Another TLDR Series. You're welcome to share yours, too :) I actually really like reading all the comments from my previous blog post.

I remember what it was like as a child.

Things were easy when they were mere wishes – like, before you know the taste of hopelessness at the tip of your tongue and before your heart breaks again and again. As a child, I grew up in a loving, carefree environment. I remember looking at my parents – dysfunctional as they are at times – as the perfect example of how a married couple should be.

My father has never looked at any other woman – no matter how pretty or voluptuous, and my mother, contented as she is, never asks for more than what is given. When they fight, my father would often curse at my mother, and though his love for her is greater than it would ever be for anyone else, she is also often on the receiving end of his anger – something she learns to tolerate and mellow down over time. My parents have never once said ‘I love you’. Not in public and never in private, and when I asked them why, my father simply answered, “Because it’s not necessary if the other person knows you by the heart.” I remember telling myself at ten years old, that it was love. Not by spoken words, but by loving stares, harmonious home, and a very amicable, non-violent relationship.

I shunned all forms of romance until my mid-teen years. I remember the first guy I had a crush on. We would spend a few hours together every week in a small laboratory room with a drawing teacher, giggling and talking in our own language. But my love faded after three months. I felt caged, and the excitement that I had when he was constantly pursuing me was then replaced by disgust. I felt miserable about myself for the first time – not because he was hurt, but because I was, and I thought to myself that my love for anyone would never last.

I spent my high school days chasing after empty daydreams and titles like popularity and friendships. It wasn’t until I was nineteen that the feeling of love hit me hard one day, out of nowhere. He had this pearly-white teeth that stretched wide and perfect when he smiled, even more so when he laughed. His cheekbones were engraved deeply like he was some kind of grunge poster boy from the 80s. That was the first time I ever shed anything remotely close to tears of sadness over a man. He gave me something of a kiss – wet, slippery, so foreign that I didn’t know what to feel. And with that, he bid his goodbye. I was sad for a day, or maybe two. But I got over him so quickly that the feelings seemed more fictional than anything else.

The concept that love would never last had been cemented into my head for the first time, despite seeing so many lasting couples around me. It just couldn’t come to me how I would be able to love someone for life-and-death, the forever kind. And it couldn’t come to me how someone would be able to love one as flawed, indecisive, and unfaithful as I am.

In-between, I met many guys for whom I felt shallow affection for. But it wasn’t until I set my feet in Glasgow that I met the source of my doom.

TBC to part 2