Another Letter To J

I might have told both people and myself how I actually never liked you as a person. But you know what, I did miss you when I was out on the open sea. Especially when I realized there was nobody to encourage me anymore to jump into the water and snorkel. Let alone taking a 3-day diving course. I did need that kind of encouragement, especially when I had signed myself up for a snorkeling but then turned out to not have enough guts once I saw a sea snake from the small boat I was on.

Not only your words of encouragement I missed. I missed your helping me with my snorkeling gears so I could just easily wear them. And I also missed sharing a cigarette with you after you finished diving and I finished snorkeling. As puffing either your Marlboro or my Sampoerna, we would exchange stories of what we had seen down there in open water. Then I would envy you so much when you told me you just saw a stingray manta or a hammerhead shark while diving. And you would tell me to stop green envying you by start taking a diving course. "So we can dive and see the mantas or sharks together," that's what you would usually say, which I would usually reply: "But I fear the sea snakes!" You would then call me sissy and usually that would be the end of our to-or-not-to-take-diving-course argument, which was to be continued in our next diving-snorkeling session.

The sea was never the same without you.

Even the fish market I went to afterwards was so different without you. I could vividly imagine how you must have enjoyed seeing all the abundant fresh fish and seafood. I saw baby sharks and how the vendors cold-bloodedly cut the fins out of the poor things. They make good money out of the fins for sure. And I bet you can't imagine how surprisingly inexpensive tuna was there! You still like tuna, don't you? I still can't cook but I could imagine myself clumsily thin slicing the tuna I just bought to make you sashimi. Yes, the setting would be in our little kitchen of our house located by the sea.

On a more brutally honest note, one of my Bali trip purposes was to forget my chapter with you so that I could move on to another. But once I set my foot on the island, all I wanted to do was keep all the good memories I had with you. Why should I not, right?

I missed you. The worse thing is, I don't know anymore if I should put the past or present tense for the verb "miss".