Sure Anita.

I just happened to think of something, I think I’ve mourned this relationship enough now. so I’ll just put it out here so that I can revisit whenever I need to.

It’s been a year to my break-up. When he left, again, I promised myself that I will never let him back in but I remember literally saying it aloud to the universe, literally wailing, that you will have to bring him back, you will have to make him contact me, Give him the happiest life but for one second, you will have to make him at least see the hurt he gave me and make him call me. And he did. Not once, not twice, but umpteen times, from multiple numbers, on multiple platforms, every week, for 9 whole months after I repetitively told him not to. The Universe gave me what I’d asked for even though I now see how impulsive and silly that thought was. How Vain was it! For even after all his calls, I was still as hurt as I had been when he left, it served no purpose, yes my ego was less bruised, my validation-seeking self was temporarily placated but the hurt at the bottom of it all stayed. Because my relation, as I’d known it for 5 years, was still over.
What hurts the most is having to accept that there won’t be another minute in my life that I will spend with this particular person, that all the dreams that I had of a life with specifically him, will never come true, all the things that he and I used to talk of doing, won’t ever happen. There won’t be another minute in parallel universe when He and I will be together. He will live all his major life events, marriage, child-birth, vacations with some other girl, he will share his happiness and sorrow with some other girl. I will also live all the dreams he and I used to see, but with someone else. I know ‘that’ someone else will be better than L, my gut knows it, I know that I’m a good person at heart with immense capacity to love, that the universe has my back and so the person that I’ll end up with will be 10 times better than what L was to me but it will not be him. He won’t have his hands, his face, his laughter, his voice, his way of talking, his mannerisms and that is the most difficult part. Acceptance of the end of my journey with him, once and for all. Acceptance that he is not the one chosen to be with me till the end of my life. And that the little ‘our world’ that I always thought we had created is or will soon be lost in oblivion and become nothing.
I do think all kinds of thoughts, imagine whether he will miss me in the long-term, if years from now he will tell his friends over a couple of drinks that he often thinks of me. A part of my mind is grossed out by these thoughts, why would I want a man that I loved spend any moment in pain of missing someone who’s no longer in his life, why would I wish for his future-wife that her husband love her but still miss his ex-gf. What kind of twisted thinking is that! Moreover what will that accomplish? What did his calling for 9 months accomplish? I was praying for it to happen, it happened and then? Whether he misses/thinks/regrets/hates/loves/forgets me or not, the reality is that none of it really matters. The only thing real between us, the relationship is over and all this wishful thinking is simply crying over spilt milk which will lead to nothing. Even if he literally pines over me for all his life in his head, the reality will remain that our relationship is over, he will have a wife, I will have a husband and we will have two different paths in life.
I now have a choice. That relationship is over. The right part of my mind knows that it wasn’t a healthy relation and I am better off without it but even if I let myself have rose-tinted glasses, it is still over. And now I have a choice to make. I can either continue living the way I’m living now, half-heartedly. Working, laughing, loving, thinking, doing everything but half-heartedly, letting my heart nurture and validate the loss and keeping some semblance of him alive within me by continuing to think of him. Where will it lead me in some time? I will have a half-lived life, a life that is not lived up to its highest potential and it’ll show, in my relations, my work, my physical and mental being. I can let this loss slow the speed of my life and dim its luster. To top it all, if the validation-seeking self that I’ll continue to be ever looks at him again for validation, I’ll only see him smirking, thanking himself for leaving the kind of life I’d end up creating for myself. Or, I can decide to rise above it. Not just accept it, but embrace it, not let it make me cynical about life but hopeful about new beginnings, and live a life happier than I’ve ever lived. It is difficult but doable. I can choose to wish him well in my heart and leave him to lead the life that he desires and deserves. I can choose nurturing my present and future, instead of nurturing my past, validating myself instead of validating the relationship. I can develop love, kindness, positivity to such levels that the relations that I have and will have will be more beautiful than I could ever imagine; put so much love and dedication in my work, in my physical and metal well-being that my life shines brighter than it does today. Yes, my dreams of first-love, of everything with L, will not come true but so what, I have the choice to create new dreams of my own and also those with another partner, more suited to me, instead of crying over the loss of the old ones and then go on to fulfill them. Yes, my relationship with L will remain a chapter of my life and once in a blue-moon I might think of him just like I still sometimes think of my old school days, with fondness, but I have the choice to make my life so wholesome by then that my present will look 10 times brighter than what my past did. Yes, I will lose the remnants of the world that I’d created with L, that I’m holding onto, once and for all, but if I don’t let it go, I run the bigger risk of losing the opportunity to have a wholesome, truly happy and fulfilling life. In letting everything related to L go, I will gain a brand-new chance at life, and with the lessons learnt in the past, I can make it so much better than my past.
And I will make the second choice now. It will be difficult but now that I know this is lost, I’m going to leave it in the past and work towards my best life with all that I do have, and come to think of it, I have a lot.

