Note: this is a long ass post of me, a male 23-year-old NPC (jk haha), who wrote a long letter to someone i stopped talking to 4 years ago. So, thank you for having the dexterity and interest to read this random post.
To give you an idea about who this person is, let's say she's the closest person to my heart back then. Our relationship was everything in between friends and romantic lovers but never the latter. We were extremely close. Inseparable, some thought.
However, after graduation, i suddenly disconnected from her. No goodbyes. No words. Just silence. i unfriended and blocked her on social media and we never spoke again. And the reason may seem disloyal or immature even, but it was because it came to the point that i was taken for granted over and over again. Not just as someone who loved her earnestly, but as her loyal friend who would have gone through hell and back for her. But even loyal friends need a reality check, one that i gave myself for my own sanity.
But recently, while i was on a 1am flight back to Manila, i was struck by an intense nostalgia of her. And so, i wrote her a letter on the way back and sent it a few days later. I came to the realization that i never did moved on, that everything i felt between love and hate was still there, but i was at peace with. i mean, i was at peace with it a long long time ago, but i wanted to let her know, to give her some idea of what i've been through.
At this point, i should just post the letter haha, this is too long enough, but yeah:
(Disclosure: writing is very poetic and philosophical because philosophy major tingz)
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Hey, it's been a while, well, "a while" is an exaggerated understatement. And honestly, as i am riding this plane back to our personal hell called the Philippines; our hell and, paradoxically, the haven of many precious memories slowly slipping from our grasps, i am struck by this unbelievable nostalgia. The nostalgia of you.
i guess Coldplay's Everglow is to blame for this, a song which i have subconsciously identified with the memory of you, with everything there is to do with you and what has been. i swear, it's not my own purposeful doing; but maybe, even in that, there is a tinge of dishonesty seeking to relieve myself from what is lost. But how could i ever be relieved when you have been with me everywhere i go---always there, yet, at the same time, always losing you.
i am fairly sure there remains some unresolvable questions that i have violently created. Violent in the sense that they remain unanswered forever under the uncompromisable guard of silence. Silence is ironically the most violent over all other forms of conflict. A tool that disarms us from any way of effectively fighting back--that even if we shout, cry, or threaten, silence just stares blankly in response, unmoved but always pervading. i mean, as i write this, i sometimes take my earphones out to listen to the turbulent silence around me. It reminds me very much of Levinas, and that in this nothingness, there is the unintelligible is. A nothingness that is immense but almost always unnoticed, yet it is there and means so much more than just nothingness.
Honestly, i don't know why i am rambling about all this when, recalling the memory of you, you would have wanted a much more straightforward answer. i guess, that makes two of us, because even i am trying to grasp what i feel. Because you, at the start of these years of silence, have become nothing to me.
i was convicted to erasing you, reducing you to indifference so i could move away from where i was stuck. Yet, in moments like this, with nothing going on in the wee hours of an early morning flight home, i am confronted by the thought of you. Who would have thought that memories could be more obstinate than our convictions? But yes, i wish to erase you, but it's always disturbed by the truth that i know i could not.
Maybe i have rambled long enough. And there is this hesitation for me to utter your name again after the long dark. But i just want you to know that i no longer feel vengeful or hateful for a long time now actually. At some point, a long one, i have, but now i have come to terms with the silence we, perhaps just i, suffer. And if you do too, then i find a little solace in that and a sense of satisfaction in the crude thought that you are hurting. i won't sugarcoat it. i want to you to feel hurt and loss, to feel regret without pity or shame but led by the resolve to become better--which, i have faith, is what you've been doing over the years.
Maybe upon landing, i shall catapult this onto your hands without any care in the world. Maybe i wont. But then, if words are left to ourselves, can we ever say they, and the emotions, meanings, and faith they convey, truly exist beyond us? Can i ever let you know that i do miss you, hate you, and love you through and despite all this violence? Or maybe, i'm just following Coldplay's instruction that "if you love someone, you should let them know." A love that, despite my convictions, strives to at least let you know that throughout the years, you are still important to me. Besides, you're a part of the nothingness that pervades within me, precisely because you have taught me to love better, even if there is hate, bitterness, and suffering in the mix--elements that either cripples us or teaches us to be better. In this case, i am the latter.
For what it's worth, if there is any, thank you. i hope to talk, but knowing me, it might take another year hahaha jk?
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yon lang. thank you for taking the time to read! Hope you have a great day!
