Never thought I’ll be writing this at this time of the night. And for that matter, never thought I’ll be writing again so soon.

The past 3+ months would have been pure hell if not for the good places Life has put me in.

A new workplace, a group of people I could count on to confide in, girlfriends with sound advice, millennials with whacky advice, a new gym, and a new small rented apartment (even though I’m moving out soon!)

I did find myself in a bad place, thinking really harsh and probably dark thoughts, such as “How could someone who claimed to have loved another put that person through so much pain?” Then after a while, I realised I was also talking about myself.

Those thoughts were recurrent and I let out emotions I didn’t think were in me in the middle of nights. Sobbed randomly at 1am, 2am, and the cycle repeats. My body reacted from all that pain, even. Pain I thought would happen to anyone else but myself.

And then eventually the sobbing fades, I started to hurt less, and I could breathe better.

I had felt so secure for 9 years, and of course I was grateful for it. Frequently for the last few months, some things were tough to swallow, e.g. self-doubt such as “Was it wrong for me to want a career?”

Note, I didn’t even think it was about a “good career”– the questioning was about “a career”, which in the first place was a ridiculous thought. I never expected my own sense of self to deteriorate to that extent in our relationship that the conversation would be about “career”.

In the first place, why is the ending of a relationship about divergence in lifestyles? It signalled the lack of intimacy, the rot, the conscious decision to not put each other as top priorities, or perhaps the failure to align goals.

Then I realised letting each other go was a conscious choice, because we didn’t have a similar vision of a shared future.

I wasn’t in his future. He was always in mine, and that doesn’t’ matter anymore because he doesn’t want to be in my future. There were choices to make such that I could still be in his future, and he doesn’t want to make that choice.

Would I say the same on my end? Perhaps yes, if he were to make that sacrifice, it probably would have made him lose track of himself eventually, which was the same kind of hell I had placed myself in for two consecutive years. Perhaps he had the foresight to foresee all those and to reject the notion. I lacked the foresight then, perhaps, and just wanted to make the relationship work, at the expense of my own needs and desires.

Which fucking hurts and then those emotions would fade, and we eventually would be fine. Everyone eventually would just move on, as though we are strangers, and then people evolve. Or people may choose not to move on due to all that comfort zone nonsense. And it’s their choices and free wills.

It just is–and sometimes things probably hurt more when it just is, for a while– and then when all that “is” is accepted, we then start to develop the capacity to write newer stories that we might like better.

Some other thoughts were “How could a person choose to end something we once believed was meant to be forever?” Such thoughts cut deeply into fleshes, hearts, wounds, scars, and I guess the impact is forever.

Giving someone up is probably the suckiest decision that a person could probably make (No matter what the excuses are). Some people told me that giving someone up takes courage, and yes it does, and so what? On hindsight, giving up someone we once loved is the clearest decision that showed that we both weren’t right for each other anymore.

There were nights when I had sobbed on treadmills going at a rate of 8.2km/hr after 45minutes on it. I couldn’t breathe, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to slow down because I was in so much pain. Running helps to alleviate them.

I’m recovering, though, thanks to a botak daigor who told me to just go out to “hone people’s skills”. That was cathartic and exonerating, to say the least. And so I dressed up, turned up, met many weird people and nice ones too.

At the end of the today, i’m really feeling better, and ready to start all over again. Because I actually now do believe that I have a really high chance of liking my new story better. I lost something precious and I got Wan Wei back. If there is one lesson to take away from this whole pain, it is never to lose her in any relationship again.