Letters to My Ex

by Nikita Singh

  If she does talk about me, why should it bother me? It really shouldn’t, but I still wonder. That day in the cab ride to the airport, I had a distinct feeling that the two of you had had a conversation … maybe even an argument involving me. I apologize if I caused problems between you guys. My sole intention while going on this trip was to make the weekend as pleasant as possible for everyone involved.

  Did she ask you what you and I were talking about when she joined us on the terrace? Was she angry with you for being with me? What did you say? That it was nothing, you were just being friendly, and it meant nothing?

  I’m not sure I’m prepared for your answer to that.

  I keep reminding myself that this isn’t about Simran. None of this is about her, and I shouldn’t have any kind of feelings towards her, especially negative. She came to your life after us. There’s no overlap, none of this involves her, none of the blame goes to her. Whatever she thinks of me, whatever role I play in her life … it shouldn’t matter to me. It’s her life, her prerogative.

  But sometimes, I can’t help but wonder if she does talk about me, how you respond. I wonder how you talk about me behind my back. Am I evil, or heartless, or just a loser? Guys like to call their exes crazy. That one’s everywhere – you ask a dude why his relationship ended, and he would tell you, oh, that girl was crazy. That’s apparently a valid reason. Do you guys think I’m crazy?

  Most of all, I wonder if the words you say about me to her reflect your true feelings.

  *

  9 August

  This past week has been so … disjointed. I can’t seem to find the simplest words in the simplest conversations, I can’t be productive at work because my mind keeps drifting off to a whole another world, I’m unable to do the easiest of tasks, my body just doesn’t cooperate with the broken signals my brain sends it.

  I feel lightheaded all the time and no matter what I do, I’m always tired and sort of just walking around in a daze. Yesterday, Maa, concerned about me, felt my forehead to discover that I was a little warm. It’s a very mild fever, but now I have to stay home for a few days as a precaution. Maa refuses to let me go out and live my life till my temperature returns to normal, and my eyes look less ghost-like. Honestly, at this point, I’m relieved to have a valid excuse to take a few days off and not do life.

  Not gonna lie, staying home and being taken care of feels good. Things are finally getting back to normal at home. Or maybe everyone is just putting their anger/disappointment on hold till I stop looking like someone on their deathbed. I’m exaggerating. Apologies. It’s really not that bad.

  Also, if I’m being honest with you (and still exaggerating) I actually like the fever. It has a strange cleansing effect. It feels good to burn.

  On a less dramatic note, in all this free time I have now, just lying in bed all day, I began thinking about where I want my career to go. Which resulted in me starting a brand-new job search. I like mine, yes. It’s interesting, keeps me occupied and stimulated, provides meaning to my otherwise primarily boring existence. But I really could be doing more.

  I’m okay, but I’m not happy. I can’t blame my job for all of it, but if I can fix this, I can lighten the sadness load a little. I’ve decided to consciously make a change in my life to find more happiness. One day at a time. With my job, I believe that if at the end of every day, I feel that I’ve been productive, it would be fulfilling. Fulfilment will bring happiness. At least that is my hope.

  I don’t have control over all aspects of my life, but I can control this. I have been unsure about my career path for the longest time, ever since we graduated college, actually. When I chose this job, it was a thought-out, deliberate decision. I don’t think it was a bad one, but it also isn’t the perfect fit. I could be doing more. I don’t know what … but I could be doing more.

  Look at me making plans again. When I don’t have plans, everything’s in free-fall and that freaks me out. I make plans and then things don’t go my way, again – I freak out. There’s no winning here, but I’m trying!

  I envy you for your certainty. The ease with which you found your place in your family business and the drive with which you have been working ever since, it’s commendable. You first began doing it because your family needed you to. Even though it wasn’t your passion, you stepped up to the responsibility. But it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. You found something you love to do, and haven’t looked back.

  I, on the other hand, have been imagining all these different lives I could be living if I choose one path or the other, and am unable to find something … to keep.

  I’m working on it.

  *

  16 August

  Happy birthday, Abhay.

  I am a person with obsessive tendencies, as we’re aware. So, like everything else, this too was a point of much consideration. I wondered if I should call you, or send you a text. A month ago, I probably would’ve just called you, pretended we were cool, and that would’ve been the end of it.

  But now … I don’t know what’s appropriate anymore. Weren’t things better before that night at Prashant’s wedding? We were both okay (mostly) and moving on (at least on the surface) and overall in an okay place. But ever since that night, I’ve been having these feelings … and I can’t tell if they’re just residual emotions from before, when we were in love, or if I’m developing feelings for you again. That would be bad.

  In that moment, on the rooftop, did you feel what I felt too? You can tell me you didn’t. I won’t believe you. I was there, I saw the look in your eyes. It was fleeting, only there for a second, but I know what I saw.

  Ever since coming back from Jaipur, I have been thinking more and more about you. I sometimes wonder if you think about me too. I won’t ask, and you shouldn’t tell me, because I’m not prepared for either of the two answers.

  If you do think about me, I won’t know what to do with myself.

