Letters to my ex.

"I'm at the grieving phase now," I tell myself every morning when I'm in the bathroom getting ready for my morning routine before I start work. I use it as a way to justify why I still haven't gotten over you, despite it being nearly five months now. Grieving is a long process, everyone is unique, I try to justify to myself over and over again.

I'm never constant. My thoughts are never constant. I'm constantly bouncing back and forth between thinking, "Ugh, I don't care. Good riddance...he wasn't good enough for me anyway" to plotting ways on how to win him back if I ever hypothetically had the chance.

I plan out scenarios in my head as to how I'd respond if you were to ever ask me to give it another shot. I want to kick myself in the head for constantly pining for something that'll never happen. But then again, who can blame me....it's already happened before, remember? And it wasn't me...it was all you. All you. I relish on the fact that the small bit of pride I have left inside would coldly reject you, and I have about a million responses saved up for that exact hypothetical moment. Who hasn't done this...please. I imagine saying such things ranging from, "I don't know if I want to put myself through that again. Who's to say you won't hurt me a third time?" to "Fuck you, asshole. That ship has sailed. Bye Felicia."

Deep down inside, I still don't know what I'd do if that were to ever happen. But again, like the reality Gina tells herself, that won't ever happen, so quit wasting time filling your head with insane thoughts. What a waste of space. When I shake myself back into reality, I'm good for about another two hours or so. Or maybe five. Then when I wake up the next morning, I have those same thoughts again. They just don't ever really go away, do they?

I shut my thoughts out after the initial breakup, or what have you. Whatever you want to call it. Ghosting. Fine. Ghosting is more appropriate. Anyway, I shut it all down because I was just so fed up, I almost felt relieved. Good riddance, I told myself. You're insane anyway, and I don't need that, and I don't need you. Eventually, because I didn't give myself a chance to assess my thoughts and emotions properly, one day, when I opened up a friend's Snapchat and saw you, I almost lost it. I almost vomited on my desk. My mood did a complete 180. My disposition did a complete turnaround, and I no longer felt cheerful. I felt sick, listless, pained, almost in agony. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to crawl in a fetal position. What I did instead was quietly shut my phone off, go outside, run to the corner of the parking lot, stoop low and bury my face in my hands, with  my elbows resting on my knees. I breathed deep, in and out. In, out. In, out. I hoped that it'd calm me. It didn't. With every inhale and exhale, I felt worse and worse. I felt constricted, claustrophobic, despite being in empty, open space. I felt sick afterwards. I felt sick all evening. I cried, wanting it to go away, and wondering when it will.

You know what sucks? Knowing full well that while I sit here on my bed every night and day, pining away for a loss, a void that you so voluntarily left in my life abruptly with no closure, you've moved on with your life. But then again, that's what your ex did you to you too, right? At least, that's what you told me, the first time we ended it last December. So of course, it makes sense that you'll return the favor. I hope you got something out of doing that to me. Then at least, one of us in this shitty chain reaction gained something.

The past several weeks, I desperately sought the web for answers--anywhere from sponsored Snapchat Story quizzes from Buzzfeed to Cosmopolitan. When I'm on my mobile phone, I turn on incognito mode on my safari and keyed in words such as, "Why did he leave me," or "How do I get over him." I didn't find much help--all I really found were the same, trite phrases of "you can move on with your life by surrounding yourself with the ones that love YOU," to, "focus on your career and personal life now!" to "take up a new hobby." None of them told me anything new; they were merely reinforcements of things I've already been spoon-fed.

However, I ended up bookmarking a page titled, "There is No Gray Area: He Doesn't Give a Fuck About You," authored by Elite Daily. I read the whole thing maybe about 62 times since. It answered so many of my questions, like Rupi Kaur's book, Milk and Honey but it still doesn't make me feel any better. But that's the thing about those kinds of reads--they're not intended to make you feel better. They make you feel like shit, because again, they are reinforcements of things you already knew, and things you were afraid to acknowledge and believe, deep down inside. They're just the shovels to dig up the things you placed so far away deep down inside your heart, to the furthest corners of your brain that you'd never imagine they'd see the light of day. You hid them from yourself. Alas, they were brought into the light, thanks to the same clueless writers who clearly went through the same experiences as you did, but ended up making a fortune off their experiences.

I don't know if it makes me feel any better to compare myself to other people's situations. A part of me does think I'm overreacting for the most part--because truthfully, the relationship didn't last very long. However, to me, it was the longest relationship I'd ever been a part of. That short experience was full of a lot of "firsts" for me, as much as I hate to admit, at age 27. I experienced things that a normal high school teen had already surpassed. I meet divorcees every day, hell, I live with one, and wonder about the magnitude and type of pain they went through, for those who broke off decades-long marriages, to people they had children with. And then I look at myself in the mirror and laugh for being so ridiculous and dramatic. Because ridiculous and dramatic are the two perfect adjectives to describe me in any possible aspect.

