I Swear You Will Be Fine

I was reading a grief activity book a few days ago and a page said, “What is your first memory of your loved one?” I instantly thought of the first time I saw you waiting for the train at the train station. You had your maroon Varsity jacket (my favorite one!) and your headphones on. You were sitting with your elbows resting on your thighs, looking around the station and I was coming up on the escalator. We briefly made eye contact and quickly looked away (didn’t even smile at each other!). I was fondly recalling the image of you sitting there, when I realized that that was actually not the first memory I had of you.

My recollection was prompted by thinking about our first conversation. You approached me on the train, early March, asking for my Instagram handle and I had said, “Yeah sure, we have the same lecture, right?” – which meant that I first saw you in class, not at the train station. I remember talking to you about this a while back because we were gushing over the first time we saw each other. You remembered and said that you first saw me at the train station, laughing about how you didn’t know that I was in your class. So, this is my real first memory of you:

It was the first week of school for that trimester and I chose to sit at the last row of the bottom section of the lecture hall. I was on the left side of the hall, and sitting diagonally in front of me to the right was you. You were wearing the same maroon Varsity jacket, and you had a ginormous cup of black coffee on your table. I can’t actually pinpoint the reason why I noticed you or why I chose to continue paying attention to you. You never turned back once so I didn’t even see your face until seeing you at the train station. You never made a sound; you were behaving very normally throughout the whole lecture. Some part of me thinks I noticed you purely because you caught my eye and piqued my interest. You could be in a sea of people and my eyes would somehow naturally land on you, even if I had never seen you before in my life – that was how it happened really, how easy it was for me to spot you. Everyone else was dressed in different colored clothing. My eyes could have easily landed on anyone else, but somehow, it landed on you. In hindsight, maybe, subconsciously, I knew it was going to be you. Maybe I, unknowingly, felt a sense of familiarity with you – like “Oh, there you are. I’ve known you in lives before this one.” (I felt this familiarity when you first asked me for my Instagram handle too. I felt an “I’ve known you before”. Every time I looked into your eyes, I felt it.)

I’d glanced at you a few times by now. And at this point, I still couldn’t see your face. I just kept looking at your jacket and coffee. I don’t even drink coffee, but I remember thinking, “How is he going to finish that whole cup of coffee before the end of class?” And you had placed it at the very edge of the tiny lecture table too, on the same table as your laptop. My next thought was, “Oh… I hope he doesn’t spill his coffee” (Don’t ask me why I thought these things. I don’t know either.) Throughout the whole lecture, I kept periodically glancing at you every time you took sips of your coffee. Sure enough, you actually finished it at the end of the class.

I still can’t logically explain why you caught my eye, but I very clearly thought: You seemed like someone who would be a good friend. Again, no idea why, but I just felt the urge to befriend you. I wasn’t trying to see you romantically and I definitely wasn’t looking for a relationship – it wasn’t like that. I just knew that you would be an interesting person. Like, you would have interesting thoughts and say interesting things – and I was not wrong, you are the most interesting person I know. I’ve never thought this about a person before, but from just looking at your style and your mannerisms, I thought that we would get along as friends. I thought that you’d be a great person to know, like if I had only managed to make one friend in Uni, I’d hope that it would be you. I even told a friend of mine that I saw someone who looked interesting, like he had jumped out of a book (Later, when I told you that I had thought and said this, you got very shy and said that you’d never received a compliment like that before. And I told you I’d never thought that about anyone else either).

I guess someone up there might have heard my thoughts because a while later came seeing you at the train station over and over, getting each other’s Instagram handles, and one thing led to another… Some might say it’s fate, really (me, I’d say it’s fate).

After that first time, I’d continue to glance at you or your computer screen from rows away (I swear, I’m not a stalker – Josh is very intriguing). You’d either be reading something, or playing subway surfers or Minecraft. The second conversation I’d had with you was texting you to ask whether you were playing Minecraft or just watching videos of it. I thought that you’d respond with something I could bounce off of, like, “Oh, you know Minecraft? Did you play or watch?”, considering I also used to play and watch Minecraft. Instead, your response was “playing lol” and the conversation ended there (You’d think Josh was not interested in me if you read our first few texts).

When I told you this, that I had seen you in lectures, you were quite bashful and flattered that you had unknowingly caught my attention. I, on the other hand, was mockingly offended that you didn’t know I was in your lecture (but to be fair, I sat rows behind you and was always the first to leave class the minute it ended).

I’m so glad I told you almost all of my thoughts and feelings about you. I sometimes worry that I didn’t get to tell you how much I love you. Reading our texts and reminiscing like this reminds me that I did tell you – we did tell each other. I also sometimes think people might wonder if I would have loved you through thick and thin – they might think that we were a new couple so our feelings were “still fresh” (we despise this “still fresh” idea of a relationship, by the way). I know life could have become more difficult, and some might wonder if I would have loved you through all of life’s obstacles. Then I wonder how I can prove that I would have… and I remember that I’m still loving you, even now, when you’re in Heaven, so I definitely would have loved you no matter what on Earth.

It was nice recalling the beginning of everything. Who would have thought that the start of it all was a cup of coffee and a jacket?

I’ve always been skeptical about soulmates, but I met you and thought, “Huh. Maybe soulmates do exist.” Can’t wait to see you again. I love you more, always, and forever.

Love always,
Sha