But what I keep replaying in my head is what he told me earlier at the cafe.
The cage.
He said I had built a cage around myself, one made entirely of my own thoughts. When I told him how I believed marriage would bring me freedom from my father, he said that was only trading one cage for another. Here you follow your parents, he said. There you will follow a man. Either way, you still will not fly.
That sentence has not left me since.
Because it is true.
Painfully true.
I have built a cage out of fear, overthinking, expectations, imagined futures. Everything. All of it.
That i was like a bird who's been trapped so long it's forgotten how to fly.
I don't want that life.
But I don't know how to escape it either.
He said he could help, but also gently reminded me again that he won't be here for long.
And that's what keeps breaking me:
Why open a door I already know will close?
I knew he would leave me eventually, that we'd drift apart, the PhD, the opportunities, the timing. But meeting him again today made everything sharper, more real. It made me remember how much I learned from him, how much I cared, how much I'd miss him. Keeping distance would've been easier if we hadn't bumped into each other again, but this, this was no easy.
~
And now I'm stuck with this question I can't untangle:
Is it better to let someone fade out quietly… or to fix things even when you know your time with them is running out?
Part of me wants to cherish whatever time is left, to talk more, give gifts, make memories. But another part keeps whispering that maybe… it already ended. Maybe the time Allah wrote for us together finished days ago and I didn't realize it. Maybe yesterday was our last written meeting and I just didn't know.
And that thought leads to a thousand others, about endings, about time, about how fragile everything is. We treat relationships like we're promised unlimited days, but we aren't. Anyone can disappear any moment. Any bond can end without warning. So why does this goodbye scare me more than the reality that nothing in life is permanent?
I think that's the thing I'll miss most about him , that he made me introspective. Even after a single conversation, I'd feel my mindset shifting, softening. It's like some gentler version of me comes out in his presence, a version I hardly meet otherwise. And even after he leaves, that softness stays for a while. He unlocked some part of me I didn't know existed.
The Greeks call it anam cara — a soul friend.
Someone who uncovers hidden rooms inside you without even trying.
That's what he was for me.
Not a lover.
Not someone I imagined a future with anymore.
But someone who changed me.
Someone whose influence will stay long after he's gone.
Later I asked for gift ideas. One suggestion was to write letters for him to open at different times, and I actually considered it… but the idea made me cry. Because writing something for him to open later means admitting he won't be here. It means accepting the goodbye.
I hate goodbyes.
I always have.
Every goodbye feels final to me, even the temporary ones.
But then I remind myself, if God wills for our paths to cross again, they will. And if not, then maybe this was all that was written for us. And I can't fight what's written.
I don't like the thought of losing him. Maybe not romantically anymore, but as a friend, yes. We annoyed each other sometimes, but today softened something between us again. And somehow that softness makes losing him hurt more.
But I don't want to waste what's left.
I'll try to make the most of the time God has written for us.
And whatever happens after…
I'll leave it to Him.
~
I keep circling back to the same question:
Is it better to stay mad and let someone drift away, or to fix the misunderstanding even when you know your time with them is limited?
He's leaving. That part is certain. And it's turning into a dilemma I didn't think I'd have to face so soon.
I always knew he would go eventually. He'd already told me about the PhD, the timing, the plan. But seeing him today, talking about it so casually, so confidently, made it real in a way it wasn't before. It made the goodbye feel closer, like it was already inching toward me.
I remembered everything then, every conversation, every moment he helped me, every soft part of myself that came alive when he was around. And I realized that despite everything that had happened, I would miss him.
Maintaining the distance would have been easier if we had not met again. Meeting at the camp again cracked everything open, and now I don't know what to do. Maybe fixing things means I get a few more weeks.
Maybe staying mad meant I got to protect whatever dignity I had left.
But which one hurts less?
And the more I thought about it, the more something else began to make sense: our time together is limited. That's the root of everything. That's why I suddenly want to cherish what's left, why I want to meet him more, give him gifts, make our last interactions meaningful. Because I know he'll leave. Because I know it's ending.
And maybe… maybe it already ended. I keep assuming our last meeting will be in two months, but it could've been the day before yesterday and I wouldn't even know. That thought unsettles me.
It also teaches me something: if I treated every relationship like it had an unknown countdown, would I live differently? Softer? Braver? Kinder?
We act like we're promised time.
But we're not.
We're not promised the next meeting, the next conversation, the next chance to fix things. Anything could happen, and we all know it, but somehow this goodbye is the one shaking me. This temporary loss is the one making me panic, even though the impermanence of everything else never scared me like this.
If I knew I would die tomorrow, what would I do?
I genuinely don't know. I never asked myself that before. Maybe that's why his absence hits me the way it does—because he made me introspect. He made me think in ways I hadn't before.
Even today, after the camp, the remnants of our conversation kept circling inside me. I found myself being softer. More reflective. A better version of myself, somehow.
I didn't know someone's presence could change me like that. I thought I had learnt everything I could from him, but every meeting shows me there is still more inside me that I haven't discovered yet. And this time, it wasn't even anything he said. It was just the way being near him made me feel—calmer, open, vulnerable in a good way. It brings out the softest part of me, and I still don't fully understand why.
Maybe it's because certain people awaken parts of us we didn't know existed.
Maybe it's because some people mirror something deep inside us.
Maybe it's because I feel safe around him, without having to try.
Maybe it's all of that at once.
And apparently there's a name for this.
The ancient Greeks called it anam cara—a soul friend. Someone who unlocks your inner world just by existing near you. Someone who isn't meant to stay forever, but leaves something behind. A key, a shift, a new part of yourself that you didn't know was waiting to be awakened.
I think he was that. He unlocked words and feelings and reflections that didn't exist in me before him. And I don't hate that.
What I do hate is the thought of losing him, of being without this version of myself that comes alive around him.
Writing this got me so emotional I ended up talking to my colleague for almost an hour about him. Later, I even asked for gift ideas. One suggestion was writing letters "not to be opened until a certain time." The idea was so sweet that I actually thought about doing it, until the thought made me cry.
Because if I wrote those letters, it would mean accepting that he would be gone.
Forever.
A part of me always knew things would end, but not this soon.
I don't know why goodbyes ruin me the way they do. They always feel final, even when they aren't.
But then a softer thought settled in: if Allah wills, we will meet again.
Maybe He wrote only a certain amount of time for us. Perhaps that was always the plan. Maybe we weren't meant to stay in each other's lives forever. And if God has written that our paths cross again someday, then nothing, not distance, not endings, not even ourselves, can stop it.
At the end of the day, dunya is temporary. We get attached, yes, but none of it is meant to last forever.
I don't like the thought of losing him. I don't like him romantically anymore, not in that way, but I like his company. We annoyed each other sometimes, but yesterday softened something between us.
And because things feel softer now, I know I'll miss him more.
Still, I don't want to waste whatever little time I have left.
I'll make the best of it.
The rest, I'll leave to Allah.