Aoi Aoba
I think I was around four when my younger brother was born.
That memory, blurry as it is, feels like a piece of what shaped the person I am today.
Until then, I had been everything to my parents.
We were madly in love, in our own way—and I was the king of that kingdom of love.
But when my brother arrived, I was dethroned.
No longer number one.
Children who are cast out of such kingdoms—they all know this feeling, somewhere deep down.
Of course, I was still loved.
But as a child, I felt it as a loss.
The love wasn’t the same anymore.
That’s when I learned: love doesn’t last forever.
From that moment on, I began to approach everything with the assumption that it would end.
Friendships, relationships—everything was something that would, someday, leave me.
At three in the morning, I found myself thinking:
Maybe being the firstborn really does shape who we become.
Even when someone loves me,
somewhere deep inside, I can’t shake the fear that my kingdom will be taken from me again.
The only thing I could do was to love myself the most.
It wasn’t until I was past forty that I finally realized that.
Late, yes—but from there, I began to think with my own feet.
Until then, I had been dry.
Desperate for approval, aching for affection, burning with desire to be seen.
But that thirst… it cultivated something in me.
Something I now need.
Lately, I’ve come to believe:
Not being loved is what helps us grow up.
Strangely, the things we gain from not being loved—they’re often of remarkable quality.
Poems that can only be written from thirst.
Words that can only be mined from solitude.
Insights that only grow from a shattered sense of self.
The reason I can write now,
the reason these words pour out of me—
is because of that.
Of course, there are people who mature while being well loved.
But I doubt their words would ever end up on a platform like note.
Because they don’t need to record them.
But here’s what we must not forget:
Even the most perfect love ends.
One of you will die first.
That is 100% certain.
Love is a train that always arrives at its final stop.
Even the happiest love comes with a built-in goodbye.
Which is why—
being unloved, or getting your heart broken,
isn’t just a sad memory.
It’s a rehearsal for death.
Heartbreak is what it feels like when someone dies inside your heart.
Those who have survived that kind of loss—
they carry a strange kind of preparedness for real death.
They know what it’s like to never see someone again.
While still being alive.
So those who have been through heartbreak—
when they love, they see all the way to the end.
They’re fleeting, but not careless.
Gentle, but not dependent.
On the other hand, those who believe too much in “forever love”—
they’re the ones who shatter when loss comes.
They’re the ones who whisper, “This wasn’t supposed to happen,”
but have no voice left to cry out.
To love with loss in mind—
that might be what real, adult love is.
Painful, yes.
But only then does the real thing begin.
So don’t believe it when it feels like your world has ended after a breakup.
What’s happening is not the end.
It’s a kind of training—
to make your heart softer, more resilient.
That’s what I believe.
And it’s what I want you to know, too.