Forgiveness.

Dear you,

I guess I know why I have been unable to write - something that my future legit depends on - because all the letters in my head are currently addressed to you. Until I can get those out, I won't be able to write about anything even slightly meaningful to me. I was trying to avoid this because I'm scared, I genuinely am, as to what this will do to me emotionally, writing this letter to you. For once, I don't have tears in my eyes though. Maybe they'll make their way as I struggle to find the right words for you, one more time. Here goes another futile attempt at closure. 

I don't want this letter to be anything bitter. I've been so angry at you lately, that it has consumed my entirety and honestly, I was never good at carrying some emotions - anger, guilt, anxiety. I'm more at the psychotic end of the spectrum - seeking thrill, adventure and even total annihilation if that's what life and love leads me to but this neurosis? Nope, not my style and is exhausting beyond measure. Anyway, I digress. 

I've framed so many hate mails to you and your family in my head, that this is somehow not coming naturally to me. I'm not entirely sure I'm ready for this because nobody in your world has done anything for any of you to deserve this, but I guess this is more for me than anyone else... 

                         I forgive you. 

I forgive you for never looking back or reaching out. I forgive you for moving on one day after our break up. I forgive you for never understanding my love for you and undermining it in front of everyone who mattered to you. I forgive you for discarding and deleting people from my life who loved you immensely and tried to reach out to you repeatedly, siding with you, despite everything. I forgive you for forgetting my mother. 

I forgive you.

I forgive you for not holding me at the end, as I lamented the loss of my happily ever after. I forgive you for not meeting me one last time and then blaming me for it. I forgive you for removing all reminders of me from your life and building a love on my remains. I forgive you for taking all of our dreams, my dreams, and gifting them to your new girl on a platter. I forgive you for picking 2020 as the year you'll marry her, (it was mine!). 

I forgive you.

I forgive you for the social media love outburst you display each day, with no changes in the manner that you used to write for me/us. I even forgive you for citing your names as research co-authors, forgetting when and for whom you did it first. I forgive you for forgetting all our firsts, dreams, promises, the names of our never-to-be-born son. I forgive you for sharing Rockstar and Tamasha with her. 

I forgive you.

I bring myself to forgive you for all the hate you sent my way once we were over - for shaking my faith in love and humanity and friendship. I forgive you for never believing in me or the best version of me that I tried so hard to be with you. I forgive you for breaking me beyond recognition. I forgive you for never listening to 'Unspoken' the story that I only told because you were a part of my life. 

I forgive you.

I forgive you for all the gynaecological problems loving you led me to. I forgive you for not supporting me when I needed it most, just because it was hard for you, despite you having someone to comfort you all along. I forgive you for denying me closure. I forgive you for always sowing that seed of doubt in my heart that I'm unworthy of love, I'm not a good person, I deserved all the horrible things that happened to me.

I forgive you.

As hard as it is, I forgive you Firdaus. I forgive you for being another Anshuman. I forgive you for stealing what your name meant to me (long before you happened even) forever. I forgive you for carrying me in your subconscious and making your entire relationship a replica of ours. I forgive you for not being as progressive and open-minded as you claimed to be. I forgive you for not having the strength to fight your parents for me. I forgive you for you lying to me about their apparent liking for me. I even forgive you for making me a cynic forever. 

I forgive you because it's time. I forgive you for the apology that you'll never send and for not knowing why you needed to. I will keep waiting for a day to meet and hug you goodbye, the right way this time, but that's not happening. You've forgotten what we meant to each other and I guess that's okay. It must be hard to accept we were good and then continue to be a douche to me. Attitudes and behaviour cannot remain in conflict forever, right? So I forgive you for being the worst nightmare of mine, for ruining my favourite year 2018 and now for your exquisite plan to ruin 2020 too. I forgive you for not caring about me. I forgive you for being so petty and shallow during the breakup and after that I no longer recognise who you are. I forgive you for getting us to a place where despite sharing a large part of our lives, dreams and goals, we can never reach out to the other. I forgive you for making me a psychotic villain (#Durga), for ruining my memory of us, for replacing me within 24 hours, for giving up. 

All my life I've had people give up on me. I forgive you for convincing me that you never would, for making me love again, only to pull the rug out from under me when I needed it most. I forgive you for coming into my life when I was in a happy relationship, show me how it wasn't all that I needed, make me doubt everything and believe in you - only for you to do it all over again with her; for you to abandon me in totality and instead devote your time and energy into 'saving her' from her relationship. I forgive you for not telling me when you moved on. I forgive you for using your parents as an excuse against me and then for convincing them for everything I ever wanted for us, only with her. I forgive you for leading me on, during the most important years of my life, only to leave me stranded eventually.

I forgive you for changing. 

I forgive you for the transition from my perfect dream to my perfect nightmare. I forgive you for being my Thunder only to watch you share this with her too. I genuinely forgive you. You didn't do any of this intentionally. This is just how things turned out. I don't know how much of this was conscious/subconscious/unconscious; what was motivated by your insecurities and family issues and what stemmed from my horrid past experiences and inability to reassure you of my love. How much of this was me testing you endlessly and how much was you constantly running away and me trying to hold on, I'll never know. 

So, I forgive you.

I forgive you because I cannot hold on to you any more. 

I just cannot.

I cannot wait for you to do the decent, human, kind thing anymore so I'm doing it for you. Forgiving you for all the things you never will ask forgiveness for. 

I forgive you. I forgive you for this deplorable end. 

We were good. I'm sorry you forgot four years worth of memories in less than 48 hours. I'm sorry I couldn't hold on for longer. I'm sorry I couldn't reach out to you again, only to be disrespected or worse still, ignored, one more time, in one more novel manner. Trust me I tried.

In the end, I forgive you most for being your father's son. Expecting you would stand up for me was a fantasy really when you never could stand up for yourself or your mother or for what you thought was right or even what you knew was right. I know it was your greatest fear that you'd end up being the martyr between the two of us, but guess what, you were more him than her all along. 

And here I am, the hopeless romantic, heartbroken, (still!) and finding the strength from somewhere within to write this apology to us. 

Your 

(True) Martyr