Letters to My Ex by Nikita Singh (8)

4 August

I’m still thinking about it … the moment on the rooftop, and Simran’s behaviour towards me following that. Abhay, I can’t stop wondering how Simran and you talk about me when I’m not there. Do you tell her things about me? About us? How we used to be, what we did, moments we spent together, things we talked about? I’m assuming she doesn’t want to talk about me a whole lot, does she? I wouldn’t want to know too much about my boyfriend’s relationship with his ex.

I’ve tried not to think about it, or let it affect me, but I can’t get it out of my mind. I haven’t been very good at letting things go recently, have I? Regardless of what I tell myself, I clearly haven’t moved on. I really, really wanted to move on from our breakup and start over. I thought I was making progress too, but now, all of a sudden, I feel myself slipping backwards.

I’m so frustrated with myself. I’ve disappointed myself so many times, I’ve lost count. It’s just what I do now. I have circular thoughts, they loop around in my head, I feel them coiling around my throat, anxiety slithering like snakes in the pit of my stomach.

Well, at least I don’t feel like that all the time. It comes and goes. When it’s away, I can be normal, do normal things, play my character in this world. Then it comes back, and I feel the same shock as I did the first time. I wish I could say it gets better every day, but that would just be a white lie. It doesn’t get better. It doesn’t necessarily get worse either. It’s kind of just … there. It exists, just like I do.

Anyway, it’s here now, so I wanted to address it and move on (possibly). Not sure if I’ll move on (work in progress), but I’ll address it here, there’s no harm in that. These letters have been helpful so far. I’ll stop writing soon, I promise, because I do realize that this is kinda crazy, writing in this vacuum, to no one. But life is kinda crazy right now too. So it makes sense if you think about it.

If she does talk about me, why should it bother me? It really shouldn’t, but I still wonder. That day in the cab ride to the airport, I had a distinct feeling that the two of you had had a conversation … maybe even an argument involving me. I apologize if I caused problems between you guys. My sole intention while going on this trip was to make the weekend as pleasant as possible for everyone involved.

Did she ask you what you and I were talking about when she joined us on the terrace? Was she angry with you for being with me? What did you say? That it was nothing, you were just being friendly, and it meant nothing?

I’m not sure I’m prepared for your answer to that.

I keep reminding myself that this isn’t about Simran. None of this is about her, and I shouldn’t have any kind of feelings towards her, especially negative. She came to your life after us. There’s no overlap, none of this involves her, none of the blame goes to her. Whatever she thinks of me, whatever role I play in her life … it shouldn’t matter to me. It’s her life, her prerogative.

But sometimes, I can’t help but wonder if she does talk about me, how you respond. I wonder how you talk about me behind my back. Am I evil, or heartless, or just a loser? Guys like to call their exes crazy. That one’s everywhere – you ask a dude why his relationship ended, and he would tell you, oh, that girl was crazy. That’s apparently a valid reason. Do you guys think I’m crazy?

Most of all, I wonder if the words you say about me to her reflect your true feelings.

*

9 August

This past week has been so … disjointed. I can’t seem to find the simplest words in the simplest conversations, I can’t be productive at work because my mind keeps drifting off to a whole another world, I’m unable to do the easiest of tasks, my body just doesn’t cooperate with the broken signals my brain sends it.

I feel lightheaded all the time and no matter what I do, I’m always tired and sort of just walking around in a daze. Yesterday, Maa, concerned about me, felt my forehead to discover that I was a little warm. It’s a very mild fever, but now I have to stay home for a few days as a precaution. Maa refuses to let me go out and live my life till my temperature returns to normal, and my eyes look less ghost-like. Honestly, at this point, I’m relieved to have a valid excuse to take a few days off and not do life.

Not gonna lie, staying home and being taken care of feels good. Things are finally getting back to normal at home. Or maybe everyone is just putting their anger/disappointment on hold till I stop looking like someone on their deathbed. I’m exaggerating. Apologies. It’s really not that bad.

Also, if I’m being honest with you (and still exaggerating) I actually like the fever. It has a strange cleansing effect. It feels good to burn.

On a less dramatic note, in all this free time I have now, just lying in bed all day, I began thinking about where I want my career to go. Which resulted in me starting a brand-new job search. I like mine, yes. It’s interesting, keeps me occupied and stimulated, provides meaning to my otherwise primarily boring existence. But I really could be doing more.

I’m okay, but I’m not happy. I can’t blame my job for all of it, but if I can fix this, I can lighten the sadness load a little. I’ve decided to consciously make a change in my life to find more happiness. One day at a time. With my job, I believe that if at the end of every day, I feel that I’ve been productive, it would be fulfilling. Fulfilment will bring happiness. At least that is my hope.