  And if you don’t think about me, well, that information might just kill me.

  I’m not doing so good, Abhay. I can’t stop thinking about you; the physical and emotional distance feels like a rope closing around my throat. I know you blame yourself and I blame myself, and we both probably blame each other too … but at this point, it doesn’t matter whose fault it was.

  Not to me, not anymore. Finding a person or an incident to blame doesn’t help, at all. It doesn’t change the reality, which is that we ended and you have moved on. To a third person, it may seem like I have too. I have so much going for me. I have close friends who love me, I have a great first job working on amazing projects, my family is finally letting me be family again, I’ve been on dates with very nice people (if that’s important) – life doesn’t appear so bad.

  However, the reality of the situation is that this … checklist doesn’t make me happy. I appreciate all of these things, yes. I understand that it may be more than what most people can hope for, which makes me feel ungrateful, but I can’t shake this feeling that I am living in someone else’s skin. I’m playing a character, living someone else’s life. It’s a very unsettling sensation.

  Abhay, my life feels empty. I go days and weeks just living like a robot, doing all these things we are supposed to do, but then one day I stop, and I ask myself what I’m doing anything for. Nothing makes me happy. I think I have just become a miserable person. I truly, deep in my heart, have begun to believe that I will never be happy again.

  The thought of you not being in my life anymore … it shatters me. Even now, eight months after I ended things, I still feel as broken as I did on day 1. When it happened in the beginning, I would simply repeat to myself why I did what I did. I would tell myself that we would never have gotten over our problems, we would never have been happy together, that it made total sense to move on and start over – I knew it in my gut. I had to leave. We had to end things.

  Now, when I try to go back and think of all the reasons we couldn’t work, I can think of none. I guess that’s the thing abou
t feelings. They’re fleeting.

  When I left you, I knew it was the right decision. It was what we needed, it was the right decision for the both of us, the only thing to do. It didn’t feel like a choice. But why? I struggled with answering that question for months. I didn’t know why then, I certainly don’t know why now. That’s the problem with following a gut feeling, instead of your brain, or reason. Because these gut feelings can abandon you at any given moment and switch sides.

  It’s not all negative. After we ended, I did stop worrying about being cheated on or betrayed. The nightmares did stop, I did stop feeling as if I was walking on very thin glass that could shatter at any moment and my entire world could collapse. I stopped wondering where you were, if you were talking to someone. I used to feel threatened by the smallest things. All of that did go away. I no longer had a weight on my shoulders that I carried around with me everywhere I went – questioning everything, always sceptical of anything anyone said… It felt good to live without trust issues, and I focused on that in the beginning.

  Being alone does provide me the luxury of not living in a constant state of alertness, expecting my life to turn upside down any minute. So maybe that peace of mind is worth a life without you. It doesn’t feel like that right now.

  Right now, it feels … impossible. To live without your voice in my ear, your scent in my nose, your touch on my skin, your eyes in my eyes, your taste on my lips.

  *

  26 August

  ABHAY: Hey, how’s it going?

  NIDHI: Hey. Good. What’s up?

  ABHAY: I wanted to ask you a quick question. It might be a little strange though

  NIDHI: What is it?

  ABHAY: Well, I wanted to know if when we were together, did you ever feel as if I wasn’t attentive enough, or that I didn’t care about what was going on in your life or things you care about?

  NIDHI: What are you talking about? Never.

  ABHAY: Really? You always felt you were getting everything you wanted or needed from me?

  NIDHI: Yes. You were a good boyfriend, Abhay. I mean, we had our problems in the end, but while we were together, you were always good to me. Funny, thoughtful, caring. I don’t remember feeling any sort of disappointment.

  ABHAY: Hmm

  NIDHI: What’s going on?

  ABHAY: You’re probably the last person I should share this with

  NIDHI: What do we have to lose? We’ve lost everything anyway

  ABHAY: Don’t say that

  NIDHI: It’s true

  ABHAY: Just don’t say it, please. Anyway, recently, Simran has not been the happiest girlfriend. And I think it’s my fault. She … the other day, she told me that she thought I was shutting her out, and not being completely honest with her. That just threw me off

  NIDHI: Because you feel like you are being open and honest with her?

  ABHAY: I think I am. I tell her everything I think I know … but then there are things that are unresolved, that I don’t know the answers to … I myself don’t know how I feel about them, and I can’t tell her something that’s not true, so by that logic, I’m probably keeping things from her

  NIDHI: What kind of things?

