I used to believe love to be a beautiful song—melodious, rhythmic, and in harmony. I, however, encountered the other side the hard way, and I discovered the most beautiful symphonies to end in a dissonant tone at times.
Her name was Yin, and she could light the world and the world didn't feel so heavy. I met her in the most ordinary manner—two strangers in the same bookstore, each reaching to the same novel. I know, I know, cliché, but from that moment, she was the story I never wanted to stop reading.
AI Generated
We built something beautiful. Not love, necessarily, but something deep in the quality of a friendship—one in which silence did not become stifling, in which laughter did not become forced, in which frazzled days felt at ease in her presence. It was her who recalled reminding me to catch breath in the suffocating spots, and I who stabilized her in her confusion.
For two years, I could never get enough of her. Every meal eaten, each all-nighter, each quiet moment felt something from a life truly worth living. We talked about the future—marriage, kids, where we ended up. It wasn’t dreaming, it felt real.
AI Generated
But love, all in all, is not enough by itself.
She got an offer—a dream job in another continent. A life-altering job. A job in another life. A job in another world. A job in another continent.
At first, the status quo was tenuous. Calls, messages, video calls—every means available to fill the miles between. Time zones, and so missed calls. The calls grew brief, and forced. The distance extended beyond physical, and into the emotional.
One night, in the course of a buggy video call, blurted them from her—those words, the words that shattered all. "I love you, I just don’t think we’re in the same place anymore."
AI Generated
I wanted to protest, to tell her love could be enough, and if only the two of us could become something greater. I secretly, however, knew the truth. The two of us had become people in different directions, each carrying something from the past, something the current did not support.
So, I let her go.
Some loves don't end in betrayal, some don't end in spite. Some just fade, leaving only the echoes of what could have been. And possibly, just possibly, the most difficult to recover from are the stuck, the incomplete, the song waiting to be finished.
But if I've learned anything, I think, it's this: imperfect symphonies are beautiful.