I don’t have control over all aspects of my life, but I can control this. I have been unsure about my career path for the longest time, ever since we graduated college, actually. When I chose this job, it was a thought-out, deliberate decision. I don’t think it was a bad one, but it also isn’t the perfect fit. I could be doing more. I don’t know what … but I could be doing more.

Look at me making plans again. When I don’t have plans, everything’s in free-fall and that freaks me out. I make plans and then things don’t go my way, again – I freak out. There’s no winning here, but I’m trying!

I envy you for your certainty. The ease with which you found your place in your family business and the drive with which you have been working ever since, it’s commendable. You first began doing it because your family needed you to. Even though it wasn’t your passion, you stepped up to the responsibility. But it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. You found something you love to do, and haven’t looked back.

I, on the other hand, have been imagining all these different lives I could be living if I choose one path or the other, and am unable to find something … to keep.

I’m working on it.

*

16 August

Happy birthday, Abhay.

I am a person with obsessive tendencies, as we’re aware. So, like everything else, this too was a point of much consideration. I wondered if I should call you, or send you a text. A month ago, I probably would’ve just called you, pretended we were cool, and that would’ve been the end of it.

But now … I don’t know what’s appropriate anymore. Weren’t things better before that night at Prashant’s wedding? We were both okay (mostly) and moving on (at least on the surface) and overall in an okay place. But ever since that night, I’ve been having these feelings … and I can’t tell if they’re just residual emotions from before, when we were in love, or if I’m developing feelings for you again. That would be bad.

In that moment, on the rooftop, did you feel what I felt too? You can tell me you didn’t. I won’t believe you. I was there, I saw the look in your eyes. It was fleeting, only there for a second, but I know what I saw.

Ever since coming back from Jaipur, I have been thinking more and more about you. I sometimes wonder if you think about me too. I won’t ask, and you shouldn’t tell me, because I’m not prepared for either of the two answers.

If you do think about me, I won’t know what to do with myself.

And if you don’t think about me, well, that information might just kill me.

I’m not doing so good, Abhay. I can’t stop thinking about you; the physical and emotional distance feels like a rope closing around my throat. I know you blame yourself and I blame myself, and we both probably blame each other too … but at this point, it doesn’t matter whose fault it was.

Not to me, not anymore. Finding a person or an incident to blame doesn’t help, at all. It doesn’t change the reality, which is that we ended and you have moved on. To a third person, it may seem like I have too. I have so much going for me. I have close friends who love me, I have a great first job working on amazing projects, my family is finally letting me be family again, I’ve been on dates with very nice people (if that’s important) – life doesn’t appear so bad.

However, the reality of the situation is that this … checklist doesn’t make me happy. I appreciate all of these things, yes. I understand that it may be more than what most people can hope for, which makes me feel ungrateful, but I can’t shake this feeling that I am living in someone else’s skin. I’m playing a character, living someone else’s life. It’s a very unsettling sensation.

Abhay, my life feels empty. I go days and weeks just living like a robot, doing all these things we are supposed to do, but then one day I stop, and I ask myself what I’m doing anything for. Nothing makes me happy. I think I have just become a miserable person. I truly, deep in my heart, have begun to believe that I will never be happy again.

The thought of you not being in my life anymore … it shatters me. Even now, eight months after I ended things, I still feel as broken as I did on day 1. When it happened in the beginning, I would simply repeat to myself why I did what I did. I would tell myself that we would never have gotten over our problems, we would never have been happy together, that it made total sense to move on and start over – I knew it in my gut. I had to leave. We had to end things.

Now, when I try to go back and think of all the reasons we couldn’t work, I can think of none. I guess that’s the thing about feelings. They’re fleeting.

When I left you, I knew it was the right decision. It was what we needed, it was the right decision for the both of us, the only thing to do. It didn’t feel like a choice. But why? I struggled with answering that question for months. I didn’t know why then, I certainly don’t know why now. That’s the problem with following a gut feeling, instead of your brain, or reason. Because these gut feelings can abandon you at any given moment and switch sides.

It’s not all negative. After we ended, I did stop worrying about being cheated on or betrayed. The nightmares did stop, I did stop feeling as if I was walking on very thin glass that could shatter at any moment and my entire world could collapse. I stopped wondering where you were, if you were talking to someone. I used to feel threatened by the smallest things. All of that did go away. I no longer had a weight on my shoulders that I carried around with me everywhere I went – questioning everything, always sceptical of anything anyone said… It felt good to live without trust issues, and I focused on that in the beginning.

Being alone does provide me the luxury of not living in a constant state of alertness, expecting my life to turn upside down any minute. So maybe that peace of mind is worth a life without you. It doesn’t feel like that right now.

Right now, it feels … impossible. To live without your voice in my ear, your scent in my nose, your touch on my skin, your eyes in my eyes, your taste on my lips.

*