Currently listening to: White Horse (Taylor’s Version) – Taylor Swift
Maybe I was naive, got lost in your eyesAnd never really had a chanceMy mistake, I didn’t know to be in loveYou had to fight to have the upper handI had so many dreams about you and meHappy endings, now I know
Preface: weigh in
I had completely forgotten about the old email address I used for my former blog—like a digital time capsule from a version of myself I had tucked away, hoping never to revisit. That is, until a random notification popped up letting me know I had mail. I froze. That inbox belonged to a chapter of my life I thought I’d closed for good, one I intentionally buried by simply walking away from it.
Curious, I logged into the vault.
Turned out to be nothing more than some obnoxious spam. But once I was in, I couldn’t help myself. I started clicking through old folders, revisiting names, dates, conversations. That inbox—God, that inbox—was a graveyard for all the love letters, Dear John’s, Dear Jane’s, long-winded confessions, and curt goodbyes. A paper trail of all the “almosts” and “what ifs” I once poured myself into.
As I read through the messages, I felt a strange mix of nostalgia and secondhand embarrassment—at myself. I couldn’t believe I had written some of those things, but I knew without a doubt I had. Every fucking word. Every plea. Every heartbreak documented electronically. I vacillate between feeling like a big sack of crap to having twinges of envy, guilt, and regret.
And somewhere between the scrolling and rereading, a thought crept in… Was I the problem? I always told myself he (they) were toxic, that I was the one who had to survive him (them). But now, rereading everything with a little more life experience and hindsight, I could also see where I may have added fuel to the fire. I didn’t want to admit it, but part of me could see his (their) point of view too. I used parentheses for them because there’s a string of heartache and not just from one guy.
Maybe I need another perspective. A second opinion. Because the truth is, memory is never objective—and sometimes, when you’re too close to the story, you forget you’re not the only one who lived it.
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