Tomorrow, it's your birthday. It seems like just yesterday when we spent the whole night talking about anything. Playing pool, being crazy... and just being ourselves. Not once faking laughter because all the fun we had was genuine. It was your birthday, and I was the first person you spent it with. I had you all to myself. We were just friends then, but the freshly developed feelings we hadn't spoken of yet were joyfully dancing with us in the atmosphere. Can't believe it's been a year now... After all this time, it's still you I think about. Even when I've already met other people to fill the space you left, the fact that I try to recreate with them how you and I started speaks volumes about how I still feel for you. I don't know when I'll ever find the same connection we once had. I don't know when I'll ever find the same affection you once had for me... I miss it. And I miss you. More than you'll ever know.
I read the letter written by my own hand, four years ago today, the 5th of April, addressed to a French man we shall call Chace. The ink had faded some, but the ache within its words had not dulled in the slightest. I read it with a peculiar kind of amusement, one not born of mockery, but of familiarity. How curious it is, that the girl I once was—so much younger in years and yet no less profound in emotion—still speaks to the woman I have become. The feelings she bore then were sincere, devoted. And though the object of that devotion has since changed, the nature of my love has not.
If only I could love simply.. But, oh, it has ever been my curse and my crowning. When I surrender my heart to someone, it is not in fragments or polite offerings. I love entirely. I immerse myself in the being of another until their essence is stitched into the fabric of my soul. When I am abandoned—left, discarded, or simply outgrown—it isn't just heartache I feel but amputation, as though I am left with a phantom limb; still aching, still reaching, though nothing remains to touch.
When Chace left, I sought his likeness in others, as though by seeking the same origin, I might conjure him anew. I entertained French men as though they carried remnants of his spirit in their blood. I fell in love with France—not as a mere nation, but as the cradle of the man I once adored. The language, the history, the monarchy and its ghosted kings—I studied it as though by doing so, I could understand the hands that had shaped my beloved. I became patriotic for a country that had never known my name, simply because it had raised the man who once whispered mine with reverence. To defend its honour, I developed an aversion to Germany, I bristled when people mocked France's surrender in the Second World War—branded them cowards in jest and earnest—because in my eyes, it was France that bore the mightiest army in all history, or so said Niall Ferguson. I reverred their literature and intricate art, argued for its victories, and smiled at the thought of cobbled Parisian streets as if they, too, remembered me.
And in that absurdity—rewatching Ratatouille solely for the reason that it's tale is set in Paris, the city where Chace resided—I recognised my folly and my truth. When I love, I do not take what is offered. I consume. I devour every element tied to him—the music he once hummed, the books that lined his shelves, even the thoughts of his ancestors long before his own birth. I do not love the man alone, I love his shadow, his echo, his entire world.
So with his departure, I was convinced that I shall never again find affection so vivid, so searing. And yet, I was proven wrong—but not gently. For after Chace, came another, although not in a French man as I had originally sought, but in someone more rugged, more sarcastic, with a tongue sharper than sin and eyes that only softened when they beheld my presence. Someone maddening, unexpected, and oh, so tragically ironic, for this man came from the very land I had once claimed to hate.
Germany.
And with this new lover, a connection formed far deeper than with anyone else’s. His affection was sweeter, more deliberate. But regardless of the face or name, the same truth emerged: I do not merely fall for the man. I fall for the world that created him; the soil he stepped on, the air he breathed, the damn language that rolled off his tongue.
And indeed, with this new lover, I have commenced the same folly I once committed with my passion for the old. The fall of our empire, though familiar it seemed, was far more destructive and burned my love to the highest forms of hatred. I have declared him my soulmate, so when he severed our ties, it pierced the bones of my soul. Though the pain oozed nostalgia, the damage struck like Armageddon, like a long-healed scar, ripped open by a new weapon.
And yet, beneath all that rage, buried six feet under, still lies my endless devotion. The same insanity, dressed in different colours. I have abandoned the Vikings of my past and turned instead to barbarians and the Teutoburg Forest—the very forest he walked through one morning to share its history with me, his very darling at the sweet moment. I learned his tongue, swallowed his culture like communion, and lately, I find myself engrossed in podcasts about the rise and fall of Hitler.
With Chace, I detested Germany for seizing their land in the early 1900s. But now... the tables have turned. I find myself brimming with indignation, not for politics, but for him, whenever blame is still hurled at Germany for the horrors orchestrated under Hitler’s rule. A nation held hostage by one man’s madness should not have to eternally bear the noose he left behind.
Why do I love in this manner? It is foolish. It is unhinged. It unsettles my reason and renders me partial, clouded in my judgment. Two years it took me to overcome Chace—how long, then, must I endure this fresh heartache? When I swore to love him for eternity—something I never promised my French.
And yet, here I am again, searching for him in every German I entertain. A German actor awaits my response, a German head nurse I just want to be friends with. Oh, how beautiful their vessels are! Yet to me, they all seem dull and empty, for no voice, no face, no goddamn accent can replicate his essence.
So to whom shall I bestow my warmth, then? When in my ruin, I remain enamoured. A tempest of love, wild in ardour. To pour it all into another, seems like a betrayal to my battered soul..
And so I suffer, perpetually, as I continue to burn myself in the dusts of his echoes, hoping he'll notice the smoke, in case he comes back..
In case in one obscure corner of his heart, he still hasn't completely let me go.
I glanced at the time. Three minutes past midnight. It is the 6th now. Shall I greet Chace a happy birthday?
Nay. It is no longer necessary.