Love Is So Short, Forgetting Is So Long

TLDR

I thought I was making good strides in getting over what happened to us. There are days when I honestly believe I'm totally okay, that I'm over it, that I'm finally moving on, and that everything's good as it should.

But then I get days when I still get overwhelmed about what happened, like a panic attack just waiting to burst from the surface, days when I just want to stay in bed and not think about the emptiness that stretches ahead, and days like today when I can't stop crying over everything.

What makes it worse is that it hurts just the same as always - it doesn't get easier, it doesn't hurt less. It just hurts, and it gets really exhausting.

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

That's a line from my favorite poem by Pablo Neruda called “Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines”. For some reason, that line has stayed with me ever since the first time I read it years ago.

I thought I understood what it means fairly well, but as I’ve been learning these past few weeks, it's a completely different ball game when love and forgetting happen for real.

Love can be so fucking short and forgetting is so fucking hard.

There's no magic formula to help me figure out how long it would take me to completely leave the past behind. I have no idea when I can finally say I’m truly okay with everything.

Right now, the memories still hurt like fuck, that lingering sense of missing a big part of my life still feels unfamiliar, and the reality that this is it, that there's nothing more beyond this point, still feels surreal.

A very significant chapter of my life has run its course, and while on good days I can convince myself that I’m okay and I got this under control, that’s not always the case.

I still struggle with the reality that there's no going back anymore, that there's no more starting over again, that there's no more daydreaming of the day when we would see each other.

Have you ever wished for something so badly for so long, only to realize one morning that your wish doesn’t make sense anymore? It feels like that right now.

I was so used to looking forward to that day when we would see each other again and fix things between us. It has become so familiar and so ingrained in me that it’s hard to dismiss it just like that. Hey Bing, there's no one to meet anymore and fix things, okay? No shit.

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

I'm slowly starting to come to terms that whatever broken and imperfect version of love that we had, it was not enough to get us through and make things okay. Maybe we were just too jaded for each other and too scarred from seeing what "love" had done to people important to us.

What we had was a lot of baggage, a lot of secondhand emotional trauma, and we found our way to each other because we were both running away from the same messed-up relationships that we saw our loved ones go through.

We didn’t want what they had, but we weren't any better at making a relationship work either.

When Things Started to Get Ugly

I was scared of looking too far into the future with him, even though I wanted nothing more than that - moving in together, getting our own place, maybe adopting a dog, traveling, and checking the items on our bucket list, and just being there for each other no matter how shitty life gets.

I wanted all those things, but I was scared because I've seen firsthand how it could fuck someone up six ways to Sunday to completely trust another person with such a big part of their future, only for the other person not to come through. It's devastating as fuck.

Despite that, I also understand there's no way of knowing what the future holds for us unless we give it a try. So yeah, I was scared AF, but I was willing to risk it and give it a shot. It was just a matter of deciding that it's worth it.

It was different with him, though. We don't know what the future holds, but he made that his reason why he couldn't even just give me a small reassurance that things will be okay between us, that what I'm afraid of would not happen to us someday.

There was no talk about trying to work things out if the situation gets hard, of not letting go when things get difficult, of fighting against all odds to not lose each other.

It was like he did not think of those as part of a relationship, and trying to save it when the going gets rough was not even considered.

For the same fucking reason, he said that's also why he couldn't reassure me that he would always be there for me, or that he would never leave me, or that we would work out.

Apparently, it would not be fair to me if he says those things, gets my hopes up, and makes me believe in them when he himself doesn't know for certain if he would not walk away or give up on us at some point.

It's really another level of what the fuck, right? I was basically told he would likely leave and walk away in the future, but I still fucking "hoped" like the dumbass that I am. I admit, at first, I found that so utterly stupid as a reason that I was just like, huh?

I mean it's so basic that even kids know that no one can predict the future. And basically telling someone hey, I can't commit because I don't know if I still like you tomorrow or a month from now was just so utterly immature and cowardly.

Like, who in their fucking mind would say those things and expect the other person to be okay? Why couldn't he be a man and take charge of the present instead of being so lame and blaming the future? It was ridiculous.

