#UnsentLetters: The thin line between past and present

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. Rappler publishes Unsent Letters every Saturday.

I said the words when you left, but truthfully, at times it feels like the words are all I have. I’ve managed to keep memory of the word love, but I no longer know what it means. I thought I did, but then you left and I was sadly disillusioned. Clearly I don’t know what love is; perhaps that’s why I had no idea how to keep it.

The words are all I have but they are not always my own. Some of the words I cling to, some of them came from you: Your words neatly strung together into pretty promises, your words masterfully arranged into prose or poetry of the ways in which you loved me, your words dressed as white lies laced with sweetness (and perhaps that’s why the lies went unnoticed). I held on to your words so dearly, like it was a lifeline that saved me from the sea of insecurities I was flung into by the very same person that I clung to.

Each day I walk through the trapeze of a thin line between the past and the present and I drift uncontrollably to and fro at any given time. One moment I’m enjoying a nice quiet walk and the next I suddenly recall walking the same path with you, and the walk goes from refreshing to depressing.

I spend each day not alone but lonely. I spend each day with a different girl, but to be honest they are all the same. I have always believed there are only two types of girls in this world: You, and girls who are not you. They all have different names and difference faces, but this is the category they all fall under. I struggle to put names and faces together but I fail because somehow each and every one of them just reminds me of you, and how I lost you. So in my head I call them by your name and fervently pray that when I open my eyes, the name will match the face and magically I am with you again.

This is how I have been without you. It’s only been three weeks but it seems like when we fell apart, time fell apart along with it, because how else can I explain how those three weeks felt longer than the 21 years I have already been in existence? Like when I found you, life began and when I left you it ended, and now this is a different life entirely, so many things have changed that it feels less of a rebirth and more of a reincarnation, like I am now born into a different person, and I am struggling to figure out who I am, struggling to know where to begin. – 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.