When is it really over?

How do you know that you have reached the moment of never turning back? How do we feel we have arrived at the longed for closure? When are we really open for something new without the threat of running back from something we know is good for us?

 

Many of us, in happy relationships or not, have these dark moments when our minds are wondering off to the past, to this one person and to what would happen if this person was to appear. We might feel guilty in these moments. We might enjoy the secret fruit. Or we might not pay any attention to it. What really matters, though, is the fact that these thoughts keep on coming back. So, what would happen if this person was to appear? Would we give in? Would we go for it? Most of us would say, it depended on what this person would do. But does it really?

 

I have observed it many times with people around me who had some sort of a meaningful encounter while abroad. They fell in love. It was harsh and draining but most of the times it was worth it. It was the “wow” experience as loving people are pushed into a sea of uncertainties – about themselves or the relationship – and it is so freaking scary to close your eyes on those and just go for it. Then, a so true for many modern love stories, these people are torn apart due to distance – work, study, “not ready to settle”, you name it. As we all have seen this distance coming up, we had been less able to let go in the first place and…are now stuck in our uncertainties. “I was ready to give it a try, but he continued the originally mutual philosophy of ”this is not meant to last, you will leave soon”; so we just maintained the lie alive without ever finding out whether there was a meaning to it”.  

 

And then, months, if not years later, way after the painful and seemingly never ending period of waking up and going to sleep thinking of him, seeing the connection die slowly, you have an opportunity to meet. Silence. Fear. U-n-c-e-r-t-a-i-n-t-y.

 

You drop him a message that you will be around. Help. He responds casually but happily that he will make sure to come down to the same place and meet. Help. You think you are happy; it was easier than expected. Help. Your anticipation is eating you alive. Help. What does he expect? Help. We are just friends now. Are we? Help! He said he will book a restaurant. What does this mean? I have lost control. Help? 

 

And then…silence again. When you are there, you give him a call. He is “confused”. He says “what, I thought it was next weekend?”. You feel relieved. You feel silly. You feel used. You question what you have had before. You question yourself. Has my heart cried for something it never had?

 

Stop. How does it matter whether he played you? How does it matter whether he really forgot? How does it affect the love you felt and the uncertainties you had the guts to fight? How does it diminish that fact that you grew through opening yourself up, though learning to love. Yes, you will not find out how it would have been to meet him again but why would it matter?

 

And this is how you know you have closed this chapter. The insignificance of now when thinking of then. No drama. No tears. Nothing. Just the memory of the painfully beautiful moments you had; no matter how the current moments turns out.

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