Hello and welcome to my new bi-monthly column where you are going to get to accompany me, a gorgeous and brilliant queer woman who is single for the first time at the age of 25 after a long-term relationship ended. Join me on my adventures in navigating the adult dating world. That doesn’t sound like a big deal until I tell you that the last time I was single was when I was in the 11th grade and demonetisation had not happened yet. Yes, it has been almost 8 years since that fateful day. And yes, we are all officially that old.
This is my second column entry.
This is my first time being jealous in the context of you and me. Like actually, really jealous. And I understand now why the Hindi word for jealousy is ‘jalan’ (burning) because there is a hot prickly feeling all over my body and my head is hurting. A lot. All my life, I have prided myself in how secure I am. Since school I have preached: “Whoever wants to be with you will stay, and whoever doesn’t – well, what would be the point of them staying anyway?” We have been in a long-distance relationship for so long and never, not once, have I felt even the smallest inkling of the possibility of a flame. But with you, today, at this moment, this clarity evades me.
It was such a simple, stupid, trivial detail that you revealed – that someone whom you have matched with on a dating app is from Gurgaon. Such an irrelevant and ultimately inconsequential fact considering the fact that we have officially been broken up for a few months now. So why is it one that I instantly hated knowing about? Maybe because Gurgaon is a REAL place, and that makes this girl a little bit more real in my head. I don’t want her in there. Because do you know what else that makes true? The fact that, while in the present there might still be a part of both you and me that feels sad about our separation, in the future you will tuck a stray strand of hair behind some girl’s ear and pull her closer to you on your lap as you sigh sentimentally and say, “I never thought love would feel so magical again, but with you I didn’t even have you think! With you it was easy.” And you will mean it also, because you are not an asshole. Life would be so much easier for me if you were.
Also read: The Importance of Being Seen in Queer Heartbreak
Even the idea of you one day kissing someone and calling them gorgeous while looking into their eyes makes my body feel like it is burning. Jalan, jalan, jalan. All over. We have loved each other for so many years, and I am twisting and turning in bed with the knowledge that someday the only thing left of this relationship that we built, will be memories. But along with them, will be the memory of this heartache. It will be the knowledge that this was not enough for you to try to help me in cementing the bricks that we were laying. If you put in that effort in your next relationship, I will probably ask myself why you did not care enough about us to do it. If you do not, then I will be left wondering if bidding adieu to us was not a big enough loss for you to try and replicate it. Of course, you have told me that this is not about me and it is about you being unable to do certain things because of the fear of doing them wrong. I ask you this though – how am I supposed to feel like your actions are completely disconnected from your thoughts about me?
I am sure that I am going to bring this up in therapy this week – it is for me to deal with, and that is why I won’t be sending this essay to you. In the meanwhile, I am going to try to process this red hot sensation, understand where it is coming from, and think about which boundaries to put up to not bring myself too close to this flame again. But those are things that I am only going to be able to do tomorrow morning.
When I burn my finger I immediately rush to put it under running water, but what is the first aid for this jalan? Maybe it is telling myself to go to sleep. Maybe it is allowing myself to feel it for a little longer just for tonight, with no judgment, and recognizing that the anger and sadness that are accompanying it do not need to be put in the “no no” box immediately. Maybe it is okay to feel the heat from the pyre of a relationship for one night, just like it is okay to grieve its loss for many more. But hopefully, by the time I am done writing this eulogy, it will have become just a little bit easier to look forward to the healing.
