We will be sweaty and dirty, but I think we will be happy.
The sad truth is that we are not bulletproof, no matter how we shield ourselves from vulnerability. *Someone*, eventually, will break down our walls. And then break our hearts.
But this is part and parcel of growing up. As kids, in kindergarten a group of us would assign marriage to each other 20 years down the road. He would marry her. She would marry him. (Has nobody considered that he may marry him, or she may marry her?) Anyway, Johan, if you’re reading this—we’re probably not getting married, but wherever you are I hope you’re doing fine.
In many ways, a bittersweet emotional memory is something to be thankful for. Having someone go down forever in your books as a “painful” person to remember probably meant that before they were the “pain”, they were once a great blessing; a wonderful existence that you wished you could’ve done more with, but it did not work out. Maybe, just maybe, in the future we will collide again.
Every person you meet will teach you something, and every emotional collision is not a wasted collision. As much as it hurts one’s ego to know that they would eventually become someone else’s learning lesson, or that they were someone else’s “mistake”, it is only necessary because everyone needs learning lessons, and everyone makes mistakes. As much as we allow ourselves to make mistakes, we need to painfully accept that sometimes, we are the mistakes in someone else’s perspective. But don’t beat yourself up about it just yet; beyond every surface bitterness, there is always a tinge of gratitude, even if it is forever left unspoken.
I always believed in reading between the lines, or reading something that is seemingly nothing at all. As cliche as it is, I truly believe that the strongest of messages are usually not directly said; because words tend to fail us when we need them the most.
And all these bittersweet moments that wake me up at 4am, all these excruciating pains from these memories I sometimes wish I could permanently erase; I remind myself that someone shares the exact same memory as me, of me, in their own perspective. And in this sense, we will always be carrying a part of each other on our shoulders. And in this sense, we have never parted at all.
And maybe, just maybe, if there exists a parallel dimension: then there would be no such thing as goodbyes, because as long as there is a memory of a person, then this person will always be with us forever. Always. Just in another space and time.
; 