“He kiss me !! Finally, he kiss me!! “. I was screaming in my head on the way home in my taxi. I started giggling, a knee jerk reaction that I still have till this day when I found myself in extreme emotional circumstances.

I
could
not
stop
laughing.

I was a joyous, blissful laughter. The pure joy of a child of a child waking up on Christmas morning. The Joy of discovery. The joy of renewed hope of a new life. The Joy of being right about him. I could not remember the way home, because at the time all I can think of was the butterfly that exploding through my stomach and fly around me.

That was me, on the night we first kiss. Just when I thought that I no longer needed my heart, I needed no one else in this world. I found this man, who kiss was magical to me. I could not believe it, I could not believe that I can still feel and giggle like a little shy girl. I’m still giggling now typing these words out, my stomach still turns a little bit when I thought about that moment. It was Magic to me.

I’d like to began this note to tell you about one of my fondest memory through the time of our relationship. I have a visual memory, and once I marked something in my head, I can just pick it out and relive it over and over again. It’s a good thing, but also a bad thing because sometimes I can destroy myself just by living in the past.

I wrote about our background, my personal point of view about Camel’s upbringing. Today I’d like to review the interaction between us from the beginning to the end.

The beginning

I like to write, writing is my way of expressing myself. It’s in writing that I can form and develop my thoughts all the way till the end. So when I met Camel, the first thing that caught my heart was writing. I always secretly wished to share the love with someone who appreciate the art of hand writings and I found him – I thought to myself. Camel wrote to me, and folded the letters in the most complicated ways – I love it so much. I’m always shy reading letters in front of someone, so I couldn’t wait to go home and read it. It was so beautiful.

We wrote to each other so often, that I suggest to keep it in a notebook so we can keep track record of what we write. At first, he wrote back a lot, really fast, I thought that was too fast because I’d expect sometimes once in awhile.

He’s also very expressive with words, he spoke about his heart. He counted the month we are together, he kept on telling me how much he loves me. He shared with me about his life, the deepest corner of life through words.

He was the yin to my yang, he was careful, detailed oriented, think ahead and follow plan. Skills that I don’t possess in life, I was looking at him and thinking, boy, I can learn a lot from this person. So I did, I observe how he arrange his work, how he spend during traveling for work and copy it, I learned so much.

His personality type at the time was ENFJ to me only, someone who’s expressive with his emotions, live with emotions and intuition but follows steps and orders. He was sweet, kind, gentle and tender. He encourage me to listen to my heart. He showed me his heart, he showed me the courage of love so that I can follow. He was everything I look for in a person.

We had so much fun, a lot of laughter all the time. We spent the first 24 hours together then we ended up at the zoo watching my favorite animal – Elenphant, isn’t that the most romantic thing on earth. My heart was melted. I opened up to him about my trauma, my wounds, my wishes, the work that I’m doing on myself.

We share the love for mountains, we love trekking and traveling. I was planning for us to travel the world whenever we have the chance. We had some hiccups, but I can mange.

Cupid hits me straight and square right in the chest, straight to the heart. I was under the spell of love, I started thinking about the future. I talked about how many children I want 4 I said, and if we have enough time 6, as long as we are rich. I like a big family, it’s a lot of fun. And I can create fun, I have enough energy in myself to create fun.

I think at that point in time, he was charmed by my positive energy. My natural gift is to vibrate happy and joy, especially to strangers. My feelings is at that point in time, his heart felt connected to my heart. There’s a thing about stranger, we might be fearful, but we might also be at our best self because we have nothing to fear. At the end of the day, this person is a stranger, completely unrelated to our life so we can pretty much do whatever we want.

So he express himself 100%, and in turn he encouraged me to do the same. He was the ENFJ to my INFP, the perfect match. That’s what I felt in my heart. We can only grow closer and stronger from then on. So I wish.

My heart started to pound every time I see him. I was so looking forward to every single time we met each other. I was under his love spells. We were so happy, always talking, giggling. I enjoyed my time with him so much and found myself always wish for more.

I was blind with love that I ignore all the other signs that will prove otherwise. I was so believe in fairy tales that I think as long as we have love, we can conquer all.

The signs

Whenever we meet, or whenever we are together it was happy go goody. But we rarely met, between his travels and my travels, it’s hard to arrange our time together. And even when we are in town, we still don’t meet that much. I found it extremely hard to understand, I’m not a fan of everyday meeting too, but if we are happen to be in town together at the same time, isn’t that the first thing we should do is to meet each other?

I want to do that, but I feel like I shouldn’t. Camel kept his world completely close, he opened a tiny door from his heart to my heart, expressing his love for me from time to time. But the rest, it was zero. I felt like around him there’s a bubble of 2 meter, that noone could ever walk inside. He had his schedule and there’s nothing can change about that.

For example: He just got back from travelling for 3 weeks, then he will go to his BJJ class, go home and rest, the next day he has meetings with clients. There’s no space for me, or he’s not willing to create space for me. So even if he’s been traveling for 3 weeks, and we haven’t seen each other, but when he got back, we still don’t see each other too.

I was confused. I was sad 😞. I was not so sure how to react in this situation. I was afraid to be portrayed as needy, but I also wanted to see him so badly. I missed him. I was not sure this is what love looks like to him? So we continued to live our complete separate life, and sometimes we met if we are so free and there’s nothing else to do?

It was tough for me. I’m tiptoeing around him, trying to find the balance, gave him the space that he needed, also asked for the love and affections that I needed. I also needed my space, but not as much as him. I was not sure how to act, how to react.

And you know what I did? I ran away. Because I didn’t know how to deal with him, I ran away. When I wanted to move to Hoi An, it was the night I was so stressed staying in one of my Airbnb alone. I needed to come there to sleep to tested the vibration sound. You knew what I also wished, that night, I wished that he would offer to come and stay with me that night in the Huynh Thuc Khang apartment. I wished that he could offer to help me, and I didn’t dare to ask for it because there’s a chance he will say no. He doesn’t have problem with saying no.

So I was lying in bed, in the Huynh Thuc Khang apartment, lonely and helpless. I decided to run away. In this city, there’s nothing holding me back. My lover is living a separate life that I cannot enter. I’m lonely within the relationship, very lonely, it’s even worse than being alone. Because if I’m alone, I’m still doing the thing I’m doing, except that I won’t be disappointed because there’s no sign of my lover anywhere.

I can recalled it vividly, I was lying in the bed, the bedroom downstairs of the apartment – stressed, sad, helplessness, lonely. I felt like there was a million tons of stuff that’s right on top of my chest, so heavy that I’m gasping for air.

I need to go away,
I need to run away from all this.
I have a lover that does not love me,
a mother that does not love me

What left in here for me to stay. So in the middle of the night, I asked for help from a stranger. “Can you take me to your town, Thư? Can you please show me how to live there?”

That’s the beginning of the journey that takes me to where I am now.

To be continued …