Maybe This Just Wasn’t The Lifetime For Us

“In that moment, in that spot, I was ready to lose you…”

We were those two people who were meant to meet. I remember that one fateful day when I first laid eyes on you. Seeing you for the first time felt like I was seeing a reflection of my broken self. You were beautiful, striking and the mystery of your presence was familiar. For what it was worth, we were drawn to each other in mysterious ways.

In no time, you told me you loved me at that church where you brought me. We were braving the crowd of people, holding on to each other just to get there. I remember how your hand felt and the exhilarating feeling of being with you. I knew right at that moment, I had also fallen in love with you.

We became so close, so inseparable. I had always felt like you were my rock. You were that person who would take a bullet for me. You were the kind who would be running to the ends of the world just to find me. I loved you for that.

My extreme introversion made it easier for me to make you become my world. You having been there for me all the time didn’t help much. You yourself go berserk when you lose sight of me. We made ourselves become more dependent toward each other.

I could only be comfortable with few people. You were a special one, you made me comfortable effortlessly that having you was enough for me to turn my back against the world. Your presence was like an anchor to my existence. All the while it felt like without you around, I was only confined to that spot we marked and called ours.

I remember you were the emotional one. When we fight, you cried a lot. You had this separation anxiety going. You were also dependent on my presence. Though I also felt dependent on you, I was the mature one. Sometimes I felt like I was too mature for you to handle. Sometimes it felt like I was the man in our relationship. I was probably a little rigid while you were carefree.

You were a little more emotional, more insecure and a little more overprotective. I kept you at bay for wreaking havoc to yourself. I had also stood guard on your vulnerabilities. Despite those, I still loved those parts of you. I accepted them because they were you and because I loved you.

That visit to your family for the weekend would change our lives forever. I remember how I decided our fate in my head and in my heart.

We were sitting on that log by the beach. That little spot was a little off the back of your house. I remember how we were sitting so close. I could smell the scent of you for it was my sensory lighthouse for years. I could also feel the emotional tension between us and the things we didn’t say.

While I was sitting there with you, some moments that we had came flooding in. Those feelings when I felt that I was holding on to that thin thread between us.

I remember that one afternoon when we were taking our usual stroll around the city, just a block away from the dorm we shared. You stopped on your track as I trailed beside you. You were hesitant, you felt lost. I tried to slip my hand to your hand so I could hold it just like we always did. What you did took me by surprise. You pulled away. You looked back at me like I was a complete stranger. My heart sank. I stood there frozen. Tears started to well up in my eyes. That moment I knew… I was losing you to her.

She finally had a face. I saw you with her. That brief encounter left a dent between us and a huge bruise in my heart. It was too painful to bear, but despite the times I wanted to run away and the times that I actually had, only until you found me again and pulled me back in to ‘us’, I found myself falling deeper back into you.

Back to that little spot where we sat, I realized that we were drifting apart. Your hands were not as warm as they were when you held me. Your eyes were not as happy as they would when you looked at me. It was as if you were looking at me in search for someone else. When I see you genuinely happy, it seemed like you were happy for some other reason.

Despite the problems and fights we’ve had, I still felt happy sitting next to you at that time. Your presence would always give my heart that little ‘thump thump’. Every time you held my hand; every time you looked at me like I was your world like you were in mine.

As I sat there with you, I let my thoughts drift to the small waves in front of us. The waves made numerous lapses towards the beach. We were both silently looking out on to the blurry horizon ahead of us. I could see the distance looming ahead of us – and I could feel it between us.

We were like the two pebbles in the muddy banks in front of us. One got pulled away a little farther from the other as the water pulled it back towards the ocean. In that moment, with a deep sinking feeling, I felt in my heart and I knew in that moment you were already dragged away from me. The sad reality was you allowed yourself to be. I felt defeated. I felt I had no choice.

In my heart, in that moment, in that spot, I was ready to lose you.

I was getting myself ready for your future without me, and my future without you.

I would miss those moments when you surprised me with flowers even though you had nothing much left on you. I would miss those sweet little surprises you gave me; those spare cold pizza you brought home for me. I would miss those moments when hugging you was the best feeling in the world. I remember how you would hug me back as tightly as you could. They would always be a part of the memory I had of you. That time when we almost had nothing to keep by but ourselves. I would miss the time of being young and in love; being in love with someone like you.

I would be a fool to say I wasn’t in love you. With you, I felt like love showed me a face. It was passionate, it was crazy. It felt real, it was painful.

I did what I had to do. I had to be cruel just so I could let the ‘both of us’ go. I might had felt like that was the bravest thing I had ever done, but that was the saddest, most painful thing I had ever done. I had felt like my heart had turned stone cold but I knew in the deepest recesses of it, it was harboring a deep, excruciating pain. It seemed like my body helped me cope in finally being able to lose you.

I did. I had given you away to her. I gave you up. I gave up on you, on us.

I told myself that I hated you and I actually believed that for so long. I knew you must have hated me too.

It seemed like how we were brought into this world created the map on how we met, fell in love and eventually, grew apart.

Nothing had been easy between us. Though it felt like we were meant for each other, we were not meant to be together.

That was eight years ago. We both had clearly moved on with our lives. You might had fallen in love a lot of times; had your heart broken a lot of times.

You are probably with someone new now. You have probably gotten married and have children.

We are now living our separate lives. We are just two perfect strangers who have gotten older without knowing each other.

We may no longer laugh at the same silly things. We may no longer recognize the parts of each other that we once loved. We may be walking past each other in some strange city.

But in a brief portion of our lives, there was the two of us, holding on for each other, only to lose each other.

I believe that we are not meant to fall back to each other in this lifetime.

I’ll see you in the next life and I would love you the same way like I always had, maybe better. I wish you could love me the right way this time in the next lifetime.

In the next life, let us find each other again.