With every break up, you learn. Or at least, that has been my mantra for the past months — as if repeating those words would ease the pain. This is the first time I'm admitting to the break up online, and it may very well be the last.

A huge part of our relationship was offline because of the private person that he is, so if you're here for tittle-tattles, the exit is right that way. I'm not about to reveal anything that intrudes his privacy just because things ended between us. Call it narcissistic (I'm pretty sure owning a blog to talk solely about myself is already narcissistic behaviour anyway), but I want this to be about me, and my road to healing. 

***

I detest the timeline society slaps on me. Was I expected to be moping around all day? Can I not embrace life yet? There's a societal expectation that my previous relationship lasted X amount of years, so it should take me X amount of time to let go. Any longer, I've been hung up for too long. Any shorter, I mustn't have been serious.

If love is not 1+1=2 then why is letting go simplified to an equation?

Contrary to popular portrayals by Hollywood movies, us falling apart didn't happen overnight. Hardly any relationship comes to pieces with such great speed. We were prepared for it, and we have been for an extended period of time. At the end of the day, wariness breeds weariness. It's not something you can live with for long, and certainly not something you want to live with for the rest of your life. They say the eyes are windows to the soul; by the time I finally accepted our fate, my eyes already lost their sparks.

Recalling the nights I almost lost my sanity... Nobody can say we didn't try. We wanted, more than anyone and anything else, for things to work. But sometimes love isn't enough. It took me long enough to accept that when fate is a cruel game played by the most sadistic hands, love — no matter how deep or true — will never be enough. Two good people can be bad for each other, and there's nothing wrong with that. C'est la vie.

If you weren't there when the fatigue overtook my body, then who are you to impose a timeline on me? Picking myself up after the fall was laborious enough. I just want to be allowed to heal at my own pace, thank you very much.




曾经最美的风景 你微笑的侧脸
朋友笑我遮了眼 爱上就很疯癫
女人啊 总这样 傻傻爱 忘记了考验
找寻又找寻 像抓不住的烟

偶尔还是 梦到你 我该再收敛
虽然痛 把你藏 心里面

每次走过那间店 总习惯望里面
你碰倒我的咖啡 是相遇的瞬间
爱来了 爱走了 没排练 我牢记每天
要多少眼泪 才能写成一篇

其实常常 提起你 还是会想念
倔强的 我们都 难改变

放开的手 难再牵
没有什么 好亏欠
经历的 每件事 都会是恩典
忘记你的脸 要花好多年
But I know I will let you go somehow

我只想 大步走向前
让阳光 晒到发亮 烦恼放一边
放下你放过自己 夜里 不准有眼泪不准失眠
说好要过的鲜艳

我只想 大步走向前
很不舍 都要能够 笑着说再见
不再依靠谁的肩 终于长大了 终于我勇敢了
没有你一样很好 goodbye my love
再见 my love

My motivation to pick up my figurative pen and paper has always been linked to my reading habits, which have been largely absent in my last year of university. After what felt like an eternity — six months to be exact, while I finished the last bits of my dreaded university life — I finally had the time to read again.

I’m embarrassed to admit that it wasn’t the first thing I picked up upon submitting my first assignment. I had surrendered to the age of technology saturation and turned to YouTube and Netflix and, upon completing every series I was interested in, finally my Kindle.

I found my Kindle with its battery exhausted and literally covered in dust due to the construction nearby my house. The cover was scratched, battered, and as yellow as a book in storage. I couldn’t have found a better literary representation of the relationship between my Kindle and I. Pardon the unforeseen sentiments.

I got the Kindle during my first internship stint four years ago, which seemed like only yesterday although the six months I was away from my e-books felt like forever. Time is a master of deception, isn’t it?

I held several positions since then. A full-time marketing position, going back to being a clueless intern, then facing endless clients as a freelancer. I travelled with my Kindle, conquering the countries I declared, as a young dreamer, I’d visit someday.

For four tumultuous yet significant years, I’ve had my Kindle. Looking back, it’s rather ironic that the Kindle lasted longer than my friendship with the people who persuaded me to not get it.
 Adult friendships, as I learnt, do not end with a monumental melodramatic fight — it gradually fizzles out, like a coke that has been left on the table for far too long. Sometimes you let it be. Sometimes it’s long been depleted before even the most discerning person notices it.

It doesn’t hurt any less just because I’m an adult now — or maybe, just maybe, I’m not an adult yet because I haven’t grown numb to it. That’s fine. Or at least I keep telling myself that it is. Life is short. Celebrate the wins and don’t beat yourself too much over the losses. One day, it’ll come a full circle; maybe we’ll meet again and chatter endlessly about the things that don’t matter as if time never passed.

Perhaps it’s time to let go of these memories, we can’t hold on to them forever. Perhaps it’s fine to not have control. Perhaps we can’t keep fixing everything.

The one thing that’s for sure? It’s time to get a new Kindle cover.