I sometimes feel as though you only pursued me to see if you were missing out on anything. Then, when you realized you weren't, you left. I was old news. What's so shitty is the fact that you did it twice.

If you knew this wasn't going to last, then why even do it the first place? And the second time, I might add?

You think you like me for the present time being, but don't worry, you'll find something; I guarantee it. You'll start noticing things, and you'll get bored of me and eventually feel trapped, because that's just what happens with me.

You spend so much time with that person, only to find out later that they become another stranger to you. Another drifter. Another faint memory. Another forgotten piece of your past.

I stopped re-reading our old text messages about two months ago. Now, it just hurts to even look at your name in my phone book when I scroll through it. It hurts to re-open videos of you I saved on my phone. I quickly swipe past them as I hold my breath. When I move onto the next photo, that's when I can quickly breathe a sigh of relief. Whew, that was close. I almost opened up a whole crate of worms there.

Remember me someday. I hope, with the short-lived, brief time we had together, some tiny aspect of me made a significant, substantive enough impression on you that whenever you see that thing, hear that song or smell that perfume, you'll be reminded of me. I don't care how small of an effect is it, actually. I'll even take fleeting.

What's so crazy is that, I actually prayed to God last fall to help me get over someone else that I was heartsick over...someone who also ghosted me because they realized that they didn't know what they wanted, and that I wasn't the girl they wanted to pursue after all. While they at least, unlike you, told me upfront, I still felt like the closure lacking, and that I was given no proper response. I prayed so, so incredibly hard. Then, a week later, you fell into my life. Isn't that nuts? So I guess technically, I got what I wanted. I laugh at myself now, because wow--talk about closure. Clearly the Gina last year had no real idea what it really means to lack closure.

Ghosting became an obsessive topic for me. I even took a poll amongst my friends, and pinned it at the top of my social media account. I meditated over the poll results, bookmarked some more articles from Elite Daily and other pages, all equally obsessed with the new dating culture trend called "ghosting," where an individual just one day disappears out of someone's life without any explanation. I laugh again, because I realized that, at least you gave me an explanation the first time. The second time didn't warrant one. Which leads me to my next point...what upsets me the most is the fact that you didn't think I was worth anything, worthy enough to warrant a response, or warrant an explanation. I wasn't worth an explanation. It's just easier to hide. You're right...it is. You just ignore them and hope that they get the hint. No messes, no heavy conscience, nothing. Out of sight, out of mind, right? Maybe for you, but not for me.

Come back and properly bid me farewell. Let's at least pretend we had one, just for the sake of my memories that are triggered whenever I have just-as-fleeting, tiny reminders about you in the morning, on my daily drives, and before I go to bed at night.

There are days where I get better at my attempts with the moving-on process. I think back to the quotes of, "consider all that you go through mentally all the time--from plane tickets to phone bills to job interviews and dying pets. Now, take all that into consideration and think, do you really have the energy to pine over the one who doesn't care about you? No, right? Then it's time to move on" and then I feel better. But again, those thoughts, like everything else, are so fleeting. They aren't secure.

Good conversation doesn't necessarily mean great communication, or even good connection, like you once thought it was. At least, I don't believe so anymore.

As much as I'd like to get angry about the things we used to fight about, it's the nice things you did for me and to me *blush* that I still wistfully sigh over, and smile about. I am in court, I'm in the office, at the gym, with friends and I'll stare off into space, remembering your smell, touch, taste and everything else. The way you'd put your hand on my knee while you'd drive us around. How strong your arms felt when we hugged on your bed. I find myself craving physical closeness again, after being denied it for so long and then being spoiled by it for a short time with you. And then it was taken away from me so abruptly again, which brings the craving back.

I wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, at least three times a week, having dreams that you already met someone else. It's funny, when I'm awake during the day and those thoughts hit me, they don't consume me as hard. It's when my subconscious takes over is when my whole world crumbles, and I don't know how to deal with it.

I'm always so obsessed with how two people meet, connect and somehow develop special bonds/relationships with each other, and become their significant other could somehow fall apart. I obsess with how the universe, in some timely fashion, managed to put two individuals together on earth at the same time period, in the same lifetime, and they end up being important people in each other's lives but with a breakup, become strangers. I can't get over the fact that people can fall out of love. I can't get over the fact that someone could give me a thousand reasons why they like me, only to wake up one morning and realize that none of it is real.

Now I realize that I must quit obsessing over such things and rather, just try and understand that why we stay with each other is much more of a mystery than why we don't.

I remind myself that we have to go through hardships and breakups which shatter our egos which reveals two things: one, we aren't who we thought we were and second, the loss of a cherished pleasure isn't necessarily the loss of true happiness and sense of self-being.

