Forgotten Mail From A Novice At Life

Querido Amor (my dear love),

I must confess that I'm falling out of love with you.

I wonder sometimes if it's me. If I'm the one who's doing something wrong. You always say that I never agree with you and that I never support you, and always, always finish with just forget it. That terrible phrase just pushes the hurt under a rug. The phrase whose equivalent would be I'm giving up on explaining this to you which only suggests I'm not worth the explaining. It won't hurt if you can't see it, so instead, it gets shoved under the rug of forgotten attempts at communication with the expectation that it wouldn't affect our relationships' future footing. My bleeding feet say otherwise.

It's just - you give so much of yourself. You even start to believe that you love someone only to discover that they were never on the same page, nor the same book for that matter. So you start to think. Well, of course, it isn't right to say you love someone simply because they said they loved you. In that train of thought, people will say I love you at different times. My issue is I can't help but wonder if you'll ever grow to love me. I mean sure there's this general pleasing type of feeling you must get around me. Sure I'm nice to have around. I'm pretty much nice overall, but it's not love. Whatever this nice feeling is. You'll know it when you feel it. It's a feeling that will cause you as much pain as it does joy.

To me, it's almost like every emotion gets heightened, much like a euphoric drug - you feel everything tenfold. The smile that you carry that makes my day can be felt so deeply within every fiber of mybeing just as the words you unknowingly hurt me with. Yet it was also that same smile that laughed me in the face and told me I don't love you, I never did. Not once did you ever admit to loving me. As if I had been deaf I somehow remained composed all three times I asked. A hopeful idiot. That's me.

I don't know if you'll ever grow to love me? You certainly don't want to marry me nor anyone else for that matter.

Keep in mind that I don't say any of this in a resentful way, they're simply my feelings. Well, I have to say that all your points about marriage are very valid. I agree with all of them. However, nothing in life is guaranteed. Sure marriage is just a title to others - to me, I'm going in with the expectation that I'm saying my vows to someone I want to spend the rest of my life with. I'm knowingly agreeing that while there may be other fish in the sea, I don't care because I've found my person. It's a formal way of saying you're the person for me. I guess another way to put it for you would be when you're talking with someone and you're doing a couple of things but you're not a couple - it just hurts.

Why marry?

Why not?

I mean that's the mentality I'm getting from you. Perhaps it's also because I dreamed of getting married to the person I loved as a kid. I wanted to have my family witness as I declared my love for that person. To share eternal life together. To be so inseparable. However, I wouldn't mind growing old together with someone even without marriage, if marriage is something that they are strictly against then I'll keepmy vows to myself because I'm madly in love with that person so I will naturally compromise to keep them by my side. However, you can be insensitive and naive. You don't seem to know how to give affection. It's not in your nature. I can't help but wonder if all the little things I say and do go unnoticed.

So I've sat and thought and cried multiple times. I wonder if this is what relationships are like. Am I a drama queen? Is the problem me? Am I pushing my idea of love onto someone? That can't be fair. However, it's hard to explain. What is fair in love? We all have our ways of loving people. So should we compromise in relationships?

It certainly seems like a good idea. I have no idea how to make a relationship work. I just feel like I'm not being the person that you need in your life at this moment. I'm not old enough or experienced enough to give advice. I've never been through what you've been through to offer you guidance. We don't come from the same background to relate to or the same friend groups.

So while you tell me that you want us to have differing opinions and for me to be my own person with my own beliefs - which for the record, sounds beautiful in theory - that's also the same sword that comes to stab you in the ass. So you then reuse the same washed-up line of "you never agree with me" which makes me think that we probably won't ever be able to hold intellectual conversations about the things that matter.

Maybe it's fair to suggest I'm also naive. I don't know enough to read people. I don't want to cry all the time because I feellike I'm playing the victim. I just want to feel loved as much as anyone else. I feel like my requests are very simple. Maybe it just feels like that to me because I've always told myself that the second I get with the person that I think is the one that I'll give them my everything. Laugh at me. I know it must feel like a stupid concept but that was my thinking.

I don't know what drew you to me in the first place or what made you stay but I'm starting to question why you haven't left. It feels as if you realize that I'm not the one but maybe you're too easygoing to just let me go. It's not fair to me. It's not fair to be waiting for someone to love me back. I want to fully embrace who I am. I want you to be able to do the same thing. Yet it feels as if we're just not there yet. We both aren't getting what we need. I feel like maybe I'm just a more considerate person. I just think of you all the time. I want to better myself and us. Because you've become a priority of mine.

I "disagree" because things to me are so much more beautiful when we can hold conversations and actually discuss our points of view and not be mean about it. To be able to joke and have a good time. To be cheesy and thoughtful.

