To What Could Have Been
The third issue of season 3 breaks down the process of having to walk away from something that was once picture perfect and choosing yourself instead
Greetings dear dreamers
Welcome to the third season of The Abandoned Dreams Collective. I’ve been thinking a lot about a meme format I’ve come across on the internet wherein everything is beautiful and perfect and hopeful with the object of your romantic interest up until the point you start to tell friends about them. The moment you do, just the act of speaking your interest, of disclosing to the universe the fact that this is something you want, something you’re counting on, something wherein your emotions have gotten entangled, is catalyst for it to start spiralling out of your control and something that seemed so sure, so close that you could taste it, starts to inch away out of reach, slowly and then all at once. I’ve realized that I’m a logical romantic. I fall hard when it seems like that person can fit into my life an vice versa. When I’m able to see myself making moments and memories with them and start planning the next weeks and months out and start factoring them into my plans. Unfortunately, that also is generally the point when I start to talk about it and perhaps because the universe has an evil sense of humour, that’s when things start to draw to a close. Maybe there’s a bigger reason for this what will become clearer someday. This week’s piece by Natalie Carroll, whose words I was instantly drawn to as a fellow heart on her sleeve wearer, describe a the process of having to walk away from something that once worked when you realize it doesn’t anymore and you need to choose yourself.
To What Could Have Been
I had always thought we were meant to be together. The story of our relationship felt like something out of a hallmark film. The cliché American love story. A romance that started with us as college sweethearts, a dorky, nerdy kind of love filled with shy kisses on doorsteps, secret hand holding and whispers in the dark.
We were both in our last year in University; I was studying journalism, him, physiotherapy. We happened to sit next to one another in a required statistics class. He would ask me for help on homework, and in return, he would let me cheat off him on class quizzes. Something blossomed from it, a young love that felt like it could last forever. We never argued, we had discussions on park benches over toasted bagels from a local deli, we held each other close and wondered where we would live, the dog we would have. My parents adored him and his parents included me in weeknight dinners and family gatherings. I met cousins and aunts and uncles and second cousins and family dogs. I was given the rundown on family gossip, the drawn out drama between grandparents and in-laws. I became part of their world, their family.
On January 3rd, we broke up. I remember that day because we had just rang in the New Year with friends, the weather was cold and icy, typical for Boston, and I kept thinking to myself: “What a shitty start to the year.”
It had been six months since we’d seen each other and so much had been missed in each other's lives. It was small at first, phone calls gone unanswered, strings of texts with no responses. And then, over dinner it seemingly spiralled out of control. He held my hand across the table and asked the one question that would end it: “When will I see you next?” The question hung in the air, a heavy weight waiting to be dropped.I had no answer. I had only just started my first job in London, a poorly paid job at a PR agency. My holiday dates were limited and flights were expensive, setting me back £700 just for a week away. I would travel every weekend to see him, if I could. I didn’t have American citizenship, so unless he was willing to marry me right then and there, the journey we had for our relationship was going to be long and arduous, a journey I was prepared to make, only because in my mind I had written my future with him. I didn’t have other avenues, I didn’t want to take other avenues or explore other people. He was my everything.
Love for me has always been all encompassing, and the person I love is indeed the heart of my life, and the life of my heart. I’m neither embarrassed to be so openly sentimental nor shy about the fact that I invest myself so heavily in another person; I’m introspective and seeking something deeper in somebody else opens up a whole new plane of understanding, both of myself and my partner in crime.
I looked down at my food and pushed the plate away, pulling my hand into my lap. I said I didn’t know and was doing the best that I could to save my money. I felt ashamed by my answer. I would’ve done anything to move back, the rocky relocating from Boston to London had been no cake walk, having to uproot my life again after four years of finding familial ground and a group of people to call home, I had to start all over again. I had to move in with my parents, I had to learn how to drive, how to take the train system, how to do everything a foreigner has to do when they move. It felt alienating and this relationship was my lifeline, my path back to the person I was destined to be with. But now, that lifeline, that thin tightrope was beginning to fray and I knew, deep down, it would eventually snap. The long distance between us had already made it difficult to feel like we were in a real relationship and the late night Facetime calls and paragraph texts pronouncing our love for one another weren’t enough to salvage what we had.
He accepted my answer and the rest of the meal was eaten in silence, the thick tension in the air between us was impenetrable. This wasn’t how I wanted to spend my holiday, I was not an arguer, not one to confront or yell. I twisted my pasta slowly on my fork, eating it quietly. It was already cold.
In the car ride home, I sat closer to the door, facing the window. I didn’t dare look at him, not because I thought he would be angry, but I could feel the tears threatening to spill from the corner of my eyes. I wouldn’t be able to hold in my emotions. My hands sat in my lap and he reached out and encased it in his, he always had warm hands while mine were always cold. He rubbed his rough thumb over my hand, comforting me. It was moments like this, small acts of comfort, of love that were not lavish, not overly affectionate, that brought a gentle warmth and made me the most sad. Would this be the last time he held my hand?
