memories can be weird sometimes & you might forget the smaller bad moments in your heartbreak

when he broke up with me, i forgot all the smaller bad moments in the relationship. i only remembered the worst ones where i felt alone, unsupported, and taken for granted.

sometime during the relationship, i bought into the narrative that he told me: i never told him the small issues and so i only ever erupted. i thought it was my fault that he didn't trust me to know or communicate what i needed. i thought this must've been true because towards the end i WAS minimising myself and my wants.

recently, i've let go of the bitterness and started remembering the happy moments, enough to make me feel nostalgic and think about "what ifs".

today, i came across a tiktok earlier that said "if you haven't made progress, ask yourself if you'd rather be where you are than where you'd been a year ago". my first thought was that i WOULD rather be where i was 1 year ago. we'd been happy together back then.

then i thought: was i happy? what was happening last may? i don't remember.

i pulled up our messages for the first time. i never had a habit of reading old messages.

around this time last year, it was a saturday. he promised to spend all day with me. he told me last minute that he was getting a haircut. he never gave me an eta. then at noon, he said he'd be late. i said, "we've talked about this before. i need to know if there's been a change of plans and to know what your eta is earlier so i don't have to spend all day waiting. i can't understand what late is if i don't even have a baseline of when to expect your arrival."

on the friday a week after, he'd texted me at 4pm "going i'm going to drink with (a friend) tonight." i said, "you promised me that we'd go to (a bar) tonight and that it'd be date night." i used some cutesy pouting emojis but made it clear i was disappointed. he never apologized. the next morning he said, "still upset?" before coming over. he didn't tell me an eta again.

the reality is that i wasn't happy with him a year ago. the narrative that i told myself: that when i told him a problem, he did his best to change so i should've advocated for myself better, wasn't entirely true. he eventually got better about time management, but even at the end of the relationship he never learned how to communicate, how to listen to me before i was crying my eyes out in hurt frustration, and how to tell me he was sorry.

suddenly, the what-ifs don't sound so good.