  ABHAY: I … really shouldn’t. I mean, things like, when she asks how I feel about something, I have to think about it for a second before I respond. Because either 1) I honestly don’t know how I feel about it and 2) I have to make sure I don’t say something that hurts her feelings

  NIDHI: Okay, I don’t know what you’re talking about here, but if she’s asking you something directly, you have to trust that she’s ready for your answer. Yes, no, maybe, I don’t know – whatever it is, she has probably already thought of all possibilities before asking you, if it’s something important

  ABHAY: But that doesn’t mean she can’t be hurt by my response

  NIDHI: You’re right, yes. But she asked you, so you owe her the truth. You have to show her all the cards, and she’s the one who gets to decide what she wants to do with the information. Hiding the truth, whatever it is, is not going to change it. She just won’t be in on it, which is probably how she feels, if she’s saying you shut her out

  ABHAY: You don’t know how complicated this is

  NIDHI: I guess I don’t. But with the little information I’ve been given, this is my best advice. Honesty over lies, always

  ABHAY: That’s good advice. I don’t know how it helps me though

  NIDHI: Give her some credit, Abhay. She’s probably not as fragile, or in need of protection, as you think she is. I understand your instinct to try to protect her, it’s very sweet. But she doesn’t need to be left out while you try to find the answers for yourself. Include her, work on the problems together. I’m sure she would appreciate the openness. She’s clearly in love with you. Give her a chance. If you’re not honest now, it only gets worse from here. You don’t want to build a relationship on a weak foundation

  ABHAY: You’re making a lot of sense right now

  NIDHI: Ha, you’ve found me on one of my better days. Anyway, I have to go now. Good luck with all this!

  September

  I hope things are okay with Simran and you. I feel bad for the way we left things after Jaipur. So unnecessary, after everything was going so well. She seems like a sweet, genuine person, and she’s clearly in love with you.

  You seemed happy too, at least till the night of the wedding. Ever since then, I don’t know. I don’t know where you are and what you are and aren’t thinking. For all I know, you could be exactly where I am, or miles and miles apart. I have no way to tell, and I’ve been trying not to assume anything.

  Let me explain. The other night, when you were asking me all those questions about how I felt about your emotional availability when we were together, I didn’t ask you why you needed to know. I can only assume. If she thinks you’re closed off and unavailable, then there’s certainly something different about your relationship with her. Because when we were together, never, not once did I think that you were shutting me out. I never craved more closeness, and hoped you would give me more.

  Yes, I wanted to be with you all the time, and missed you when we weren’t together, but I never wondered if you were thinking about me or not. I never wished I could get to know you better. We were happy, comfortable. I knew who you were as a person, the little things and the big ones. I never thought of you as a closed book. I never felt left out, or wondered what was going on in your head.

  You felt the same way about me. Our desire to be with each other came from our love for each other, not our need to control. And we didn’t need to control each other, because we were sure in the fact that in a way, we already had control over the other person. It’s called love.

  We loved each other like crazy. Everything we did, together or alone, we always knew that we were loved unconditionally. There were no questions or doubts. We knew each other inside-out and loved every bit about the other person. Until…

  Anyway, I thought of all of this when you told me how Simran feels. You’re not emotionally unavailable, so if she’s feeling that you are, it’s probably something you did. (Maybe you are emotionally unavailable to her). Unless it’s some sort of baggage she’s carrying from before. But in my experience, I’ve seen that girls have a sort of intuition about these things. If you’re making her feel like this, like she’s not enough, or if you can’t give her all of you, or all she wants, you probably shouldn’t string her along. It’s unfair to the both of you, especially to her.

  When I say that maybe you’re emotionally unavailable to her, I don’t mean you’re trying to be that way. Maybe you don’t even see it. But she does. If she feels that way, maybe it’s true. Maybe you should think about what you’re doing that’s making her feel like that.

  Of course, I can say none of this to you. The ex-girlfriend telling you to how to treat your new girlfriend … that’s not okay. Besides, this is just me trying to string random pieces together. I could be miles away from reality.

>   Just like you could’ve been miles away from where I was that night on the rooftop. I can’t get it out of my head. That look in your eyes … it’s driving me crazy. But it could’ve just been me, building parallel realities in my head, while in the literal reality, you felt something for a brief second, possibly out of habit, and moved on in the very next second, never thought about it again.

  Or you’re exactly where I am. Thinking about it every single night since that night, unable to shake the feeling that we’ve made a terrible mistake. That we’re going down the wrong path. This is not how our story is supposed to end…

  But again, all speculations. You could be miles away. None of this matters anyway. We’ve all moved on, haven’t we? I have to stop being the loser who can’t stop living in the past. It’s getting quite pathetic now. I don’t like myself anymore. I can’t remember the last time I liked myself, or felt like my existence was adding positive value to the world around me. But I don’t want to think about it; that’s a rabbit hole I can’t get in right now.

  Let’s change the topic. I have some good news! I got a job interview with this NGO based in Delhi, that works to raise funds to put underprivileged kids back in school. It’s a new organization, but with a sensible business model. It being owned by Rajeev Kapoor helps with funding and branding; having a Bollywood A-lister makes everything easier. If I get the job, I would be doing mostly branding – working with the digital marketing team to do research, raise awareness, put the organization on the map.

  I’m trying not to get too excited about this job, because I’m not sure they like me there. The day of the interview … was a strange one. I had woken up from a restless sleep. The stress for the interview, teamed with the haphazard research I had done to prepare for it resulted in these … colourful images in my dreams. It was a mixture of pictures I saw in the articles I’d read the night before, the disturbing data, and my own constant state of panic about wasting my life when I could be doing more, something to make a real difference.