A letter from November 20th, 2020

Dear NOTF (please tell me you remember what this means), I’m writing this as my last hurrah. Hopefully, you won’t remember you ever wrote this. I’m sitting here, at midnight, writing to my future self while listening to “Train Wreck”. It’s a fitting song, because that’s what I was. This summer was the hardest of my life, and shook me ‘til I broke and crumbled and started to believe all the lies. I still believes those lies; I’m still not fixed. There’ll always be a bit of the debris from when the train crashed, hidden deep in crevices and cracks I hold that I didn’t even know about. But they’ll still be there. When you see this, it’ll be June 19. It’ll have been a year since you met her. It’ll have been a year since it all began, since you fell and she caught you, tearing your heart in the process. And she’s got a piece. She’s still got a part of my heart that she took halfway across the world with her. She keeps saying she’ll return, and I keep hoping to retrieve what’s mine. But every time the time grows nearer, she holds herself back and resets the timeline, and the hole where that missing piece belongs grows a bit to try and cope with the loss, knowing it has lost a piece of it forever. I’ll never get it back. That spark I saw, the spark of the flame that keeps her brown eyes warm as they are, melted me the moment I looked into them. Today is November 19. It’s been five months since a piece of my heart has been stolen. I wonder if I’ll get it back. Five months ago today, I fell in love. It wasn’t lust. That’s a scary thought. Most describe love as the happiest times of their lost. I would say it was the most depressing. I lost myself, burned who I was, just to let her try to put it out and admire her handiwork. In a split second, I try to put out a fire. I succeeded, but now I carry that scar with me for a lifetime. I’ll always carry it with me. I’ll always carry the scar of love with me. I fell hard in love with her. It wasn’t lust. It was love. No one would ever believe me, and if they did, they’d think I’m insane. But I could swear it on my life and survive; I fell in love for the first time. Now I don’t know how to get out. I don’t know how you’re doing now. In this moment, as I sit here writing this, I won’t know. I hope you’re over her. I wear this bracelet as a symbol that I am, but I know that deep down, I’m not. How can you fall in love and then fall out five months later? I don’t know. I’m not out yet. Maybe you are, maybe you’re not. Please be better. I don’t want to see what happens if you’re not. You know the lessons you’ve learned from this. Don’t throw them aside for a fleeting second of adrenaline. Your values are what define you; stick with them. And never throw them out for anyone. Never again. Let them all think you’re insane, let them all think you don’t care. Let them all think they’re hearing the truth. It’s easier that way. I love her. I love her, I love her, I love her. But it burned me alive. I now know what depression feels like. For anyone going through that, I feel your pain. And I’ll never forget it. I miss her. I don’t know when she’ll come back. But I have to move on. I sit here at midnight, writing my final confession. This is the last anyone will hear me admit I love her. Because from now on, I’m picking up the pieces and moving on. I’m leaving her behind. This is my closure. If by some miracle you find this, you probably won’t know that it’s you I’m talking about. You’ll probably never know it’s me, because you don’t pay much attention to detail. You told me that once. It’s another reason why I love you. But let me say this: thank you, for everything you put me through. I’m emerging a stronger, more definite version of myself. And even if I fall out of love with you, you’re still the person who made an effort to be with me and help me when I needed, even if it was forced on you. No matter how much I resent it and take shame in it, you were still there when others weren’t. So thank you. I have pride for knowing you. I hope that you aren’t another fake. And if you are, I hope I find out before I finish rebuilding myself, so that I don’t break again. Forever and always, XXXXXX