My darling,

It’s been 9 months and that’s the same amount of time it takes to create life!! You would have loved a joke like that :)). I think the circumstances here are strange and so I don’t know how to let you go. I am heartbroken, happy, wistful, nostalgic, and pained all in the same, wishing only that I could have kept loving you. I’m no longer sure if I can still consider this the “break-up” phase but I also can’t tell if I’ve moved on. For months and months I desperately prayed that I could hurt forever over you because then you wouldn’t have to disappear so completely from my life. Now, I’m no longer sure where I’m heading.

I will forever be in awe of our story because we loved so deeply despite being terribly immature and perhaps somewhat flippant because we were (and still are) so young. I think I’ll always believe that you would have been the one for me if only we were older and heading towards the same path in life. I don’t think it will ever be possible to describe the absolute magnitude of my affections for you and how much I cared. And I felt that in you too, in the way you always said “I love you” in a small voice with your cheeky smile. The reason for this constant aching is the knowledge that we parted on good terms, still deeply in love. You even wrote me the sweetest love letter ever, despite having vehemently stated that you will NEVER write a love letter. It makes everything so much harder to let go of.

There aren’t as many memories as I would have liked since we were long-distance for literally the whole time. We only ever saw each other physically throughout our 7th grade and those first and last 2 dates. Whereas others may have a reel of images flash before them of their times together, I only have brief glimpses of green grass and blue skies along with a million different feelings from our thousands of messages. It hit me hard when you told me we didn’t actually know each other. You said that you knew you loved me but didn’t truly know me. It hits even harder now because I know you were right. I hate myself for that and I wish I didn’t insist on framing our relationship as perfect and healthy because it wasn’t. I wish I had treated you better and gotten to know you better. I wish I wasn’t so certain that you feel the same because the what-ifs always gnaw at me.

But like you said, I know I loved you and you loved me. I know it deep in my bones, with the same intensity with which I adore my loving family. You were, in a way, family and a part of me. In an illogical sense, you were my everything and I had wanted my forever to be with you. I told you so on the hill and again after the breakup, I wished time would just stop. But as a charming pragmatic, I knew you were thinking that we would be doing nothing with our lives if we stayed in that moment forever and it made me laugh. I know so many things for sure but I wish I knew how to navigate the heart-wrenching certainty of my love for you amidst the doubt that I’m just romanticizing everything. 

There were so many awkward times and you hurt me and made me anxious. And while you didn’t show it, I know there were times when I hurt you too. I leaned on you too much and I may have loved you to a fault. I always wonder if I would have been able to love you that much in person through all that time or was everything only possible because distance makes the heart fonder? Was it all because I loved you as a person or only the idea of a loving relationship and the affection and support of someone? I have reluctantly concluded that it is, in fact, both. Perhaps that same question is what’s haunting me now and making it impossible to let go. I wonder if I’m now missing the idea of you or who you really were.

In the end, you didn’t choose me and after 9 months passing by incredibly fast, I’m not so sure I could still choose you now either. As sappy and cheesy as we were, we learned from each other to be realistic. We knew we had nothing but a hopeless future in store but we still did it anyways. I feel so content with my life now because our separation has taught me how to cherish everything. Not to mention, how can I not brag about the stitches I got, my new hobby (guitar and song-writing wooo), and the fact that I literally drive a motorbike to and from school now. I fricking jumped in the pool in uniform!! That was awesome. I also got involved in a bunch of stuff at school and was really active throughout these past 9 months. The occasional times I tell my friends I still miss you, they get confused because they always thought that I was over you already. But I’ve learned how to feel in tune with my conscious self and to stop my mind from wandering too much sometimes. I’m able to separate myself from my actions so I can take responsibility for my wrong-doings without hating who I am fundamentally. It still takes practice but I’m able to appreciate the small things like old wooden floorboards and the smell of freshly plucked limes. Technically, these all came about from our break-up, so I am weirdly grateful for it all. 

Heartbreak is also an interestingly sweet feeling that is a little addictive, honestly. I can’t help but love a good cry to some heart-wrenching songs. It also makes for really good song-writing inspiration and I wrote a great bridge that I absolutely adore. I think I’ll leave it here because it summarizes how I will forever feel about you. You will always be loved by me, only in a complicated, messy way where I can only cherish that lovely boy through the feelings I once felt:

“Even as our memories start to leave me, even as your face starts to fade,
I’ll still hold you close in my thoughts, I’ll still treasure the phantoms you clawed on my
Still-cooling heart, burnt by your carelessness and melted by your caring voice
Echoing in my bones, telling me to go and don’t look back

So the wound stops bleeding, the cuts start healing and all that’ll be left are scars of regrets 
For the years of loving, weeks of waiting, hours of bliss and moments of missing 
Your grin, and beautiful laugh, the way you turned your head to
See me smile…”

So yeah, because I’m a mess, this letter is also a mess. I truly, truly loved you and I always will, in a more platonic way once the romantic feelings all fade eventually. It feels quite lovely that I have said this thousands of times before breaking up and yet the sentiment has not changed. I genuinely wish you the very best because this is, in a sense, my personal goodbye. 

Heartbroken, content, and wistfully yours forever,
Sophie