THE BOX AND THE EMPTY STREET

This post was actually written a few months ago. I forgot to post it and now I feel like I owe it a publish.

I found myself in a place I had been before, one too many times. I was once again the girl who stood in the middle of the dark street, with memories of someone else put in a box, and I carry that box home with me again, alone. These sort of things have happened to me before, some being just mere shrugs of not very significant encounters, and some as let-downs that would last for a few weeks. But this? A few weeks will not cut it.

I hate telling people to move on. Nor do I like being told to move on. What I had come to realize is that a relationship is about two people – only the two of you will ever know the complexities, the depths and the death of your companionship. No one else will ever completely understand it. Therefore listening to what people say you should do is like Kim K telling Kanye West how to make an album. It is with good intent, but it will never completely fit the bill. All you have is your head and your gut.

After all is said and done, many of us end up being in a limbo of emotions. Some days we feel glad that what was not meant to be is now over. Some days, unfortunately, we find ourselves pining over the loss of a soul who used to be someone important in the story of our lives. It is despairing when someone who used to be a part of our memories become a memory themselves. I would find myself to feel like I had somehow fallen down into a deep dark hole, with the pieces scattered around me on the floor. Somehow, I would have to pick them up and learn to assemble them again, albeit broken and a bit bent, and then climb out of that dark hole by myself.

The sad truth about this hole is that nobody can pull us out of it except ourselves. We may have friends and loved ones who would cheer us on to keep climbing out, but it will all need our own doing. Not family, not friends, not even another boy. A lot of people say that you know you have moved on when you find another. This could not be more wrong. I am not a fan of the ‘rebound’ concept. It is not an excuse to delude yourself with other people as a compensation for your own sadness. The real way to know you’re moving on is when you wake up one day and realize that you can think about the past without being emotionally affected by it. With or without someone new.

As you successfully make your way out of this weird, dark hole, the real journey begins. I know people who bounces back as fast as a silly putty, and before you know it off they go again, without much of a pause to reflect on how things have unfolded themselves. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) I am not one of those. As much as I try I always end up preferring to sit in my puddle of thoughts, dwelling on lost words and broken promises, feeling like I deserve to do what I want despite what Dr Phil would tell me. I start picking up the bricks again, putting them up one by one until they once again become that wall I had once smashed to the ground in the spirit of trust. Then I remain aloof towards anyone new, because bitterness is an anxious old man. He cringes at the sight of a possible future repeat of the same hurt.

I was watching The Walking Dead all last weekend. There was a character who was dying, and as she was in her final moments she told another character, “Someday this pain will be useful to you”. I think she was talking about being eaten by a zombie, but whatever. You catch my drift, right?
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Because someday, this pain will be useful to me.