What’s on your Mind?

I am no longer in a relationship. Not just not in a relationship, but no longer in a relationship with the most amazing, beautiful and kind-hearted person I have ever met. The fact that I ended it does nothing to help the feeling of heart-ache.

A month ago, I noticed a cooling off of responses and messages from Arum. Something had changed, or something happened. I could write pages on hypotheticals, but it would be pointless conjecture that would not do myself, or Arum any good. I am self-aware enough to know that the change may well have been me, something I said, didn’t say, did or didn’t do. Or maybe just something about me that she was no longer willing to look past. In a draft Dear John note I was hoping to never have to send (and didn’t send, it remains nothing but messy words in a notebook), I acknowledged this and apologised. Another regret.

Five days ago I sent Arum a string of messages and pictures. twelve hours later she replied with a single Avatar pic. I messaged her back that I needed more than that from her, she replied while I was trying to sleep that she had been super busy. The next morning I messaged her that I understood that, and I was super busy as well. Arum simply replied with a photo of her feet and suitcase at the airport, leaving for a long-planned trip to meet with her best friend. After four days of total, horrible silence, I finally messaged her today asking if she knew how frustrated I was. A handful of hours later she replied that she knew, and that we will talk when she returns from her trip. After two weeks of constant anxiety this was not something I could accept. Our relationship ended, not with a bang, but with a wimper.

The last two weeks have been horrific. How can you sleep when you keep checking your phone, just in case you missed a notification that you so desperately need? How can you look yourself in the eye when you feel ignored by the person who you want to spend the rest of your life with? How can you reverse a five tonne truck between two posts two inches wider than the width of the truck while the centre of your life for the last seven months seems indifferent to your feelings?

I know I could have done better to try and find out what was wrong. Maybe if I was more forward in trying to find out we could have worked it out. I found it impossible to correctly broach the subject, when communication was perfunctory. I will most likely never get closure on this, which is something I will have to accept and move on from.

I was trying my hardest to make things work, but maybe the wrong hard. We had all these fragments that I thought were enough to sustain us until we could be together again, physically. It was not enough. We were not enough.