You Don’t Have To Sacrifice Everything For The People You Love

I miss you in the sticks of cigarettes that strangers smoke. I miss you when I get on the subway and the scent of musk and sweat hits my face. I miss you when I see the faded movie ticket of Captain America 2, which was of our first date. I miss you in the times that I’m eating Jollibee chicken and remember how much you liked it. I miss you when I see strangers passionately kissing on the streets with no care if anybody would see because that was how you used to kiss me. I miss you when I’m at the airport (which by the way is more than usual nowadays) because being in a Long Distance Relationship with you made me love airports as it was a gateway to see you, and most importantly I miss you before I sleep, waiting for that “Goodnight my love” messages you used to send me. But gone were those days and i’ve been doing okay. 

There were so many factors to the downfall of you and I. I would list them all but I don’t want to feel bad because we both know that we could have fought to make things work, but you choose to give up on the idea of us, because I couldn’t drop my entire life to be with you. I have accepted the stone cold facts on how from now on we will only be a memory, a memory that I will cherish for as long as I can. 

Relationships often start wondrously, and everyone can agree to that but our story was different, you and I were apart and from the beginning it was difficult to enjoy each other’s company because all we could hold onto were blurry Skype calls and hundreds of thousands of messages.

As months pass since our separation I begin to come in good terms with the idea that you and I parting ways may have done the both of us a favor. You had a million things going on with your life and they weren’t simple things; they were things that your life depended on and you needed me to be there for you, and I tried to be but physically that was impossible as to I lived in a different country and had my own problems to figure out. I’m going to Medical School in a couple of months and you’ve always told me that you would be there for me to support me and my dreams until one day you’ve had enough of me not having enough time for you that you asked me to choose between you or my life long dream, and we both know what I would have chosen.

I had a lot of shortcomings in our relationship, I admitted that a long time ago but for someone I love to make me choose between them or something that has always been my goal is just not acceptable for me, because you put me in a situation wherein I felt uneasy and repressed, like I wasn’t allowed to do what made me happy because you needed me. Don’t get me wrong, I needed you to but I never asked you to sacrifice your entire life for me, we’ve always agreed that we would make long distance work but in the end you left me in the dark and gave up. One summer day, you said that you couldn’t do long distance anymore and that we should call it quits, and that you needed space. But long distance was never the only problem you and I had, we had a long list of things we need to fix first before we could have even loved each other properly. I don’t blame you for feeling this way, because I felt it too, the realization that I can’t just call you up so we can have a spontaneous date or just buy ice cream at the nearest convenient store, which is why parting ways was a blessing in disguise. A blessing that my heart hated to have.

We had rough days, but we also had good ones. My time with you was unlike any other, you would make me laugh for hours and seeing me smile made you happy but with everything that’s going on with our own lives it was evident that breaking up was needed, the universe demanded it to happen. Because we both needed the time to set our priorities straight and fight our own battles separately. I wish you were still running alongside me, but you aren’t.. And that’s okay. I have to be okay with that.

I still miss you every day but it doesn’t mean that I want you back because I wouldn’t want to be with someone who makes me choose between my goals and aspirations over my love for them. And even if I miss you, I need to do what makes me happy because as selfish as it sounds, I don’t want to sacrifice my life for someone who wouldn’t do the same for me.