There's so much I wanted from love and I feel like I'm giving it my all, but it feels like it's not your kind of love. I'm not your kind of woman. I'm just your friend's cousin who was cute. I think I might just be a transitional person for you. Maybe you'remeant to be the same for me. But I refuse to believe that because despite everything I still love you. I've never stopped. I think I realized it the moment I started to listen, truly listen to you. To pay attention to the things you liked. The way you laughed. To try to understand your humor in hopes that I could one day make you laugh that same beautiful laugh that later came to tell me you didn't love me. To see what kind of things you enjoyed playing because I'd like to gift you with things, not because I have to, but because I want to. Because they're things that I thought to myself wow, he doesn't need this but I know he'll really enjoy it.

I realized it when I began to worry about how hard work was for you.

When I kept trying to be mature even though it's not in my nature because I wanted to be someone you could rely on and I wanted nothing more than to take care of you. To shower you with all my love every second I could because every second with you was precious. I could go on.

And on.

And on.

But I feel like you just haven't understood me yet.

And I'm not sure you ever will.

Yours truly,

The girl you never loved.

it was always hardest in the quiet moments. The spaces between breaths, when the day was still and her thoughts weren't drowned out by noise. It was in these fragile silences that the guilt crept in, heavy and unrelenting, like a low tide revealing jagged rocks beneath the surface. She sat by the window, the pale light of morning filtering through sheer curtains, illuminating the letter in her trembling hands.

It's easy to get lost in thought. To overthink and over-analyze every single situation. Every moment, and re-run it in your mind until you disect everything you could have possibly done differently.

Her words stared back at her, raw and unapologetic. She hadn't expected to feel this exposed, even though she was the author of her own vulnerability. It was a certain kind of nakedness that enveloped her. The kind you feel as you stand bare in front of a lover - blushing red in both your cheeks, and bosom. The act of putting her feelings to paper had been liberating in the moment - a desperate attempt to untangle the knots inside her chest. Yet now, reading them again, she felt stripped bare, every word a confession too heavy to carry, a cross she wasn't sure she was prepared to lift.

What if it was her fault? The thought hit her like a whisper of doubt that refused to quiet. Maybe she'd asked for too much, expected a version of love he couldn't give. Maybe she'd been selfish, projecting her idea of what love should be onto someone who had never promised to meet her there. Yet she couldn't help but question why he'd go to such great lengths to be with her. Had she imagined it all? Had she romanticized a friendly embrace? No... it couldn't be.... Right?

Maybe it was never romantic. Maybe it was about sex. About the natural human desire, the craving, the heat that comes from being aroused. Maybe it was simply a physical matter - and her - the fool assuming that sex meant love.

But wasn't love supposed to be mutual? A shared language of unspoken gestures, sacrifices, and dreams? She thought of his laughter, the way it used to fill the room and brighten the dullest days. How had it become something that mocked her? When had his smile started feeling like a mask hiding indifference? She clutched the letter tighter, her knuckles white with the effort to keep from crumpling it entirely.

The vulnerability of loving someone who didn't love you back was an open wound that refused to heal. She had given everything - more than she realized she had to offer - and in return, she was left with this aching void where love should have been. It wasn't anger that consumed her, nor resentment. It was a guilt so deep it felt like sinking into quicksand. Guilt for not being enough. Guilt for holding on longer than she should. Guilt for loving so recklessly, with a heart that didn't know how to protect itself.

Her phone buzzed on the table, breaking the stillness. For a moment, she didn't move. She didn't want to see his name flash on the screen. She didn't want to confront the familiar surge of hope it always brought - the one that would inevitably crash into despair. But when she finally looked, it wasn't him. It was a text from a friend, simple and concerned: *Are you okay?*

She hesitated before responding. She wasn't okay, but she wasn't ready to admit it either. Instead, she stared at the screen, feeling the weight of her isolation.Was this what guilt did? Silenced you? Made you question every choice, every word, every emotion until you were too afraid to reach out for help?

Her gaze drifted back to the letter. If only she could explain herself - to him, to her friends, to anyone who would listen. Not to justify her feelings but to be seen, truly seen. Vulnerability wasn't just about sharing your pain; it was about hoping someone would hold it with you, even for a moment.

Taking a deep breath, she picked up a pen and flipped the page. Writing had been her solace before, and maybe it could be again. This time, though, she didn't write to him. She wrote to herself.

---

*Dear me,*

*You are not unworthy of love. This is not all there is. You are allowed to feel what you feel, even if it's messy and imperfect. You gave your heart because you believed in love, and that is something to be proud of, not ashamed of. But it's time to let go of the guilt. Time to forgive yourself for wanting more. Time to stop waiting for someone to love you the way you deserve and start loving yourself that way first.*

The words came slowly at first, but then they flowed, a balm for the rawness inside her. And as she wrote, the guilt began to loosen its grip. She didn't have all the answers, but for the first time, she felt like she didn't have to. Vulnerability wasn't just a crack in her armor; it was a doorway to something greater.

She wasn't there yet, but maybe - just maybe - she was on her way.