#UnsentLetters: The First Letter

Unsent  Letters is a newsletter curated by Shakira Sison featuring unspoken sentiments gathered from reader submissions. It features unsent letters to real and imagined lovers. 

My best friends tried very hard but they couldn’t contain their happiness when I announced our split. For months they were worried about my well-being because they always said I deserve better. For many months I looked the other way when they had their “listen-to-me” look and segued my way out of a possible discussion about how I should leave you already. After all, you were dry, moody and sometimes just didn’t want to talk to me for no reason other than you were too tired or too sad.

You never really put an effort, which I didn’t mind. I didn’t mind that you kept on forgetting what day it was (monthsary, anniversary, my birthday), that you were too cranky from a bad shift and didn’t take my calls or reply to my messages, that you didn’t even tell me you were on your flight back home this one time just because you didn’t want me to travel all the way to see you even for just a few days. The fact that we are miles away from each other, that you are abroad for work, and that we have a completely opposite time zone honestly didn’t bother me.

These factors never really scared me because I know you and I know that if you were here, things would be different, things would be better. I didn’t mind that you almost never gave me something sweet other than money to buy what I wanted (you said you didn’t know what to get me or it was hard to send it back home if you bought it abroad anyway). I didn’t even mind that I sent you a greeting card every month just to try to cheer you up.

It was either because I am stubborn, or simply because I love you that much, that I stayed. I promised to take your bad days with your good, and stick around through the ups and downs. Besides, you agreed to be in this relationship, too. “It takes two to tango,” as they say. So I thought, maybe we could work this out.

But then the bad days came more and more often. I always held on to that small glimmer of hope that someday, circumstances would be better for the both of us and we would defy the distance and defy the boundaries and make this work. That all the talks we had of the future – of our future – would be translated into reality. I may sound naive to others, but I really believed in us. I tried my very best to make it work. I tried to be patient and wait for you to come around and realize that I am that one good thing in your life, that one person who is holding on. It was a test of faith and patience and I regret nothing. You know all of my sacrifices, and you know that I am saying these not to claim that I am a saint but because I want you to know that I am sorry.

I am sorry I became selfish and wanted to be happy again. I have had many mornings where I woke up sad even though I just talked to you. There were many nights I stayed up late getting mad at myself for even thinking of being selfish. I am sorry I will never be able to stand by my promise to be your partner, and that all I ever said when I broke up with you was, “I’m so sorry.”

I’m sorry that there was nothing else to say. It’s silly that I didn’t really cry over our breakup. Call me a cold-hearted bitch, but I didn’t really cry. Maybe because somehow, looking back, I was out the door many months ago. Maybe because I know deep in my heart we were never really going to work. Maybe because I know that I have given my best effort and maybe because I really am selfish.

The only time I cried my heart out was a few days after our breakup when I got an email from you. In that letter, you apologized for all your shortcomings and thanked me for everything especially for my time. You reminded me that I am a wonderful person, and that I deserve better, and that I deserve to be loved by that special girl who also deserves me. I cried my eyes out because I felt your sincerity and honesty and I wanted to hug you, because after all, I really still want us to be friends. But above all, I guess I cried because I realized that the first ever letter you wrote me after three years of being together was a farewell letter. – Rappler.com

Do you have your own Unsent Letter? Send them to unsentletters@rappler.com. Selected letters will be anonymized and edited for clarity and brevity. By submitting to Unsent Letters, you represent that the work is your own and that you waive your rights to it for present and future publication.