared the next day. And the day after that. And the day after. And the day after. And before I knew it, you reached out to me every single day. I scrolled all the length of our chat, from the very first day until the very last one just to confirm that, yes, you talked me every fucking day. Most times you sent me memes. But sometimes you told me you were thinking of me. That one evening, you came to my door and told me you wanted to be with me. You told me you were sorry that we didn’t meet sooner. But I told you we met at just the right time. We met when we were both ready to be with each other.
I admitted it was a wonder that we didn’t meet sooner. We had a lot of mutual friends. We also lived so near to each other. God I hate that I forgot the exact number you said, but you told me we had a one in two thousand something chance of meeting. I could not believe you calculated it. Why. And you simply said you did it because you missed me.
(I pat myself on the back for being into nerds because it’s just so rewarding.)
I reined it in, you know, all my feelings for you. I couldn’t trust myself. The thing about having emotion dysregulation as a condition is I couldn’t really tell if my feelings were genuine. At least until your illness recurred.
That one afternoon, you came to my door and gave me the space to exit this thing we just started. And I could leave. I thought about it. I truly considered it. I had strong feelings for you, there was no doubt about it. But I asked myself if I really loved you. What was love anyway? I’d had enough of it toying with me. I asked myself, would it be so bad to love you? I found that the answer was no, I had no objection at all.
And it was then I realized I wanted to take more agency when it comes to love. I chose to step into love as opposed to fall in love. I could have left. I’d be heartbroken, but I’d get over it. But that was not the person I wanted to be. So I chose to be with you. I chose to stick with you. I chose to take care of you. And when you’re gone, I chose to grieve you.
(And it didn’t slip by me how you told me you loved me at all times when you were alive. In the end, all we had was time.)
I’d grown more in the brief time I spent with you than the whole time I was living. Even in the following months after you’re gone, I was still growing immensely. I know you’re proud of me, because you told me as much. I lost myself for a bit, but I practiced some patience on myself, the way I was patient with you when you were sick. And I found myself again. I’ve cleaned up my rooms. I make my bed every morning. I’m enjoying the world outside again. I’m writing for myself again. And I am full of love again.
Love as a passionate force is nothing new to me. But with you, I learned of love in the sense of maintenance. Love as something to take care of and dust up once in a while. I don’t live there anymore, but I still come to the house we lived in once a week. I opened the windows to let the fresh air in. I mopped the floor because we once lived there. I honor that house for the shelter it gave us, especially during the feverish nights we stayed up all night, waiting for your temperature to return to normal. I’m still taking care of everything you left behind. And with each task I’ve completed, I realized that I don’t love you any less. Nor do I want to.
(If only I met you sooner, if it meant we could have had more time together. Especially after knowing that your family have known my family forever, that we are practically in-laws; how in the world that we only met each other last year?)
I could have followed you into the dark. I wanted to. But I didn’t. I stayed. Just like when you were sick, I stayed. On the early days of your absence, I resented you for leaving me with your homework. But I’ve learned to do it for the living ones instead. It was hard to be outside when everything I saw reminded me of you. But I’ve realized it only means that we made the most of the time we had; that we did a lot together. The days felt so long. I didn’t know it at the time, but I trusted myself to pull through, because you trusted the person I was. Both of our bets paid off, beb. Big time.
I’m still very much grateful to you for not leaving when I was asleep. I don’t think I’d ever get past it if I woke up and you were gone. I feel like you did your best to make it as easy for me as possible. You waited until it was just the two of us. You breathed for as long as you could. Even in the last moment, you took another breath every time I called your name. Until you didn’t.
It’s been months now. I dream of you frequently. Sometimes it’s sad. But the last one was fun. We played a cute video game and had a lot of laughs. These days I can feel that I’m almost back to that headspace I was in when I met you for the first time. The one where I made room for possibilities and serendipities. I’m still taking care of you. There’s still some homework left. I will see it done, just as I promised you.
This week is almost over. I have celebrated you, me, and us. I have celebrated our supposed anniversary. I’m not going to celebrate the next one.
I’ll see you when I see you. 💛