What sucks about so much of this is that while I can have positive thoughts about being ready to move on, I know temporary setbacks will always be inevitable at some point or another. I long for the day where I can look at you in the face and nothing but pure platonism courses through my veins, and you once again have no effect whatsoever on my emotions. I long for that day.

I remember you asked me, the last time we saw each other, why I liked you. I remember I sat on your couch in your living room, and had to actually really mull over it. It shocked me that I couldn't think of a reason immediately. I really didn't know. I finally mustered up some half-assed comment about how I like how you made me feel like a woman, and that I love our conversations, from our first few encounters to our weekly dates. To this day, I still don't even know if those are the real reasons why. Maybe I, like you, don't have any reasons as to why I wanted to pursue you either.

Hot Rebecca has reared her ugly head yet once again. 

I don't know what's worse--the fact that you walked out the door and I didn't chase after you, or the fact that you even walked out of the door in the first place. Probably the latter.

A part of me always wonders, even after the first time it didn't work, whether you just led me on the whole time. You can't blame me for thinking so. I can't imagine telling someone day in and day out, in person, over the phone, how much you like them, how they like everything about you so much, and how you're an inspiration to them, and then one day wake up and realize that they aren't even worth calling up to tell them why you don't feel that way about them anymore in the first place.

I imagine scenarios in my head all the time--of course none of them are real. They're all wishful thinking. I always imagine that I see you at a public place, that you'd see me first, and I'd pretend to not see you. But even in my imagination, I can't pretend something like that. Deep down inside, I'd know exactly where you were, what I'm trying to do. I can't even be that coy in my imagination, because I know myself too damn well.

The other month, when I did my weekly three-hour drive back up to the Central Coast to start my work week, I decided to shut off all communication and listen to terribly sad love songs. I had a playlist ready to go. I remember when I was younger, I put together a playlist of the saddest, heartbreaking songs ever composed, in order to "save them for a rainy day." I just didn't think I'd use it so late in life, in my late 20s. I finally had a rainy day, at age 27. Isn't this essentially something high school teens do?

During that same drive, I also decided to listen to the last 20 minutes of the final scene in Spike Jonze's "Her." I cried so, so, so hard. Not really because of what I was going through at the current time, because I cry over that scene at the drop of a hat, but rather, I cried for something else. I cried for something different. I didn't cry because I related to Theodore Twombly's character development, but rather, angry at the fact that even a fucking iOS computer software had the gall to at least admit to him why she was leaving.

I had to shut off that scene and go back to listening to Adele soon after that.

"We met at the wrong time. That's what I keep telling myself anyway. Maybe one day, years from now, we'll meet in a coffee shop in a far away city somewhere, and we could give it another shot."
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

I'll get over you, just as I had to get over everyone else. I'm the queen of wishful thinking.

I can have a fresh start at any given moment. I don't need to relapse if I really truly put my mind to it. Frankly I feel as though I don't want to get over the situation just yet. I'm not ready to move on yet, and I'm not sure why or what exactly I'm waiting for. Deep down inside, I know there's nothing left waiting for, so it's time. It's time. It's been long enough. Failure is not the falling down--but rather, the staying down. I'm getting up now. I'm going to put my shoes on and walk.

You liked me, you liked me a lot, you liked me for your own reasons, whatever they may be. We don't speak anymore, you don't like me anymore, and it's not the end of the world. In fact, it's just the beginning.

Thank you for everything. You taught me a lot about myself and this fleeting life we have on earth. I realized that life isn't worth anything if you can't feel feelings or think thoughts. The fact that I can do all of that, after being incapable for so long, which even rendered my writing skills useless the past several years, has finally been reinstated. Thank you. I can't believe it took grief for me to get my writing back. Thank you. You brought back the gift and passion that I used to utilize in order to understand my life and sort through it until my mid 20s, when I decided to abandon writing altogether.

And that, is my shocking discovery.

Perhaps that is my positive outcome in this situation--you breathed life into something that was dead for so long. You've awakened that spirit, you've awakened the emotions that dissipated after being jaded for so long. I finally have learned, once again, how to feel. I haven't been able to have humane feelings in a very, very long time. I thought Gina had died inside a long time ago.

Nothing in this life is keeping me from letting go and starting over. Not even you. It's up to me to decide that.

Thank you. I genuinely hope that you find whatever it is that you're looking for, that'll make you happy, even if I wasn't the one to make that possible. You didn't either for me, so nothing loss, nothing gained, I suppose. Perhaps in another life things could've been different but at the end of the day, we aren't in another life. We're in this one, and this is the pen we chose to use, this is the book we chose to write. We are the characters we chose to star in this play.

Life always waits for some crisis to occur before revealing itself at its most brilliant.