A letter

The one I would have written on paper, if I thought you would open it.

Raghav, my pookie,

This has been one of the hardest letters to write. I have started it a dozen times and deleted it every time, because every version was trying to get something from you that you may not be ready for. This one is trying to give you something instead, and I hope you can feel the difference.

I am not a perfect person and I will never be. I am sorry. Not for how things ended, which is the easy thing to be sorry about. I am sorry for what it was like to live with me. For the years you spent walking carefully around me avoiding egg shells. For the money I lied about, and for taking your help while I was doing it. For every time you said you needed space and I answered by turning up. For the evening at the airport when you came back from Seattle, when you needed to not come home and I made that cost you something. I am sorry for making that evening so dark. God only knows how much I have punished myself since. I am sorry for running into you for the CMU biking event. Truly, it was coincidence. I loved that day but yeah, it hurt you and I am sorry about that too.

Over the years, I pressured you in several ways. With your professional life, I put pressure on you around job switches, promotions, O-1A visa work, etc. With food and protein, although I believe it was a good idea, I recognize that it costs money and may have put pressure on you. With travel, we enjoyed Chicago, Portland, Fairbanks, etc., and would have enjoyed the national parks too, but travel also costs money, and at times I was a financial burden on you. With the gym, again, although it was a good idea, it may have put pressure on you, especially because you already had limited time with your office and Day 1 CPT work. With meeting every month, in my mind, we were strengthening our connection by doing this, but I understand that it could have been pressuring you in multiple ways, including financially. With immigration, my intentions were good, but I put an extreme amount of pressure on this. And the fights with me were exhausting, and that is 100% on me.

You told me four separate times that you wanted this to end, and four separate times I talked you out of it. I used to think that was love. It was not. It was me refusing to let your decision be yours, over and over, until you had to end it in the hardest possible way, because I had made all the easier ways impossible.

I want to tell you when I knew, because I do not think I ever said it right. I said "I love you" at 5801, on the dance floor, moving badly the way I always do. But that was late. I already loved you before that. I loved you the night you fell asleep against me, spooning, breathing slowly, completely at peace in my bed, and I lay there awake realizing I did not want a single night without it. I was already yours in the back of a cab at the San Francisco airport, on my way to Germany, crying because I knew the summer I had spent with you was ending and nothing after it would be as good. I did not have the word for it yet. I have it now. It was you, months before I admitted it.

You called me Chechin. Meri chhili hui andi. Daddy. Sometimes just Sachin, my own name in your voice, which somehow meant more than any of the others. I felt loved in ways I still cannot put into a sentence. I have tried, in a dozen drafts of this, and the words are always too small for it.

You know what I actually miss? Not the big things. The small ones. The way you took care of me after the bike accident in Pittsburgh, when I was useless and you just handled it, handled me. You biking over to my place for no reason. Calling me into the blanket to cuddle. Asking me to put you to sleep. The ridiculous pictures you made of me that I pretended not to love and loved completely. The grammar corrections, my grammar grandma, how much you enjoyed getting under my skin with them, and how much I secretly enjoyed it too. The food you cooked for me, the experiments that had no business tasting as good as they did. Dahi Tikhari on a weeknight for no reason. I fell for you over the bike, over the cooking, over the small quiet evenings, again and again and again. Almost four years of ordinary nights I did not understand were the entire point until they stopped.

You made me feel at home, and I did not make you feel safe. Both of those are true, and only one of them was in my hands. You know why Philly or Boston never felt like home? Because you weren't there. You were my home. I feel lost now.

You changed me. I mean that as fact, not flattery. The person I was before you needed a hundred things to feel like enough, and somewhere across these years you taught me the truth I kept refusing to learn: I only need love. Nothing else matters. I do not care about anything in this world the way I care about growing old with you, walking a beach with you like that Shania Twain video we both know, the "Forever and For Always" one, the life where the ambition finally quiets down and it is just us and time. You even gave me a thing for Asian food, of all things, and every time I order it now I think of you. All of it, all of me now, has your fingerprints on it.

I’m also working on myself in several concrete ways. I’m learning to listen to understand rather than to respond, and to understand your perspective instead of assuming I know what you are thinking or feeling. I’m learning to give you space without interpreting it as rejection, and to respect your autonomy, including your decisions, career, plans, time, and boundaries. I’m working on recognizing when an argument is becoming exhausting and knowing when to pause instead of pushing for resolution. I’m learning to de-escalate when I’m activated, recognize my warning signs, and handle conflict respectfully even when I’m upset. I’m working on repairing after conflict instead of letting things sit or over-explaining myself, and on apologizing without immediately adding my side of the story. I’m also working on managing the urge to increase contact when I feel someone pulling away and learning to tolerate outcomes that I cannot control. I’m being more conscious about making sure my care, gestures, and attempts to help feel like love rather than pressure. I’m also working on handling conflict without physical escalation or restricting someone’s ability to leave or call for help (That one night shouldn’t define me). I’m learning to distinguish transparency from surveillance and to understand that trust does not mean giving someone control over my life. I’m working through the shame I have carried from the 2025 financial loss, separately from the behavior that I have already corrected. And, perhaps most importantly, I’m working on building a life and sense of stability that does not depend on one person’s response or on whether a relationship is going the way I want it to.

I am also re-learning what empathy actually means. It is not just understanding what you meant or explaining why I reacted the way I did. It is trying to understand what an experience felt like from your side, even when your experience is different from mine. I want to be able to hear that something I did hurt you without immediately trying to explain my intention, defend myself, or convince you that it was not as bad as it felt. I want to understand the things that made you feel pressured, unheard, unsafe, or alone, and to take those feelings seriously even when I remember the same moment differently. I am learning that loving someone means caring about the impact I have on them, not just the intentions behind my actions. And sometimes empathy means accepting that I may never fully understand how something felt for you, but still making the effort to listen, believe you, and respond with care rather than making the conversation about me.

Broadly, what I will say is that I am improving myself whether or not this letter changes anything, because the person I was this year is not someone I want to be for anyone, including myself.

So here it is, plainly. If possible, I would like another chance at a reconnection and to let you build your emotional safety and trust with me. If things and the vibe feels alright, I want to build a life full of love and care, and I want to build it with you. In you and with you, I found my home. If you ever decide to give your stupid old boyfriend a chance, I will be the best boyfriend EVER! (Imagine reading this in DJT’s voice.) We would sit down and discuss a framework for making our relationship a strong and safe one. For example, how do we handle conflicts? Do we set a time to talk about them and agree to take a pause if things become too heated? How do we communicate when one of us needs space, without the other person interpreting that space as rejection? How do we make sure that both of us have room for our own careers, friendships, finances, routines, and lives? How do we make decisions about travel, money, immigration, and other big things without one person feeling pressured? How do we check in with each other without it becoming an obligation? I don't expect us to figure all of this out immediately. I also don't expect you to trust me just because I say that I have changed. I know that trust has to be rebuilt through consistent behavior over time. I would be willing to do that, at your pace, without trying to force an outcome. And if you ever do give us another chance, I don't want to recreate what we had. I want us to build something healthier than what we had before, where both of us feel loved, respected, free, and safe.

And I want to be clear about what that means. It is a request, not a claim on you. You do not owe me a reply, or a timeline, or a reason. If the answer is no, then no is the answer, and it will not be argued with. You have said no before and had it not stick, and I know that may be the hardest part of all this to believe. It is the part I most want to get right.

Take all the time you need. Take more than you need.

Sachin
Your Teddy Bear

If you read nothing else here, read this: you were good to me for almost four years, and none of what went wrong was because you did not try hard enough.