It Ended Because It Wasn’t Our Time

I don’t know why it took two years to let you go. I certainly didn’t mean to fall for your potential, but I did. It was naïve of me to believe that getting accustomed to you was nothing but a trepid period to you. You had your doubts from the immediate get go.

I know communication was what we both lacked. You never mentioned that you dated with a purpose. I casually dated and never saw potential with anyone. I never bothered to ask if we were exclusive, since most of the six months I dated prior were a gamble. Each date previous was a gamble. We’d lock hands, I would definitely make the other laugh, I always got a goodnight kiss after, but just as quickly as that, doors would close. Texts became silent, my self-esteem would plummet. For the first few months, it was hard to let go of those who trashed my entire sense of self away.

This is why I never took you seriously. I could feel you weren’t like the rest of them, but your complete lack of verbal assurance didn’t comfort me. I know my insecurity was a flame that burned all the compliments you engulfed me in and bitterly placed a wall between you and I.

I could feel you wanting to trust me, but my anxiety made a doomed ending imminent.

Three months in, you began to pull away. It was like ripping a knife out of me. I sensed it more when you’d forget that I was leaving to visit a sibling. You would ask rather frequently, “When is it that you are leaving again?” Later, when I arrived in Austin and sweetly texted you, you incredulously asked “ You’ve left already?” I don’t know if it was deliberate that you asked, but it seemed like there was a sigh of relief as I said yes.

Just a week prior, I sensed you parting ways with me when you left to visit your brother and his girlfriend. Maybe you wanted your brother’s opinion. Maybe you were trying to use their relationship as a comparison to gauge how broken ours was. I don’t need to know. I simply do not ask myself these things anymore.

I felt like you dropped me. You became indifferent. I would have loved for you to say, “You know what? This isn’t working out,” the moment you felt it. I would have loved to say, “Why are we not talking about our future, what we really want, or where are our expectations at?”

I always appreciated honesty, but you stopped communicating and you became indifferent.

Trying to get you to react was fruitless.

It was a face of disgust or an exhausted expression that made me aware that the constant reassuring I needed was not what you signed up for. I was definitely scared of asking what we were. I know breathing came out like panic attacks when you said we were exclusive, when I eventually asked. I was quite untrusting that someone would really like me for me.

I often can’t believe it took me this long to get over you. It’s been two years and I don’t know why a relationship that short affected me so much. I would cry so much. I would keep it in, remaining stoic. I would bite my lip to feel no pain for the first six months.

I am so glad you got out when you did. I had a lot of growing to do. A lot of self-reflection. Though I want to scream at you that you never voiced your concerns about me, I know my fragile self would’ve broken. I often think that the entire relationship was a fallacy. I didn’t listen to my intuition. There were plenty of doubts I had that I refused to bring up for us to talk about. Why are we always hanging out in your living room? Why don’t we cook together, play games together, draw?

Those rose-colored glasses certainly slipped off. Thank you for being a small character in my adult life. I used to think the last hug you ever gave me would be one of many. Though I never received the last chapter to close this story on, I know the way things ended was for the best.

I’ll keep running. I’ll keep wishing for my forever person. I’ll definitely continue on the stride to growth. It ended the way it did because it was not our time.