022125 : Entry Three : I'm weak.
There’s a line from Jane Eyre that’s been circling my mind like a ghost lately: “Crying does not indicate that you are weak. Since birth, it has always been a sign that you are alive.” I’ve read that book more times than I can count, but this line hits differently now - heavier, more fragile. Maybe because for the past bit, I’ve been doing a lot of crying. Not the cinematic kind, with soft music playing in the background and a neat, cathartic ending. No, this has been the ugly kind. The kind that happens in the middle of the night when you’re alone, curled into yourself, wondering how things went so wrong so quickly.
I thought I was past this. I really did. For four and a half years, I was single - not unhappily. There were moments of loneliness, sure, but there was also pride. I had built a life on my own. I had gotten used to my own company, to the quietness that comes with it. And then he appeared: my friend. We had been close for two years (I thought?), sharing the kind of friendship that felt rare, delicate even. It wasn’t something I thought would change, until it did. Until the little things he did - the texts that lingered too long, the way he remembered small, insignificant details about me - started to feel like something more. And for the first time in years, I let myself believe that maybe, just maybe, this was it.
I wish I could say that it was beautiful. That our transition from friends to something more was seamless, like flipping a page in a well-loved novel. But life rarely imitates the kind of simplicity we find in books. It was messy - wonderful, yes - but messy. Less than six months. That’s all it took for us to fall apart. And the cruelest part? The night it all ended, we had a perfect evening. Laughter, closeness, that rare feeling of being understood. I didn’t know that as I sat there next to him, everything was already unraveling beneath the surface. Well, I mean, I had my doubts, even as I wrote the card I gave him, even as I passed over the way-too-personal-and-kinda-cringy gift I gave him.
Jane Eyre has always been a comfort book for me. Its darkness, its complicated emotions, the way Jane holds her pain with such quiet strength. There’s another line I keep coming back to: “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.” The was always me, in a way. I've always been kind of solitary, even though I do have my friendships and close relations. Jane’s resilience feels both inspiring and unattainable right now. Because I don’t feel strong. I feel hollow. I feel like I gambled something precious - a friendship I deeply valued - on the hope of something more, and I lost. And in that loss, I also lost a version of myself I didn’t realise I’d grown attached to: the version who believed that love, if it finally arrived, would feel safe... and the version that didn't care if it never came.
There’s a particular cruelty in losing someone who was first your friend. The kind of cruelty that doesn’t just sting in one place, but spreads out, seeping into every corner of your life. It’s like the silence they leave behind is a presence of its own: heavy and suffocating, louder than anything you could have imagined. You think you’re prepared for the absence, but nothing can prepare you for the emptiness of it. I find myself reaching for my phone, fingers already tapping out a message, about to send him something trivial, something mundane, like a cute animal video, the kind of nothingness we would trade back and forth just to fill the quiet spaces between our conversations. But then, the realisation hits like a wave crashing over me, and I pull my hand back. I can’t. Not anymore.
And that’s when the real ache begins... the impossible navigation through all these reminders, each one a sharp turn in a road I thought I knew, but now feel like I’m lost on. Every familiar place, every routine, is suddenly foreign without him. I can’t look at my phone without expecting to see his name, can’t go through the motions of my day without the ghost of him lurking just behind the edge of my thoughts. But it's more than just missing someone. It's like I'm mourning the person I thought I knew, the person I thought I could trust, the person who held so many of my best memories - memories that now feel tainted and complicated. It’s the cruelest thing, when someone you loved becomes someone you don’t recognise.
How do you reconcile the person they were with the person they became? How do you heal from the loss of a friend who turned into a stranger, someone whose face you can no longer trace in the crowd of your own life? The person who was supposed to be there, the one who you thought knew all the pieces of you, is gone - replaced by someone who feels as alien to you as the absence itself. The memories don’t help, they hurt now. They’re fragments of a life that feels distant, like something I can no longer reach, and it makes it harder to move on. The person I thought I was healing with, the person who was a part of my past, is the very person who makes the future feel so much harder to face.
