Slowly healing.

Some people are just too good at getting over others, getting over past situations, sad feelings;
some people are just very good at moving on.

Sadly for me, I am not.

Every time I get hurt, it takes me a very long time to heal. Sure I go on, wake up, eat, do things, but stay attached to past situations for even years, until those situations completely fade away.
This is not healthy at all, but I tend to keep thinking about what hurt me, and feelings of sadness, anger, or anxiety stay fresh for a very long time.
I take so long to recover.

Yesterday A. was texting me; we were chatting when she mentions You also adding details, and she even sends me a picture of everybody with You without notice.

In that moment my heart sank. I was not expecting to read your name in that situation, and a couple months ago I even swore I would never name You ever again in front of anybody.
This is because I have extensively talked about you to my friends in the past, and it was high time I stopped.

During this long year, many of them told me something I already knew:
Almost everybody told me that You never cared about me, or You did not care enough.
Someone told me that You acted boastful bragging your Japanese level in front of other foreign students (yes, my dear You. You actually hurt people with your beloved 自慢).
My house-maid even said that if You really loved me, You'd have done anything to meet me as soon as possible, not wait until the end of the month; not just stare at Instagram stories when I had blocked you on Facebook. In particular, she firmly said that you do not love me because when I asked you that question in March, you waited 24 hours to reply back.

「私が博士やめてやっぱり嫌なの？特に帰国して反対なの？。。。」

I will keep asking myself why you took so long. Why did you wait that long? 

Is my maid right? Probably. Is it that you just wanted to avoid the problem? Most likely.

I am not blaiming you. I knew all of that.

And why did you wait a whole day to thank me for the present?

That was NOT an omiyage. That was a graduation present. You did not care after all. 

But it's ok, it was also my mistake not handing it to you.

Very few friends also told me this:
You did love (?) me, you did care about me, and by waiting the end of April, by being this cold in those last messages, you were just showing that you were hurt and did not want to lose me.
I also know that.
BUT, I keep shaking my head, because, if I believe this, then I will have to reconsider all of my past choices. If I believe this, I will have to be mad at myself more than I already am, and even madder at you for letting me go.
Because, even now, I still think that you abandoned me. I still think that you let me go without doing anything.

Were you trying to avoid the problem, when you heard me panicking on the phone 

and begged "Can we please talk about it on March 26th?" ?

Were you trying to avoid the problem, when you talked about it less than 1 minute on March 26th, and then said "I don't wanna talk about it anymore". ?

Did you regret it when you asked me if I went to school, and I told you I had dropped out of it? 

If you wanted me to go, why the f** hell did you leave me alone the whole day with this decision?!

You knew I was suffering. Your support that day would have been enough to make me go and apply.

I did not drop out of it because of you though, don't worry.

But I am rational enough to understand that this could not be avoided.
You would have left in April anyway. I would have stayed in university, alone and miserable.
I dropped out of university, because I hated it. If I had to stay in Japan, I needed a reason. A reason to stay there and be happy. Not just stay in Japan "because it's Japan".
I hated that place. I HATED IT THERE.
You don't. You probably even love it.

I remember you praise Japanese ability to make high buildings, you admired them truly. 

You probably didn't realize it, but I looked at that very building and thought: 

"I can't feel this admiration. Anyone can build things well. I can't feel this. I don't fit in here".

So, all of this, just could not be avoided.

A year has passed, and I don't regret leaving university. I don't regret leaving Japan. Sorry, Japan, sorry Japanese people, please don't be offended.

And, though this is bad to say, I still think that my experience there was a huge failure.
I failed.
I took a Master, yet I already had a Master! I wanted to have my life, I ended up depressed and miserable and lonely. And I turned 30.
Now, I can almost hear your very annoying comments saying:

<<It is you who dropped! It is you who left your Japanese friends! It is you who did it all that way!>>.

Sorry, my friend. I have to tell you that this never helped!
You used your time in Japan well and I made a disaster, like always.

BRAVO! Do you want an applause???

When you talked about the blue pill and the red pill, I had picked the blue pill. I wish I had never come to Tufs. I wish I could go back to before 2015. 日本に行くんじゃなかった。This is what I think every day. I regret having gone to Japan. I regret having met people there.

I am still hoping that you will try and contact me again, but this time, to set things right.
You know, I appreciate that you sent me that message in May.
And I know that I apologized too much without explaining myself.

What did you expect me to tell you on messenger?!

Yeah, I did apologize too much. But I never heard you say sorry, not even once. 

