Letters to his future girlfriend #3

Dear Nemesister,

I made my choice and that choice granted me the title ‘ex-girlfriend’. Every decision brings with itself an ocean of consequences, I thought I’d let you know the repercussions that entailed mine to perhaps make it easier or maybe more difficult to choose.

They glorify love by telling you that it is about falling for the darkest night with no moon, about seeing the person naked with all the deep-seated fears and anxieties which keep him/her up at night. But in all honesty, the more I got to know him, the uglier it got. I thought I loved him enough to deal with the demons. But somehow, as his facets were uncovered I was left dumbfounded by the darkness of it all and love went straight out of the window, leaving me reminiscing the lesson that the cost of knowing love is sometimes greater than any heart would willingly pay. 

 Alright:
For a long time,
when they asked me,
“How’s it going?”
 It’s all I could muster
without falling apart.

There’s a dark feeling – less than torment but more than distress that I carried within myself while I fiddling every little where : switching from group to another, from one interest to another, wondering about the what ifs and why nots. Oh it bit me, I had thought that I’d find a place to hang to, a place to call my own, a place to exist in, a place to flourish in. But some feelings sink so deep in the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again, some truths about yourself are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. And some things are just so sad that only your soul can do the crying for you.

One fine day, when I had started to feel human again, I saw a guy putting arms around his girl and I experienced a knot in my stomach. I let the wave of emotions rise from my stomach to my heart and strip away the healing wounds fresh. I allowed these emotions to make me remember the time he did the same, the way I’d be wrapped in a comfortable blanket of security as soon as he’d put his arms around me. His touch always felt different, even the accidental brushes ignited sparkles. But I couldn’t complain as I was the one who’d thrown away the love that was offered on a pedestal.

When I was asked, “What happened between you two, you looked so happy together?”      I stared blankly for a moment trying to picture the happiness that people saw in us. I allowed my heart to sink and waited for it to get stoned. And then I heard myself replying,
“Relationships are very delicate. They’re like that finely knitted sweater which took hours of patience and consistency to be made. And one fine day, while you were running too fast to catch something that was already out of reach, that sweater got stuck in the sharp corner of the table which you had been planning on to get rid of. You ignore that thread which has been callously stretched out. Months from now, you’ll be looking back at this very point, asking yourself why didn’t I mend it there and then? But darling, till then, the sweater will be in shreds which no amount of repenting can repair.”

Until the separation, I thought loneliness was the sadness which one experiences because of friendlessness but I couldn’t have been more wrong. Loneliness is when you lay down at night and everything is the same – the dust on the fan, the cracks on the ceiling, the peeking bathroom light, the green walls, the wrinkles of the bed sheet; except they’re all burning with rage because they are only looking at one person.

After months of having swollen eyes and a constant heartache, a concerned friend of mine told me that swans only have one partner for their entire life. If they are separated from that partner, they can die of a broken heart. It took me that to realise that I wasn’t a swan and as soon as a new romance started to bloom, I got a handwritten letter from my ex-boyfriend. It smelled of him :

‘The mere thought of him touching you the way I did fills me with a certain kind of numbness. It makes me wonder about the kind of ways in which people hurt each other. Some take the knife and stab it in your heart. While others aren’t done with just stabbing, they hold it there and twist it with their all, until your heart stops beating.

You have no idea how tormenting it is for me to realise that you belonged to the latter.
You threw it all away.
Every little bit of it.
Does he really love you like I loved you?

*

The bottom line is :

If you could taste the best of happiness momentarily, but you knew from the start that it wouldn’t last forever, cause sadness and bring pain inevitably, would you choose to have that happiness or would you let it go?

 

 

 

Letters to his future girlfriend #2

Looking back at how it all began, you’d try hard to find the exact point where the transition from protectiveness to possessiveness took place? Where from being breathless in love you became suffocated with it? When did this understanding guy turn into someone who’d watch your every move and throw criticisms at every beck and call? With impatient patience, you’ll witness endless chatter turning into a sickening, restrictive silence.

All your male friends will be put under surveillance and by hook or crook, will be declared as undeserving of your friendship by him. Your harmless, friendly touches to  them would be used to convict you as a ‘hint-giver’ and would suffocate you a little more. Every happy moment spent without him would be used to insinuate guilt as if somehow, he had copyrighted your rights to be happy and had become the self-proclaimed receiver of the imaginary title, ‘only I can make her smile’.

