Goodbye Gilded Cage.

It was strangely calm last night, when we spoke about which things of mine to bring back and which things to throw out from your apartment.

It’s strange to think that one year on, there are still traces of me inside your apartment, tucked under your bed, in a box full of memories of a once-upon relationship.

I embrace our exchange almost a bit too warmly. There’s an air of carelessness in the way I speak — almost dismissive — as thought I might even want you to still think I might have feelings for you.

Just to play you. Because I can now.

I’ve moved on. So on. In fact, the only reason I can even embrace this exchange is precisely because I feel so much more lighter now. There’s no hard feelings involved. Only joy and celebration at my newfound freedom.

I feel like a free bird, after a year of freedom, coming back and peering into her old gilded cage. It’s this mixture of shock and disbelief, tinged with a nostalgia of the fond memories we shared.

It was the right choice to leave. I always deep down that I would regret it if I married him. That many years down the line, I would look back at my life with so much remorse that I would look at him with such spite and say — it is because of you that I have made nothing of my life.

And there would be nothing but hate left in me. Hate for all the wasted years I put into him. Into us.

So I had to leave. For me.

One year on, I couldn’t be happier with the life choices I have made.

Goodbye 2015, Hello 2016.