Dear Jay,

How are you? How is life treating you? I hope when you read this you know it is coming from a place of peace and joy, not the chaos you left behind. Time has done its quiet work on me. What once felt like a storm now feels like a lesson I had to learn.

My experience with you taught me to prioritise myself. It taught me that giving endless grace to someone who gives you very little in return is not love, it is surrender. Maybe that was the real lesson. At least that is what I tell myself now. One day I might even pass the story down to my children, my grandchildren, and maybe even my great-grandchildren, if my teeth don’t all fall out before they arrive.

Do you remember when I told you that you were the one I was going to marry, by hook or crook? That you and I would beat the heat of the sun and ride off in a car with a sign that read “Just Married.” I believed it with my whole chest. So when you offered me your heart, I gave you mine without hesitation.

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I remember the first time we met after I said yes to you. For whatever reason, that memory refuses to leave my mind. Do you remember how we stared at each other for so long that people passing by looked at us strangely? As if something was wrong with us.

Jay, you were a good man who loved me at your own convenience. Like I was some convenience store you could walk into when you needed something and walk out of when you were done. You made promises you barely kept. You didn’t get me the flowers I asked for, not even a plucked one from someone’s backyard. You didn’t get the cupcakes I joked about wanting.

But you knew something about me. You knew that when it came to you, all I really needed was your attention. Just that. To know you were there. But you were absent, even when you were standing right beside me. So imagine what it felt like when you became completely nonchalant.

I cried for your sake every night. I asked myself why. I told myself many times, “I will send him a breakup text. I will.” But the moment you returned with some small apology, I swallowed my pain and let you call me “baby girl” again until you drifted back into yourself.

I complained to my friends. They defended you. “It is his job,” they said. “You know how work can get. Maybe he is busy.” I held onto their excuses because I needed something to believe in. And they gave those excuses to you freely.

Then things went from bad to worse.

Your words became cruel. The things you said chipped away at my self-esteem little by little. When I cried, you shoved me aside and said, “Oh, come off it with your crocodile tears.” The first time you said that, something inside me crawled into a shell.

I wanted to leave. But at the same time, I stayed.

I stayed because I loved you, Jay. I really loved you.

Even though you were stingy. And I have always believed no stingy man should have a woman by his side, yet there I was. With all the work you did, I never saw a pesewa. Not for wigs, not for credit, not even for vitamins to keep my strength up. Instead, you said the most hurtful things to me.

Still, I gave. And gave. And gave.

I offered you my chest to rest on, my heart to hold, my hands to squeeze as tight as you wanted. I gave you all of me. Especially my food.

One of the things that convinced me you would change and eventually make me your wife was how much you loved my cooking. They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and I believed that story with all my heart. I cooked for you every day you asked for it. I woke up early and stood in the kitchen steaming meals not just for you, but for your friends too.

From the kitchen I could hear you bragging about my cooking. Loudly. Proudly.

But never about loving me.

I would overhear you and blush to myself. I would think, “Oh, he is going to marry me.”

How ignorant I was.

I did many things for you, but the one that still pains me is the money. I still wonder how I got to the point where I was spending my allowance on a man who was already working. I took care of you. And when I didn’t have money to give you and you became angry, I would go and borrow money so that my boyfriend wouldn’t be upset.

Jay, you tell me, what kind of voodoo did you use on me?

How did I end up playing the role of the man in the relationship while you sat comfortably in the back seat?

It’s Not God’s Law For A Man To Apologize To A Woman

But the truth is, I loved you. I loved you the best way I knew how. Maybe that was all I needed at the time, to give love freely.

After all, they say it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.

 

—FIONA

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