It’ll start off with ‘advices’ to help you make a better person and lead a better life, and for the sake of the relationship you’d follow some of them, despite disagreeing to them innately. Slowly and gradually, the frequency of those ‘advices’ would increase and before you realise it, you’d be targeted with fault-finding every day as if there is nothing right with you. When you’ll retaliate, you’ll be paving the road for a fight. One fight after another, one promise after another and the vicious cycle of unfulfilled promises will frustrate you.

When you’ll express your resentment towards him, he’ll try to convince you that he is a changed man, that he is willing to do anything to save the relationship but till then you’ll read him too well and realise that you can’t change the fibre a man is made of. It defines him.

The endless criticisms, questions and allegations about almost everything : the characteristic trait of you keeping your emotions to yourself,  the way you think moderation is the key to success, the priority you give to rationality over emotionality, the clothes you wear, the love handles you can’t get rid of, your need for interacting with new people instead of being with him all the time; will make you wonder if you possess such a huge number of negatives, then why did he get attracted to you in the first place? Why does he still wish to be with you? Such questions will haunt you stealthily and eventually you’ll add them to the pile of other undiscussed things since all your suggestions like giving each other some space went unheard by him as if you’re a fool whose opinion holds no value.

When this constant state of internal misery will continue for the sake of continuing, you’ll realise that hope is a dangerous thing. You’ll hope that just one more kiss would revert things to the way they were. You’ll hope that just one more candle light dinner would end this black magic spell your relationship is under. You’ll hope that this was the last fight and now things will get better just like they were before. And when hope dies, you’ll realise even if you know it is coming, you can never prepare yourself for how it feels.

Now, you won’t be able to run any longer from the truth that has been staring at you right in the eyes, you’ll have two ways to go about it : You can either continue to be his girlfriend by accepting that he is your world, that you can ‘adjust’ to the situation, that the amount of love he gives you is enough to compensate for the negatives which come along or you can choose to love yourself instead of him loving you, you can choose to go through the miserable, gloomy separation with a promise of leading a better life later, you can choose to finally be truthful to yourself. For a while, you’ll be caught between the vortex of emancipation and losing yourself in love.

And dear, what you choose, will either make you a love story or a bridge worth burning.

Only if happiness was unpaid for. 

Letters to his future girlfriend #1

 

Dear Nemesister,

I can tell you with great experience that he’ll be that guy who’d make you feel like he is trouble when he enters your life. You’ll be amazed by the things he’ll tell you, by the respectful ways in which his knowledge will make you feel dumber. His undeniable chivalry will win your heart and silently kiss away the wounds which the heartbreakers left as souvenirs. The excitement and thrill entailed by a harmless conversation with this witty man will make you go crazy and you’ll feel that life, in his absence, was so dull. The meaningful compliments he’ll give you will make your heart dance with ecstasy over the serendipity of finding someone who doesn’t require an explanation for why you do things the way you do them.  The elation you’ll experience when you’re with him, when the world will appear to be a better place just because you’ll have his shoulder to rest your head on will let you know what it feels to be alive. The shivers that’ll go down your spine at the slightest of his touch will leave permanent imprints on your body.

You’ll be overwhelmed with the realisation that love, however abstract, exists in infinite ways : his intoxicating smell, the warmth of his body, the love in his eyes, the want in his heart, the sense of completeness, the feeling of belongingness, the regret over the inability to pause time when he holds you, those endless dates.

He’ll reaffirm his love time and again : one day, you’ll wake up to a surprise breakfast in bed and you wouldn’t even have to lie about it tasting good; another day, when you’ll be down with menstrual pain, he’ll amuse you with making you brush your teeth while being on bed and gargling in the polythene he so diligently brought; some other day, when you’ll both decide to cook sandwiches together and you’ll add too much salt in them, he’d selfless eat the salty ones which you made and let you eat the tastier ones which he made. The days when he’ll drive hours just to be with you for a little while will make you wonder what in the world have you done to deserve such fulfilling a love. The fact that you can still miss him despite spending the day with him will fill you with a yearning you wouldn’t have known before. The ingenious ways in which he’d hush away your worries, help you unconditionally and surprise you with his unfaltering love will make you wish for a forever with him.

 

But darling, when everything has a price to be paid for, then how in the world does this level of ecstasy go unpaid?