Sure, maybe we would not work out. If that happens, then so be it, but at least man up and put up a fucking fight for us - don't just stand there and accept things as they are, like you couldn’t care less. That’s just as bad as giving up because you're scared and just blaming everything on the future being unpredictable.

Imagine hearing those words from him, a guy I was willing to wait for despite the pandemic, someone that I was willing to uproot my life for if he asked, and someone I would drop everything for in an instant.

When we started having bigger issues, we also went through something that I think was pretty normal in any relationship - we were on and off for a time. That went on for a while, but the thing was, it came to a point when he was not keen anymore on getting back together. Even if you're determined not to give up on someone, how do you fight for someone like that?

His reason this time was that there's no point getting back together because the issues that made us break up in the first place are still there and would just happen again. Everything would just repeat over and over, and he doesn't "want to put us through that same pain” again."

This was the kind of bullshit that I could never wrap my head around. First, is because if I love someone, I would do everything in my power to not lose them, but there he was like yeah, this is how we should go about it.

Second, every relationship has issues, but if we really want to be together, we work through those and try to fix them. But noooo, that's not how he goes about things. We have an issue, we fight, and once the emotions blow over and we're good again, that's about it. No talk about what happened, no reflection on what we should fix. Nada.

So the issue is still there, but it's we just brush it under the rug and forget about it in the meantime until until it pops up again.

No one said it's gonna be easy, but as long as we're both trying to make things work and we're each doing our best to be better for each other and not repeat our past mistakes, that's what matters, right?

How could ending things for good and just leaving the issues behind without working on them be the option that someone would easily choose? I don't get that, I really don't.

I'm not saying I don't have any faults. Actually, I have lots of issues about myself, which makes it hard for me to let my guard down. I’m also not the easiest person to be with.

But at least I can say that when it comes to coming through for someone important to me, I would go to hell and back for us, I would put up a fucking fight to make us work, and I would do everything not to lose them.

Two Fucked-Up People

I know I didn't paint my ex in a good light with all the things I just said, but I want to clarify that this was just an aspect of who he was when it came to our relationship. Eventually, both of us are to blame for the breakdown of our relationship.

We were in an LDR, and for his part, he never introduced me to anyone, and he had no social media, so there was really no way for me to get to know him aside from the two travels we did together.

Here are some hard realizations that I have come to grasp after everything that happened:

1. He doesn't love me. This was not an easy lesson to learn and accept, but it's the most likely and kind of explains a lot of stuff - why he couldn't see a future together with me, why he didn't want to fix things, how he never made any attempts to make me a part of his life, how it was so easy for him to tell me to go out with other guys. I should have seen this coming because he did say that with the previous girl he dated before me, he just lost interest, and that was it.

2. He's not responsible for everything that happened. I was equally a part of our relationship, and I'm sure I also had a lot of shortcomings. In our own way, I'd like to believe we both tried to make it work (even if I feel like he gave up so easily), but we also had so many things we needed to work on ourselves. We both came from a place of not wanting to repeat the mistakes that we've seen our loved ones went through, so there was always that fear of ending up just like them, a lot of uncertainties, no reassurance, so many fears about the future, and add the fact that we were in an LDR, it was tremendously difficult.

3. He's a genuinely good guy. What happened between us doesn't change how I still consider him one of the nicest guys I've met. He's a genuinely good person, despite everything. Even when we were just starting to go out, I never felt like he had another agenda or that he was the type who would take advantage of a situation. I felt at ease with him even right from the beginning, which I couldn't say the same for the other guys I met before him. I guess that's why, despite everything, I still miss him. I remember I joked with a friend before how I'm not picky - I just want someone nice, a genuinely good guy for a boyfriend. And maybe that's what I got with him, but in hindsight, I really should be more specific. 😅 Like, what's the point of a good guy who couldn't even stand up for me?

4. We can't be friends. - I mean, that's kinda what we were for the past year since we broke up, even though it felt like I was just being used as his comfort blanket. Despite that, I'm pretty sure it would still hurt to know that he's seeing someone else, so no, I don't want to be friends.