I think I’ll read this every time I need to. I just want to start over now and stop thinking about what I’ve lost and start honing and cherishing what I do have.

Also, Anita, and correct me if I’m wrong in my thinking, I think this breakup has made me change my approach to instances when I feel disrespected, wronged. Earlier I would speak up, and when the person refused to listen, speak up even more which turned into an argument. Over time I learnt that telling someone who doesn’t care they hurt you, that they have hurt you, is like banging your head against a wall: serves no purpose. So now I choose silence. I read somewhere that sometimes silence is the loudest reply and your biggest strength. That is what I have done with VR. I voiced my concerns for as long as I could. I started with speaking up politely, went on to arguing, dropped down to taking in quietly and ultimately went down to begging and crying. And saw that none of them works. I’ve learnt that when someone disrespects me once, it may be a fault and if it is, speaking up will see a solution to it. But if someone disrespects me repetitively, and refuses to see me when I speak up, its best to disengage and be silent.
At this point, I feel any word from me will be like fuel and fodder to VR, something to twist and manipulate me again as he’s done every time I did answer his calls after the breakup. So I like silence. It makes me feel good about myself for two reasons: I am not saying anything bitter which is out of character for me or which I may regret later and secondly I feel that someone who’s hurt me so much doesn’t deserve any more explanations from me, he deserves nothing from me except silence. So I think now and forever, if he ever reaches out ever again, dignified silence is going to be my only reply to him. I’ve spent years saying things that fell on deaf ears and now I am done.

You’re right Anita. It’s foolish to expect a turtle to fly or for VR to turn into K (kind).

Also, Anita, and correct me if I’m wrong in my thinking, I think this breakup has made me change my approach to instances when I feel disrespected, wronged. Earlier I would speak up, and when the person refused to listen, speak up even more which turned into an argument. Over time I learnt that telling someone who doesn’t care they hurt you, that they have hurt you, is like banging your head against a wall: serves no purpose. So now I choose silence. I read somewhere that sometimes silence is the loudest reply and your biggest strength. That is what I have done with VR. I voiced my concerns for as long as I could. I started with speaking up politely, went on to arguing, dropped down to taking in quietly and ultimately went down to begging and crying. And saw that none of them works. I’ve learnt that when someone disrespects me once, it may be a fault and if it is, speaking up will see a solution to it. But if someone disrespects me repetitively, and refuses to see me when I speak up, its best to disengage and be silent.
At this point, I feel any word from me will be like fuel and fodder to VR, something to twist and manipulate me again as he’s done every time I did answer his calls after the breakup. So I like silence. It makes me feel good about myself for two reasons: I am not saying anything bitter which is out of character for me or which I may regret later and secondly I feel that someone who’s hurt me so much doesn’t deserve any more explanations from me, he deserves nothing from me except silence. So I think now and forever, if he ever reaches out ever again, dignified silence is going to be my only reply to him. I’ve spent years saying things that fell on deaf ears and now I am done.