I think what hurts most is that I let myself hope. After years of convincing myself that I was fine on my own, I let him in. I believed the little moments meant something - the way he’d bring me coffee, place his hand on my leg while he drived, or we'd play silly little kid games with our hands. I thought those things were signs, markers pointing toward something solid, something lasting. But love isn’t always as straightforward as we want it to be. Sometimes, it’s a house built on sand, and you don’t realise it until the waves come crashing in.
There’s a moment in Jane Eyre when she says, “I would always rather be happy than dignified.” That line has been gnawing at me lately, especially as I replay every decision I made with him. Because that’s what I did, isn’t it? I chose happiness - or at least, the fragile idea of it - over self-protection. I let down the walls I had spent years carefully building, convincing myself that maybe this time it was safe to let someone in. I let myself feel giddy, vulnerable, exposed, because for a moment, I wanted to believe it was worth it. But now, sitting in the aftermath, it feels naive. Like I traded something solid and tangible - my dignity - for a fleeting hope that crumbled before I even realised I couldn't place it back together.
I wonder if dignity would’ve hurt less. If keeping my feelings buried, locking them away where no one could reach them, would have spared me this hollow ache. I mean, it did before, after all. There’s a particular kind of shame in giving too much and ending up empty-handed. It’s not just the heartbreak - it’s the self-betrayal I feel right now. The knowledge that I saw the cracks, felt the uncertainty, and still pushed forward, hoping it would all somehow hold together. Jane’s line, which once felt brave to me, now sounds reckless. Choosing happiness over dignity, what a gamble. One I took, and lost. And now I’m left with nothing but this ache, this embarrassment, this gnawing thought that maybe protecting myself, even at the cost of joy, would have been the smarter choice. Because this? This feels like the price of foolishness, not some noble sacrifice.
Jane’s words echo again: “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.” It’s supposed to be empowering, and maybe one day it will be. But right now, it feels like a reminder of my aloneness. I am free, yes, but I didn’t want to be. I wanted us to work. I wanted the story to be different. So badly.
The worst part is how quickly it all fell apart. Less than six months. That’s not enough time to fully know someone in that way, but it’s enough to dream, to hope, to plan in the quiet corners of your mind. I pictured weekends together, holidays, even the mundane routines of shared mornings. And then, in one night - after what felt like a perfect evening - it was all gone.
People talk about heartbreak as if it’s a clean cut - a sharp pain that dulls with time. But it doesn’t feel like that. It feels more like a slow unraveling, like threads pulling loose from a sweater you once loved. You don’t notice it at first, and then suddenly, you’re left holding a pile of string, wondering how it all came apart.
I know time will help. But right now, I’m still in the middle of it - the ache, the confusion, the endless loop of “what ifs.” I keep replaying moments, wondering where it shifted, when we started to veer off course. Actually, I knew a bit. I tried to talk about it. He always said I was wrong, it was fine, but I knew. I wish I knew why he didn't want to try to talk to me.
“Crying does not indicate that you are weak,” I hold onto that, though the words feel like nothing more than a hollow echo in my mind. Right now, I feel weak. I feel broken, like a fragile thread hanging by the thinnest of strands. There’s something raw about this feeling, the kind of thing that sinks deep into your bones and refuses to let go. When the tears come, they don’t bring clarity, they just blur the edges of everything until nothing seems solid anymore. I tell myself that it's okay to cry, that it doesn't make me less than, but it doesn’t stop the sense of inadequacy that lingers, a cold weight pressing down on my chest. Maybe it’s true that crying doesn’t make you weak, but it sure does make you feel it.
For now, I’ll let myself grieve. I’ll sit in the discomfort, in the emptiness, and hope that eventually, the sharp edges will soften. That one day, I’ll look back and see this as a chapter - not the whole story. And maybe then, Jane’s words will feel like a promise, not a wound: “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me.”
But tonight, I’m still ensnared. Still hurting. Still hoping that someday, this will hurt less. That the crying will stop feeling like drowning and start feeling like breathing again. That I can move on, and forget my good friend.