October 26th
Leaving Nagoya.
I woke at 5 a.m., drifted for 30 minutes, feeling stranded, then dragged myself out of bed. It’s nearly November, yet the air still clings, stifling. My hair presses against my neck, sticky and suffocating.
I wish for your happiness—and for ours, though it’s a distant wish.
Wendy brought me breakfast. We’ve known each other less than ten days, exchanged few words, yet I feel her warmth toward me.
It’s alright. I’m a good person, capable of kindness.
I hugged Roberto again and again, sensing the parting lingered heavy on his heart.
He said, “The reason he called you ‘Sunshine’ is because you’re still his Sunshine.”
Keeping the truth hidden, maybe, was love.
Romantic love? I don’t know.
But even if I chased it, what could I find?
The subway to Nagoya Station was as stifling as ever. The discomfort trailed me even as I reached the station.
People standing too close, crossing boundaries of seats—every small thing grated on me.
Nagoya, on my last day, felt emptier than ever.
I keep searching for reasons why he was meant for me.
This is a passing goodbye; it’s God’s plan that we’ll meet again one day.
That’s the gentle lie wrapping around me like a warm blanket, shielding me from the raw truth.
These feelings, this sadness—surely, they will fade.
No matter how tightly I clutch them, how I weave them into my fingers, time will seep in, washing them away.
The memories I longed to keep, the pain I wished desperately to forget.
In Eternal Sunshine, the hero can’t bear the breakup’s sting and chooses to erase his memories. If I could, I’d do the same.
Roberto says, “Someday, you’ll find new love, and then realize that this love wasn’t true. This memory will be just one lesson in your life.”
A brief pain in the vastness of life.
One day, I might see this sadness as small, trivial, laughable. I might think I loved someone unworthy.
But now, what I feel is real, and I truly loved him.
I wish we could have been happy together. But it’s also partly true that his happiness is enough. If I can’t stand beside him, then at least he should be happy.
When I think of his new girl, my chest feels weighted and dull. A girl, just like I was, swept away by him, radiant and innocent, fulfilled by love.
I’m not strong enough to wish for her happiness, so I’ll let them both disappear from my life, hoping to regain myself.
Eight months—a fragment of time.
I can fill that space; one day, I’ll forget.
Wishing it gone and at the same time wishing it were just a dream.
I loved him, gained something, lost something.
What I lost will heal, what I gained will be part of me, shaping who I’ll become.
Everyone I’ve loved—they all live in me.
With the next person, surely, I’ll love deeply.
I dream of a stranger who will erase his memory, a happiness waiting, carrying me through this long night.
Was the world always this gray?
Back then, the world was bright.
On the bullet train, typing this, Daphne messaged me. She hopes Kyoto will bring me peace and that therapy has softened the edges of my heart. She says she loves me.
I didn’t reply yesterday.
But I know. She and I love each other. Kuma and I love each other. Takako and I love each other. Even Simon, who I burdened long ago, checked in on me during Natalia’s crisis, and now he listens to my broken love stories for hours.
Whatever I do, whoever I am, there are people who love me, unchanging.
My parents, Roberto, Wendy—all showing their kindness in different ways.
Some people leave; others stay.
He left; now, I leave too.
But somewhere in time, in a past beyond grasp, we once truly cared for each other. That won’t disappear.
When will the world regain its colors?
It won’t be far away. I’ll love again; someone will leave, and some will remain forever.
Layers of rosy memories and gray pain.
Stacking, fusing, that’s what will become me.
Blending into one, until I can’t see who I was or who I am, it shapes me still.
The past I’ve forgotten lives on as my flesh and blood.
My memories of him will mix with others, his outline fading, becoming me.
By then, I won’t remember him.
That future is sad, but I welcome it.