As we pulled up the hotel, we walked slowly, hand in hand, up the stairs to our room. The closer we got to the room, the more I could feel the grip on our relationship sliding away. We were approaching the end, I could feel it and it was quietly tearing down my defences. I wrapped my arms around his, holding him close to me. I didn’t want to let go. I wanted us to stay like this - to keep walking; it didn’t really matter where we walked, as long as we were together. I wanted him to turn to me, to grab me by the shoulders and tell me we would make it. Tell me that he loved me and that we would fight together for our relationship. We entered the room quietly, kicked off our shoes and laid on the bed together, side by side, our legs dangling off the edge. I kicked my legs back and forth like a school child on the swings. The bed rocked gently. We stayed quiet for a while, the clunk of the toilet being flushed somewhere in the building echoing in the hallway and through our bedroom door. Eventually he said, “So does this mean we’re breaking up?”
I nodded my head, my throat too tight to speak. I gripped his left hand tightly and kissed each of his knuckles, feeling the hard calluses of his hands within mine. I felt the tears slide down cheeks and onto the bed. In the silence, I could hear my own heart beating, the rhythmic thump thump steady and loud in my ears. Our love, a possible lifetime undone all because distance tore through us like a knife through a soft belly. The life I had imagined for us slipped away into the darkness completely - the red brick house with the big windows, small kitchen and wooden floors; the family barbecues in the summer; the children running along the beach by the coast. None of that existed anymore. All that was left was two people lying next to each other, holding hands and crying in the dark.
He rolled over onto his side and kissed my forehead. In the dark we made promises to each other, telling one another that we would always remain best friends, always text each other, that maybe one day we will be reunited and it would mean that we were meant to be together. He wiped my tears and for hours we stayed like that. We fell asleep curled in each other’s arms.
By morning, the tears had dried on my cheeks, my heart broken that I had to, after all this was over, venture out into the world and find someone to love me again; someone to treasure my flaws, to accept my short temper, my coffee habit and everything that made me, me.
I looked over at him, fast asleep, the curl of his body in a foetal position, tightly holding the bedsheets to his chin. His eyebrows furrowed and his lips quiver slightly, he must have been dreaming. This would be the last time we would wake up like this, the last time that I would get to curl my body around him for warmth and comfort. For safety. I traced my index finger over his features, hoping to etch the soft eyebrows and long eyelashes and curly hair that dropped over his forehead, into my mind. I wanted to remember all of him. To savour this moment like it was a droplet of water in a parched desert.
Despite my hopeless romantic side, I knew that if the distance tore our relationship apart, it was likely to pull apart our fragile friendship as well. The promises that we made to each other last night were empty. I wanted so desperately to cling onto some belief that they mattered, that they would remain true.
We kept in touch for the first few weeks, admitting to each other how hard it was to date again. We joked about the bad dates, the weirdos we met, but in the back of my mind, I knew that this too would not continue. I tried to keep upbeat about it, but eventually he stopped replying as often, response times went from one hour to one day to a few days later. I lashed out at him once, saying that he never made time for me anymore, and didn't care to respond to me even though he made those promises. I felt foolish, I felt my heart break again; I felt like I had been holding something so fragile in my hands with baited breath and the clock had finally run out. Like this little beating heart we had that was struggling to survive, also finally faded to dust.
It's easy to fall into a trap of longing for what was, for the life I thought we were going to have. The what-ifs and could-have-beens felt like a weight dragging me down, making it hard to see a way forward. It can be tempting to hold onto the memories of the past, to cling to the hope that things will somehow go back to the way they were.
But the truth is, the past is gone. Everything that once was, was no more and every avenue and dream and hope that I once had for us, passed.
It was Tennyson that said that it’s better to have loved and lost than to have not loved at all. Sometimes I’m not entirely convinced that he ever knew what real love was. But I did.
-Natalie Carroll
Abandoned on the interwebs
Abandoned on the interwebs is a new section on this newsletter where I recommend some riveting, spine tingling, evocative articles, books, essays that I’ve stumbled across when I’m left to my own devices on the internet.
Cult Classic by Sloane Crossley and this review of it in the NYTimes - Amidst all the weirdness, there’s a lot about this book that got me thinking. Not to spoil it for you but my favourite line in the book tells you that closure, if it exists, is being okay with a lack of it. The most potent review of this said its about regret, hoping you made the right choice and the noxious power of our memories.
goldrush by Taylor Swift - There will always be a Taylor Swift song for every emotion and this one where she describes her imagined moments with a past romantic interests will always exercise its hold on me, particularly after she says she can’t dare dream about him anymore in the lyric “that coastal town we never found will never see a love as pure as it”. Every time I remember it, I think about it for atleast half a day.
Before I leave you to dream
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Thank you for reading this. As we go along this season, I will be posting with longer breaks between each piece so as to be able to breathe in between and give every piece the time and energy it deserves. I look forward to being back in your inbox when I’m ready with the next piece.
Much love and many dreams
Nirmitee
The Abandoned Dreams Collective