I lost count just how long I've been in a staring contest with this laptop in front of me. There were multiple tabs of unread articles and unseen funny videos that my friend sent me earlier—at least, she convinced me they were indeed funny. Among those tabs, there was a page to my personal inbox. One mail was sitting on top of other promotion mails and junks, waiting to be read.
It's highly unusual nowadays to send personal letter via e-mails. Most people much prefer texting or instant messaging, whatever that is. But I've always assumed you were not most people, were you? Heck, I still even keep postcards and letters from wherever you travelled to many moons ago, and that was when I lost you.
Those letters and postcards were like reminders of how impulsive and carefree you were, but on the other hand, also conventional. Those letters were like drugs to me—I read them again and again whenever I felt like getting high on you. You were long gone, I was aware of that. I was also aware that there would be no way to make you magically come back out of nowhere and sit here right in front of me, smiling so sheepishly while telling me not to think too much and live a little. That silly smile, and that stupid ugly hat that you loved to wear so much, as much as I despised it. Believe it or not, I missed seeing that stupid hat.
"Everything will be fine," you always told me. You and your cliché. Oddly enough, it worked wonders on me. Maybe it wasn't because of the words. Maybe, it was because of your words.
You closed the door long time ago for no apparent reason. Well, I knew why. But I thought I wouldn't bother trying to ask or even argue because, let's face it, what's the point? And now that you sent me an e-mail that I still had no courage to read, it felt like a slightly opened door. I was tempted to peek inside and see if anything changed ever since I decided that I no longer fit in. That e-mail felt like hope... or worse, despair.
"Everything will be fine," you said.
One day, you told me I was constantly slacking off. You found it unacceptable by the standards you lived in. You wrote that in of those letters. You never said it directly at me. It's always been our problem, hasn't it? We barely talked about anything everytime we met. We usually just stared at each other and enjoyed each other's company in silence. Sometimes we talked, but they were just small talks. You mostly dominated the conversation, with me being the avid listener. I didn't mind it, though. I loved seeing you talk. I loved seeing those lively eyes and big smile and expressive hands gesturing anything, like watching a shadow puppet. I loved how you fixed your hair roughly every ten minutes because it always covered your eyes. I told you so many times to cut it, but you just wouldn't listen. You preferred talking. We talked, but not about our feelings.
So here I was—sitting alone, wondering: how did it all begin?
How did we meet? Why did we meet? What happened with those tiny moments we had together? Have you forgotten them all? Why did those have to end, so abruptly?
Was our meeting accidental? Was it on purpose? Was the universe trying to tell something back then? If so, what was it? I've been told somewhere that people came into our lives on two purposes: as a blessing or a lesson. Were you a lesson or a blessing?
But perhaps you were neither a blessing nor a lesson. Perhaps you were just passing by, and I caught it as something else and kept you longer than intended. Because you were not most people, or so I thought.
It's highly unusual nowadays to send personal letter via e-mails. Most people much prefer texting or instant messaging, whatever that is. But I've always assumed you were not most people, were you? Heck, I still even keep postcards and letters from wherever you travelled to many moons ago, and that was when I lost you.
Those letters and postcards were like reminders of how impulsive and carefree you were, but on the other hand, also conventional. Those letters were like drugs to me—I read them again and again whenever I felt like getting high on you. You were long gone, I was aware of that. I was also aware that there would be no way to make you magically come back out of nowhere and sit here right in front of me, smiling so sheepishly while telling me not to think too much and live a little. That silly smile, and that stupid ugly hat that you loved to wear so much, as much as I despised it. Believe it or not, I missed seeing that stupid hat.
"Everything will be fine," you always told me. You and your cliché. Oddly enough, it worked wonders on me. Maybe it wasn't because of the words. Maybe, it was because of your words.
You closed the door long time ago for no apparent reason. Well, I knew why. But I thought I wouldn't bother trying to ask or even argue because, let's face it, what's the point? And now that you sent me an e-mail that I still had no courage to read, it felt like a slightly opened door. I was tempted to peek inside and see if anything changed ever since I decided that I no longer fit in. That e-mail felt like hope... or worse, despair.
"Everything will be fine," you said.
One day, you told me I was constantly slacking off. You found it unacceptable by the standards you lived in. You wrote that in of those letters. You never said it directly at me. It's always been our problem, hasn't it? We barely talked about anything everytime we met. We usually just stared at each other and enjoyed each other's company in silence. Sometimes we talked, but they were just small talks. You mostly dominated the conversation, with me being the avid listener. I didn't mind it, though. I loved seeing you talk. I loved seeing those lively eyes and big smile and expressive hands gesturing anything, like watching a shadow puppet. I loved how you fixed your hair roughly every ten minutes because it always covered your eyes. I told you so many times to cut it, but you just wouldn't listen. You preferred talking. We talked, but not about our feelings.
So here I was—sitting alone, wondering: how did it all begin?
How did we meet? Why did we meet? What happened with those tiny moments we had together? Have you forgotten them all? Why did those have to end, so abruptly?
Was our meeting accidental? Was it on purpose? Was the universe trying to tell something back then? If so, what was it? I've been told somewhere that people came into our lives on two purposes: as a blessing or a lesson. Were you a lesson or a blessing?
But perhaps you were neither a blessing nor a lesson. Perhaps you were just passing by, and I caught it as something else and kept you longer than intended. Because you were not most people, or so I thought.
