Right person wrong time: Did my prefrontal cortex just develop?

I think I just felt my brain expand

A Huguenot on St. Bartholomew's Day. John Everett Millais, 1852.

“I’ll say I loved you years ago, Tell myself you never loved me, no”

I’ve only jolted out of sleep twice in my life—once when I realised I hadn’t submitted my most recent DTK1234 assignment before the 23:59 deadline, and the other when I dreamt that my ex-boyfriend stood calmly before me, unspeaking, unshaken—not screaming bloody murder in my face.

In both instances, I opted to pop a Nurofen and shakily cocoon myself back under my duvet, without fully registering that these moments weren’t random—they were warnings. The sense of looming dread brought on by a Google Calendar notification or the hyper-real image of his face projected in 4K by my subconscious wasn’t arbitrary. They were signs: to pause, to regroup. Even now, a year on, I can’t quite comprehend why a mental glimpse of him derails me—not just into frustration, but confusion. I know I’ve moved on. I’m sure of it. Yet, there's something unsettling about seeing him again, even in a dream—something that irks me precisely because I know he probably wouldn’t feel the same way. It makes me question why I tried so desperately to make it all work in the first place.

Let me be clear: I abhor this man. I have no qualms saying this publicly. He once, inebriated and self-righteous, threatened to sue me in front of actual police officers—for vague and laughably exaggerated transgressions. He never once clarified the full story with me. And perhaps he didn’t need to. He needed catharsis. It was humiliating, but not life-altering. Still, there was a time I loved him—undeniably, intensely, and probably foolishly. Or whatever “love” is when you’re 20 and infatuated with someone giving you attention.

It’s been months since the fallout. In that time, a secret society of the wronged—people once charmed, hurt, and discarded by him and his adorable little clique—have reached out to me. Their accounts were different, but familiar. A mosaic of red flags I once excused. And yet after all of this listening, what I still can’t quite come to terms with is this: was none of it real for him?

Yes, I know. He could flip that question on me. He still believes I wronged him more than he ever wronged me. And frankly? I don’t even bother defending myself anymore. I almost wish I had done the things he accuses me of, just to earn the infamy. In a twisted way, it satisfies me that he thinks I was capable of orchestrating such a betrayal so seamlessly. That level of manipulation? I’ll take the credit—even if I never actually did it. It would be the first time for sure he’d ever acknowledge my intelligence.

Now, if you’re reading this and wondering, “What the hell happened?”—it’s irrelevant. We both believe we were the one who got burned. That won’t change. What matters is that these moments—these dreams, these flashes of memory—didn’t come from nowhere. I didn’t stumble upon the image of him standing quietly in front of me because my life has been rainbows and sunflowers lately. These dreams frighten me not because he’s angry in them, but precisely because he isn’t. Why is he at peace? Why am I subconsciously not?

“Time cast a spell on you, but you won’t forget me”

Here’s the brutal truth: hating someone is far easier than mourning the version of them you once adored. Amicable breakups are fiction. Someone always gets the shorter end of the stick, even if they pretend otherwise. Maybe that’s why he never asked for my side—he needed to hate me to move on. And in his story, I made for a convenient villain (he’s literally a loser in mine). I wish I had the capacity to truly hate him, though. I’ll say I despise him and whatnot but I haven’t exactly reached the level of “When I die don’t attend my funeral.” kind of hate. I think this is something most people struggle with— I know I’ve heard this before. “I should hate him after all he’s done to me, but I just can’t”.

And yet we still find ourselves wondering: did I lose something meaningful when I lost him? Or did I simply lose the idea of who I thought he was?

Sometimes, I have fallen into the trap of believing I lost a future—one neatly aligned with mine, crafted from shared traumas and complementary dreams. In the wake of it all, I’ve often questioned: am I looking back because I want to move forward, or because I have nothing else to hold onto? I've learnt I'd much rather be sitting in the discomfort of this, acknowledging its ability to frustrate me, than incessantly looking for answers.

Fleabag, 2016- "It'll pass"

“I’ll follow you down ‘til the sound of my voice will haunt you”

Bittersweetness is, in my opinion, the most intoxicating and satisfying human emotion. It’s addictive. Nostalgia slips into the smallest moments—walking past a familiar street and catching ghostlike glimpses of us laughing, hand in hand. I’ve stood and stared, watching their silhouettes drift down the pavement outside my father’s house, her guessing his birthday correctly—though that moment would later prove hollow because I’d lied, asking a friend of his in advance just to spook him out later on. To some extent, when he isn’t busy throwing dirt on my name while I remain defending him (the exception being this article), I often wonder if he remains nostalgic and laughs occasionally at funny memories of us. I also often take satisfaction in knowing that he will always have the worst impression of me– it speaks more of him than of me.

I’ve sat on condominium rooftops, curled up in the dark of my bedroom, hidden in plain sight in spots near his home, repeating the same question in my mind: I no longer want this… so why does part of me still linger?

The truth? I don’t know what lies ahead romantically. Love, when you’ve been raised to expect more, can feel consistently underwhelming. And for that, I can thank the men in my life who taught me what respect and kindness look like. I’ve grown since the breakup—I’ve made new friends, seized new opportunities, and even met goals I once dreamed up purely to prove that the pain was worth enduring. I have also had more than one opportunity to love others in the same sense, and am more than happy with what I chose. Yet, I used to occasionally think that I would do almost anything to return to a fleeting moment where I felt safe—where time froze, and we were briefly okay.

“Was I such a fool?”

If you’re reading this wondering if there’s any hope for you, the answer is yes. I’m not in that place anymore. I may have just excavated my heart onto a blank page for strangers online (and if my ex is among them—hello, I hope your cognitive capacity hasn’t shrunk since we last spoke, also, have you called your mother today?), but the truth is, none of it really matters anymore. I have to be vulnerable and show my side of things. I have to let others know that they aren’t moronic for wanting something to work out so badly that it blows up in their face afterward as a lesson that detachment was necessary. You had the capacity to love, and you had the capacity to trust, and even though it let you down– how beautiful is it to know you are capable of such emotion? It’s exhilarating to think that we as a species are the only ones who are able to be cognisant when communicating our emotions towards others. It’s almost as though it was fated for us to love, and to look back with both pride and sorrow.

The point of all this is simple: bittersweetness is a reminder that I have lived. That I have felt. And while I am composed of these moments, I am not defined by them. In some alternate reality, if I had stayed with him, I might have been content—but I would have never demanded more of myself. I would have been in love, but I would have settled. Maybe it was because I had attached the idea of him being a good person with being right for me. My ex isn’t a bad person for not wanting to be with me, and even though that was a bitter pill to swallow, sweetness comes in knowing that experience has planted my feet exactly where they need to be.

Bittersweetness, in this sense, is the price we pay for growing up.

And while it may hurt now, take comfort in knowing: what’s meant for you will never ask you to be less than everything you already are. Be grateful you feel this pain, it is an incessant reminder that you are not like the person who broke your heart, and that they were not the right one. Anyways, no one is asking you to let go immediately. You can always grieve— you’re allowed that much in response to heartbreak. That grief, however, shouldn’t be all consuming. How exhausting would it be to be melancholic forever? It should push you to know yourself more than any lover ever will. Whoever hurt you obviously never knew you well enough to have done that to you, anyway.