Bound by years of hurt & bittersweet memories.
The story goes a little like this:
"Hi, how are you?" Was his text.
"Hi. Nothing much. You?" My fingers instantly replying.
"I wanted to talk to you: our last conversation ended on a wrong note.
I want to clear things up.
No more bad blood between us."
I held my breath. It took me over an hour to even think of what to say.
Are you sure you want to block contact?
Yes.
Freedom.
It's a rush.
But me being Me, I needed to talk about this incident. My over-thinking mind was miles ahead of me, having a dialogue with itself, I needed someone sane to put things in perspective. Don't get me wrong, I knew what I did was right, but I needed to be... Sure?
A dear friend of mine came to the rescue:
“But do you want to forgive him?” Was her text.
“Absolutely not.” Another instant reply.
“Hmm. You do know that forgiveness works more for you than for him right? It helps you reach a point of indifference: where there’s nothing positive, negative, hopeful or hateful within you towards the other person: it’s just plain indifference.” I sigh. She always makes sense.
“He will always be my First Love. First Kiss. First Heartbreak. First Loss. I’m still picking up the pieces he left of my heart.
But he can’t message me like this. All these days later. Asking me for forgiveness or to clear things up.
This is not about me finding Peace. It’s that I don’t want him to ever feel like he’s done “right” to me,
Because he hasn’t.” My fingers, heart and head needed a break. My dear friend was patient.
“I know it probably sounds vengeful. But is is what it is.” I was done.
Done, but not yet entirely Free.
She understood this.
And just like that, her one sentence changed the way I looked at how I had been living my life. It’s serendipitous that it all came to me in the last week of the Year, almost as if, someone out there was waiting for 2017 to be on the Horizon.
While I had been existing in 2016, I hadn’t been truly Living. I kept looking behind me, cautiously reminding myself of the past and it’s pain before making any decision or allowing anyone to truly approach and get to know the Real Me. Being an optimistic person, my friends wondered where this optimism went when I spoke about my life: but I was too busy licking my wounds.
She typed:
“You’re holding on to this vengeance, go ahead. I won’t stop you. But just hear me out:
This is feeding him or the idea of him way too much power in your life.
He’s moved on in his life, but somewhere he is Still controlling your life, and more importantly, your idea of Love.
How is this fair to you?
You say you’re a romantic, but that’s only in your words. You don’t want to live like one.
What I appreciate the most about you is the way you speak about Love, it makes me believe. And I’m sure I’m not the only one.
But it pains me to think that you’ve convinced yourself you’re only going to find that perfect Romance in your words: and only because you’re too busy reminding yourself of what went wrong instead of focusing on what could go right and how that’s going to change your Life around.”
It was a bubble-burst moment. My entire life I’ve spent solely focusing on everything that has gone wrong in my life: and I admit to one fact, I had absolutely no space in my heart to even dream of Forgiveness. I thought I had moved on in my life, closing all the doors behind me that needed to be, but there’s a difference. I didn’t just close the doors, I locked all of them up: almost bolted them shut. Every time I thought my heart was, (As my sister says,) about to flutter, I quickly pushed it back, reminded it of the pain it had to go through, my dear dear heart. And fooled myself into thinking that it wasn’t “me”.
Deep in my heart, I decided that I would consciously make an effort to look ahead, and not behind.
To forget pain and value experiences.
