We met at a students Valentine's Day party, the connection was immediate. She came into my life at its lowest point. 

I had just lost my company and was heavily in debt, working 2 jobs I really hated to pay back my loan.

She didn't care. She adored me and loved me blindly and unconditionally, she was the only positive thing in my life and she kept me going.

One evening we were in the Metro, getting a pizza for a movie night at home. A guy we didn't know approached us and asked if we are a couple. Defensively I said yes, and asked why does he wish to know? He said "your love feels so special so I wanted to give you this".

He handed us a torn first page of a book he was reading, on which he drew us, and wished all the best.

We were so touched and amazed we didn't know what to say.

She was my soulmate, my best friend, lover and the love of my life. That's why I broke up with her.

My life at the time felt like a sinking ship, and I didn't want her to go down with me. She was accepted into a good university abroad, but was about to give up her dreams in order to support me, and wouldn't listen to me when I told her to go.

So I broke up with her, and broke her heart.

About 4 months later when I almost lost my life in a work accident, I contacted her and told her the accident made me rethink my life, and I would move abroad to support her like she supported me. She told me I am couple of months too late. She has moved on, has a new relationship and she doesn't want me in her life.

I couldn't find the strength to throw the drawing away.

I never stopped loving her for a moment, and I'm happy for her, and hope that some day I will find some as amazing as she was.


A drawing of us made by a stranger in the train

We grew so icy with each other those few days; what I thought might allow us to thaw the growing cold between us only solidified both our feelings. As you watched me scrape the ice off the car at the airport while you sat planning your family New Year's Eve, we both knew it was the end. 

Nothing was right for you in Marrakech, nor with the plan I'd painstakingly and lovingly created for us, but perhaps we were both ultimately too inflexible and too selfish. 

I accept my mistakes though the way you cruelly laid out my catalogue of faults still weighs heavy; my self-worth shattered. You never would acknowledge your own flaws though. Months of being fully present for you, limping from one family crisis to the next, trying to accommodate your needs, and taking on board all your interests. None of this - or the strain it placed on 'us' - was ever acknowledged. I thought there would be more grace, understanding and space for me when I needed it, but there was only space for you - I wish you'd been honest about that from the start; with me and with yourself. 

Hardest in all of this is realising that the person I fell in love with - and dreamed of building a future with - didn't exist, leaving me questioning my own judgement. 

But now, finally, I've cracked it and I am letting the illusion of you go. 

A drawing of us made by a stranger in the train

Freezing Point