Also your "maybe I couldn't say goodbye in a proper way". ... MAYBE" ?!

It's like those nonsense ありがとう you were saying once in a while. Your "thank you"s were only for when you asked me to help you with your homework/with your thesis.
I felt used, and you know that you used me.

When you asked me to come to university in the morning to help you out, I would jump on the first bus and then wait for you in campus.
But you were always too late, or too busy, to even stop and appreciate me being there.

You asked me to come to university on January 9th to help you with your thesis.
I had no reason to come that early. I came, you were very nervous and pissed.
I tried to calm you down and then offered to help you as much as I could, without rushing it.
You said you would submit the papers in the afternoon, then call everybody to go relax somewhere.
I went to the library and slept there, waiting for you.
But 5 PM rang, no sign from you. You had forgotten me. I went home.

That was not even the only time.
It was not even the only time I uselessly waited for you.
I called my friends, and told me I'd go meet them in Osaka because I needed to get out of Tokyo.

When results of the scholarship came out... I was in bed at my friend's house.
I burst into tears. I did not want to win the scholarship.

So selfish of me, competing for something and not wanting it anymore?

I also texted B. and told him how I felt bad for taking something he wanted.
Then you texted me.
No "good morning", nothing. Just
"how was your result?"
That's all.

when I was in bus heading back to Tokyo, you sent me another text.
"When is the Phd examination day?"
"Hello. On the 27th".

 Well, normally people say "thank you". But you said instead:

"Where did you see that?"

 Am I your secretary? 
You never say "hello", you never ask "how are you", 
you never mind if someone is happy or sad, 
you ask for goddamn information all the time and that's all. 

This is very selfish, man. This is very bad.

"I just know it. Maybe you should ask someone else".
"Yes, I will, thank you. Are you still in Osaka?"
"I am coming back to Tokyo at 8".

You could have said "let's meet tonight/tomorrow, you could have said anything. 

But you probably didn't care about where I was, you had just meant to be polite.

"ok, have a nice travel".

I shut the phone and cried.
But hey, do you even care?

It was not the first time I felt this neglected. And not even the last.




But anyway, let's go back to yesterday.

I care about you. I kinda "love" you.
But I keep suffering. And I need to go on, so back home, I do all the normal things, and hope that one day I will wake up having completely forgotten about you.
I take so long to heal; but I am trying to.

And seeing unnecessary information about you made me feel almost sick.
I started trembling (I told my colleagues I was cold), had small red spots on my skin, and my heart started feeling heavy.

It is incredible how one person can make you physically feel like that.

Then I asked A. a favor.
Please never mention You to me ever again. Please do not show me Your pictures again. because it hurts.
She said she understood.
She also said: << now I can tell you for sure that he regrets having lost you>>.
She adds that she wants to do anything to make us make up.
I told her that there is nothing she can do.

Because it's not her who should have done something during this year.

I arrived to Haneda Airport in October.
My colleague left.
I stayed seated in the airport about half an hour, alone.
I had told people I would arrive, but eveybody was too busy to meet me that night.
And of course, you weren't there. And why should you have been there?
I told A. when I met her the day after and asked me about me and You.
<<Do you see him here? Yet he knows I am in Japan.>>

I half blame you, but in the end, I don't blame you at all. Sometimes I think you did care about me, and we just couldn't handle it; but maybe it's easier to think that I was just a classmate, and you treated me as a classmate.

この3年間おつかれ！

いつも付き合ってくれてありがとう！

またイタリアで会えると思うから、案内お願いします。

A classmate. Nothing more, nothing less.

So, don't worry, my friend. I know it's all my fault.
I pushed to have something that was not there. I am well aware of that. I always give too much in friendships and expect too much. I know I did it all by myself and destroyed all by myself.
I always do so.
So yep, I am still mad at you sometimes, but at the same time I don't blame you.


I deleted all our texts, all our messages, because I need to recover.

(too bad I remember many things by heart, like the messages above).

I am still hurting. I am still healing. I need to heal fast.
And having people talk about you doesn't help me.
This is why I asked her not to talk about You ever again.

And this is why I deleted the conversation with her.

But I am glad you finally got a car.

(I have been using my driving license for 12 years so far, lol).

And love driving. In fact, I don't miss Japanese trains at all.

I am still trying to figure this out.
I know that you did not deserve me, and this is actually a big step on.

I still look at our pictures with affection, and one day with the nostalgia of a time very far away.



I do wish you to be happy.