Every time we spoke you seemed different. You tried to be there for me, you told me things I wanted to hear, but the follow-through was more and more delayed, or sometimes it just felt like you forgot about me. I understood why, but at the same time it felt like I had less and less space in your life. And it was hard: having that closeness, curiosity, consistency meant the world to me, but it started to fade. So I decided to care for you from a distance. Since I saw how overwhelmed and confused you were, how many things you had to handle at once, I didn’t want to add to your struggles with my feelings. At the same time, I started to realise that if I kept myself in the situation as it unfolded, I knew I’d start to push you to come back, to show up for me, to say something you were not ready for, or to make promises you couldn’t keep. It felt like you didn’t necessarily have the capacity to be there for me, so I stepped back with the hope that when you’re ready, you’ll come back to me. I had to let you go, so you could go through this period the way you needed to, so you could find the answers you were looking for. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But I was tired. Hurt. Triggered. It was too much. But everything I did, I did out of love.

For a long time I thought I could be this endless source that can feed anyone who needs it, but I had to realise that I’m not endless. I’m not bulletproof. I can’t handle everything just like that. I was triggered terribly. It felt like I was alone: I was that 7-year-old little girl again who is easy to leave behind, who always has to be the strong one, who has to suppress her needs and emotions because other people have it worse… So I lost it. My anxiety was through the roof, it was eating me up. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t focus properly, it felt like I was at war with myself. I had these endless conversations with you in my head, day and night, where I constantly tried to explain myself to you. My mind made up a thousand different scenarios and was looking for a different solution, but there was none. You did what you had to do, and I did what I had to do. Life happened, and we had to carry on. I left the door open for you with the hope that someday you’ll walk through it again. 

Slowly but surely, my mind began to slow down. I started to come back to reality. I feel strong again. And that’s good. I did it. I was able to choose myself, I learned a lot about myself in the past few months, and I feel more present in my body than ever. Just as much as you had to go through your troubles, I had to do the same. I was overlooking my own feelings for a long time and tried to ignore the cracks. But they were there. My final disappointment with my mom and family, moving to another country, losing or reshaping old friendships and building new ones, starting over with my business, rethinking my career, then meeting you, watching you lose your mom, going through surgery which affected my relationship with my body terribly, and slowly the both of us losing direction… But we did our best, we are still here and moving forward. And I’m proud of that. We did it, and soon we’ll see each other, hug each other, and hopefully kiss each other. That’s everything we need from each other right now. And that’s enough for now.