Day 2 – Everything I Couldn’t Say
There was a time when talking to you felt effortless.
Some conversations don’t end because there is nothing left to say. They end because, at some point, one person quietly decides that being misunderstood hurts more than staying silent.
I didn’t know that would become me.
There was a time when talking to you felt effortless.
You were the first person I wanted to tell whenever something good happened.
You were also the first person I wanted to run to whenever something felt too heavy for me to carry alone. I never thought I’d reach a point where speaking honestly would become something I had to gather courage for.
Because love, at least the way I understood it, was supposed to feel like the safest place to tell the truth.
For the longest time, I believed misunderstandings were normal. Two people can love each other deeply and still see the world differently.
I knew that.
I accepted that.
That’s why every time we found ourselves standing on opposite sides of the same conversation, I never looked for someone to blame.
I simply believed that if we stayed long enough… if we listened a little more… if we were willing to understand before responding…
we would eventually find each other again.
I thought that’s what love did.
It stayed.
It listened.
It tried.
Saat itu, aku percaya bahwa setiap percakapan yang lahir dari kasih akan selalu menemukan jalan pulang.
So whenever something stayed on my mind, I chose to speak.
Not because I wanted an apology.
Not because I wanted you to admit that you were wrong.
I wasn’t keeping score.
I wasn’t trying to win.
I was simply bringing you a piece of my heart that had become too heavy to carry by myself. I thought that’s what people did when they loved each other. They trusted each other with the parts that couldn’t be seen.
The fears.
The disappointments.
The quiet sadness that never appeared in front of anyone else.
I thought my heart would be safe in your hands.
But somewhere along the way, our conversations began to feel different. I’d spend hours trying to understand my own feelings before bringing them to you. I’d replay the situation over and over again, asking myself whether I was being fair. Whether I had misunderstood something. Whether I was expecting too much.
Sometimes I’d wait for days before saying anything at all.
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Not because the feeling disappeared.
But because I wanted to make sure I wasn’t speaking from emotion alone.
I wanted to be careful.
Careful with my words.
Careful with my tone.
Careful not to make you feel accused.
Careful not to make the conversation harder than it needed to be.
Looking back now…
I realize I was protecting your feelings long before I knew how to protect my own.
Entah sejak kapan, aku lebih takut membuatmu merasa tidak nyaman daripada kehilangan ruang untuk jujur tentang apa yang kurasakan.
Then the conversation would finally happen. I’d explain everything as gently as I could. I’d choose words that sounded softer than what I actually felt. I’d pause whenever I thought you needed space. I’d remind you that I wasn’t trying to fight.
That I only wanted you to understand why something had stayed with me.
But somehow…
before we reached the end of the conversation…
everything had already changed.
Without realizing it, we were no longer talking about the feeling itself. We were talking about whether I should’ve felt it in the first place.
Maybe I misunderstood.
Maybe I was reading too much into it.
Maybe I was making something small become unnecessarily heavy.
Maybe I was simply too sensitive.
I heard those possibilities so many times that eventually…
I started hearing them in my own head before anyone else could say them.
I don’t think you ever intended to make me doubt myself. I truly believe that.
But intentions don’t always become experiences. Sometimes the deepest wounds are created by things no one meant to do. Not because someone wanted to hurt us. But because they never realized how much their words quietly stayed after the conversation had already ended.
There were nights when I wasn’t thinking about what had happened anymore.
I was thinking about myself.
Wondering whether I was becoming someone who felt too much.
Whether my heart was simply harder to understand than everyone else’s.
Whether asking to be heard was already asking for more than I deserved.
Dan mungkin, di situlah aku mulai kehilangan sesuatu yang bahkan tidak kusadari sedang hilang: kepercayaan pada suara hatiku sendiri.
-Ts
