In Continuum.

I was there, I know how it is like. I know it isn't easy, but I also know that you will pull through, because I did. As a white shadow, as a voice over the phone, I see myself in your shadows, a single point of light over exposes your deathly white skin. You feel as if you are about to die, or at least you felt it before. It's normal, that's what you get after severing ties with someone whom you have invested a lot of emotions in. It wasn't like a terminal disease, though it must have felt the same way. It didn't take its time to deal death, it came suddenly like an accident on the freeway, a five car pile-up and a lot of casualties. You have thought about ending it all, because the road ahead is unclear and blurred out to your eyes. At least with a terminal disease, you have time to plan the next step, you know where to go, you plan for the worst. You have time for preparations, but not when ill news come like that, not when you have so much hope. It sucks, doesn't it, it really does. I was there, just like you. I was there in those shoes. I hated you back then, and I have no idea why in retrospect. But that aside, I have no reasons to feel anything towards you right now, though I do feel like giving you a pat on the back. We've been there, haven't we? And you know, and I know, it always gets better from here on out. 

Twenty months on, I think about what has come to pass as I visit your blog. I don't know you, I really don't. Though, I really wanted to meet you back then, I wanted to know you. You sounded interesting, the kind of guy who'd be fun to hang out with. But we've never formally met each other, timings never seemed to fit, there was always her in between to keep us apart. I waited four hours one day just for her, I remember, the day when rain fell hard in town and water ran off the red and white checkered table clothes in an outdoors restaurant. I was underneath a giant umbrella of a Starbucks, I sat there and waited for you to finish your time with her. I thought it was a friendly outing, colleagues going out after work because they are friends. I am sure it was that way, but I should have known. I should have known a lot of things, and I suppose that is what you are thinking right now as well. You should have saw it coming, but then bad news never have good timing. They just happen, you know, and to know that it happened so recently for you makes me feel that much more for you, somehow. We do not know each other, and I have no responsibilities in making you feel better. It's just interesting to see myself in your shadows, having been there and done that. Oh, self-destruct and explode, that is what we do - the heartbroken ones. 

For a long time I despised you, but I suppose I despised her more. With you, it was a sense of puzzlement, you were an enigma I did not understand. For a person such as yourself, I wondered how you managed to pull ahead in front of me, to take her away from me, how the both of you left me behind. There were a lot of things I didn't understand, and I pointed fingers at everybody other than myself. First sign of a nasty break up: you blame everybody else. At least you are not doing that right now, you are managing well. In fact, to be honest, I think you are handling it way better than I ever did. Then again, it was my first relationship, and thus my first major break up. I didn't know how to handle her, but mostly myself. You went through it once (or twice?) before, at least you know how it works out. Still, with every break up, we almost always tell ourselves that we'd never love anybody else as much or as deep, ever again. But you know, that is just breaking up doing the talking. You and I both know that it isn't true, because we always move on and become happier again in the future. We fall, we learn; we cry, we learn; we fail, we learn; we learn, and we learn some more. 

I learned that things could have been handled better, I learned the importance of controlling my temper. I should have, I could have, I should have. All the questions without answers, you should put them all aside. Think about what you have learned, think about what you have picked up along the way. She isn't going to come back, no matter how hard you may try to prove that you still love her deeply. That is the reality of things, I don't suppose she is the kind to look back and "give it a shot" all over again. She is moving on, and being left behind doesn't taste good in the mouth. It is bitter, to say the very least, and the aftertaste is so much worse. Especially when she moves on to greener pastures, and you are left behind to lick your old wounds. That is when the scars start to throb and your heart starts to ache the most. I was there, and you were the greener pasture she moved on to. Yes, it did hurt, and yes, it was unbearable. Because of the both of you, I had sleepless nights for months on end, not the mention the murderous thoughts I harbored that are both childish and immature in retrospect. That is more than a year from now, and I suppose I have grown. I have learned that things go on, because they go on. We get over things, we get over it. 

You don't have to worry about your options, like the doors that you need to open. This is like those old school game shows, and you are a contestant picking a door to open. You aren't sure which one to pick because you don't know what is behind each door, though you know that they all lead to somewhere. The taping of the show must go on, and the host prompts you to pick a door as the audience grows impatient. The truth is, pick a door, walk through it, bear with it. There is a prize in every door if you are willing to look, and we are always going to be happier - always. That is how we are, we move on and we always look back and realize that we are happier than we were ever before. At least that is how I am now, and I know that I am infinitely happier than who I was twenty months ago. All those anger and all those grudges, they amounted up to so little in the lessons that I took away back then. It was the quiet moments with myself, it was the talks with my friends, all of those amounted to valueless lessons that I hope that you'd learn yourself someday. It is going to hurt when she moves on, but you don't have to be surprised. You will too, someday, and you just have to prove that you can live a life better afterwards. 

I know of people that remain as friends after they have broken up, though they are so few that you'd have better luck in trying to find a multi-colored M&M (do they have those, in the first place?). We always end up telling each other that we will "be there for each other", that we will remain "as friends even though we aren't together anymore". People will scoff at you, because it isn't realistic, it works against all statistics. Numbers don't lie, they will work against you. You will find it hard to resist it at first, you'd want to do more as a friend, to cross the line. Try going out with her one of these days, you'd find it hard to resist your hands drifting to her, or to put your arms around her when she isn't looking. I am not saying that you will not remain as friends with her, I am just saying that I did not manage to do that. We are in pieces now, that thing that we shared, and I don't suppose we are ever going to fix it. Not now, not ever. She exists to me in the form of a blog, and the occasional trips pass her home just down the road from mine on a bus. I remember a month ago when that happened, I was on the bus and her bedroom window was opened. I was downstairs two years ago, showing her a sign language I learned on television. That is how she exists to me now, in the back of my mind as songs play on my computer, as memories of the past, as words on a blog, as a whisper in a dream. 

You will do better than me, and you must. You don't want to take the path that I was on, you don't really want to pick the door that I picked. Though, I must say, I still stand by the fact that every door leads to something great, something beautiful. Only, of course, if you are willing to open your eyes and see. There are people everywhere, people for you to meet. You will find somebody else, and you will find somebody new. You will find that the world is more than just you and her, the world has more to offer now that you are out there in the wild again. It may seem daunting at first, and somewhat scary perhaps. But you will see, people will find you in the most unannounced manner, and you will find yourself falling head over heels in no time at all. I know, because I was there, and I am there - too. I was in your shoes before, and I am in the shoes that I shall pass on to you. Right here, it is happiness - it's great. You will meet someone new, fall for someone new, and you will realize that you are capable of loving someone a whole lot more than before. Trust me, I know. 

Advice.