I gambled it all, called the bluff and saw only a fool on the other side of the mirror. it’s been six years, can you believe it? you left before your birthday and didn’t tell me, so i quietly packed up the box, creased the tape gently, gave you your box, and watched you go. stood by the doorway unsure if i too could leave and you know what, i never did for a long time. always unsure if i was allowed to, whether it was safe to do so, preoccupied, consumed with wondering whether i was wrong for letting you go. whether i hadn’t fought hard enough when the answer was always no, i never needed to fight. the writing was on the wall and i wouldn’t dare read it.
did I look better in the rear view mirror?
that’s a trick question because you never looked back.
but i kid. and maybe because once again, it’s a beautiful day and i’ve got to study for exams and work on my machine learning project, i wanted to write. you know, i haven’t written in so long, but yesterday, i thought i had a deja vu where i was staring at an Access database. and i thought everything in my life has led up to here, and isn’t this what i wanted? a redo, a pivot, a new chapter.
and i want to believe that things are looking up. i was thinking about that the other day. whether or not i’d run into you and whether or not things would be like where they left off. how i felt about you because i don’t think, after years of reflection, that you had done me wrong. and that it was all me. i moved out after six years. god. i moved out of the city, out of the country. and there was a time when i never thought i would even leave that doorway, hoping maybe you’d come back.
but i left. and i love it. and it makes me sad that i like it so much because i get nostalgic and love to hang on to the past, but i think this is the sign that progress is letting go as much as it is moving forward. I tried dragging the world with me and i am exhausted.
i have wonderful friends and i’m discovering things about myself all the time. i realize i’m really numb to the things that once bothered me, excited me, moved me. isn’t that sad? this nihilism has overtaken me. i feel like i harbor elements of both gen z and millennial culture. my fashion and style has changed. my political views have warped. my understanding of myself is both more lucid and nebulous somehow. i’m not sure if i ever want to get married. i’m more in tune with my faults, more forgiving, everything i had worked to become because i needed to. i am less insecure, more self-assured, both more stubborn and less stubborn in certain ways. i don’t think you would recognize me and i’m not sure if i would have recognized myself if you asked me six years ago. but i suppose i don’t say that any more with a smirk, much less with an air of a desperation towards validation. i never got that validation and after a long time of waiting, i learned to abandon the hunt.
i guess i care about whether you would recognize me because i still want you in my life. i guess that had never occurred to me until now but i suppose i wish we were still friends in some capacity, that the rift that shattered everything were mended with cement that never quite matched the shade of gray on either side, but it was mended no less. i wish you could see me during my mistakes and triumphs. i wish you could see how i’ve grown because i think you would genuinely be happy for me, and i would be happy to know that. i searched everywhere for what i thought i needed: salvation. i thought i found it in street wear, in getting bangs, in travel, in the goal of pursuing grad school, in buying divorcee-inspired resort wear, trap music, alt comedy podcasts, watching emma chamberlain videos. and when the pandemic hit, it really was the great reset. because what i learned was not that it didn’t matter (i did like those things to varying degrees!) but that the path to self-discovery had nothing to do with you. that this path was not through you, it had nothing to do with you, there was no prize at the end that led to you. and as much as i used your absence as fuel to recalibrate, to be a better version of myself, to right my wrongs, to grieve, to begin again, the purpose was empty if i thought it was in any way associated with you. and when i realized that, i found peace. i really did.
i never succumbed to the many trends of the pandemic (baking, making kombucha, watching tik toks, drinking). i ceased much of my drinking, i started biking and running on my own accord, i learned to cherish my city, i learned to forgive, i learned to forget, i learned to work towards ambitious goals like grad school and applying to like 200 scholarships, i tapped into my creative side. i’m not sure if my writing got better… in bits. I read a lot. I learned to cook more meals, make hollandaise from scratch. I tried to help out around the house more. I invested in my friendships. I wasn’t sure how I felt about love because I’d been burnt so many times before. I stopped wearing makeup, I gained weight from stress and injuring my foot, my finally acknowledged that I had become lactose intolerant.
And I persevered!
You know, I never give myself credit for much. I hate to bask in my own glory, but man, I worked hard to get where I am today! I wrote like 300 scholarship applications and even did original research for a few of them (including making videos), I applied to like 300 summer jobs, I spent so much time curating furniture and apartment rental postings to get it just right. I reached out to friends in different cities even when they never responded. I tried so fucking hard, I never gave up. Every rejection really was just a lesson, a recalibration. I’ve been financially responsible, something I was terrible at prior to the pandemic. I’ve only both two tops in the past nine months (and no other clothes!). I trained and ran my first fucking half-marathon, which is a fucking feat when the longest I’d ever run before then was 5K. I went to Miami for spring break because I felt like it and hadn’t gone on a trip in over 2 years. I made friends at a pool party when I didn’t know anyone. I made so many friends at school by striking up conversations in my classes!
The divorce, not by the definition defined by the law, instigated like a six year about face, this weird metamorphosis. It was so painful, I cried myself to sleep so many times from grief, I did the right things for the wrong reasons, and the wrong things for the right reasons. But I also did the right things for the right reasons. And i also tripped up so many times!!! But I’m here. I’m hanging on and still climbing. I’m breathing. I’m not completely done grieving but it has tapered off.
I am a fighter above all else.
I don’t think you would have seen that when you knew me. And I don’t think I would have considered myself so back then either. But that’s what I got in the divorce. I got myself, smack dab in the center of the empty living room floor packing up her things, unsure where to go. I got myself, and it turned out all right.
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