It's easy to notice the exact moment a gift becomes a curse. I saw the first small flicker of annoyance register in your eyes around three years after our marriage. You were finally internalizing all the implications that my gift had for our relationship without any sugar-coating. I learned I intimidated you in a way because I won each and every one of the arguments we had based on previous events. Unlike me, you didn't have ready-made proof of how past events really unraveled, and it annoyed you how forgetful you learned you were. However, you brushed the annoyance aside every time. The sum of the love and trust you had for me was bigger than the sum of your insecurities and ego. As long as the balance of that equation held, my gift would continue to be just that - a gift. Little did I know you would slowly stop trusting me so blindly around four years into our marriage, slowly tipping off that balance ever so slightly. That's when we had our first real fight.
You asked me to admit I fudged the truth a little bit in order to get away with winning an argument, and it dawned on me how much you feared I manipulated you. As far as you were concerned I could be lying to you about our previous history, and your word would not have a leg to stand on against mine. You see, my gift became a course the exact moment the trust we had for each other went out the window - because that's when our marriage did too. I was sad to learn I was wrong when I told you I would travel to our wedding day the most - because, instead, I ended up traveling more to the day I saw you last.
After our divorce, I got lost in the memories out of nostalgia, and I relived almost 4 years of my life again. I know all the lines by heart - the same way children memorize the lines of their favorite film. When I visit the memory of you drinking coffee in the morning, I know you'll raise your eyes to the clock at 7:14, and sigh at 7:52. However, the objective of my visits to the past eventually changed, and I started to visit them out of the need to understand where did we go wrong. You blindsided me when you handed me the divorce papers. I have theories of exactly what was going through your head months before our divorce, but I can't ask them to you in my memories. Because, as you know, I can't change the past. Only relieve it.
I do wonder, however, if someday I will look for you again in the future. To ask you which, if any, of the theories I have of why you turned against me, are true. When I ask them, I'll be able to read you like a book. I know by memory each and every one of your facial expressions. If you flinch. If you hesitate, if you second guess any of my words I will know it. If you lie I will know it.
Maybe is not worth it though. Maybe it's better if I don't give you a chance to explain your truth to me. I am 29 years old. Have lived for exactly 10,585 days, and that's around a third of the 32,850 days I expect to have lived before I die at around 90. I don't think I want you to stain my future the way you stained my past. The way I see it, I have around 22,265 days to live - 22,265 empty canvases that I get to fill with any memory I decide to make, and I'll get to relive it as many times as I wish. I don't want to waste one of those canvases with an older version of your face. I already gave you too many of the ones I had.