On Forgetting

Sally Tomato
Sep 1, 2018 · 3 min read

I distinctly remember realizing that I was beginning to forget the sound of his voice. This was a particularly devastating realization because it meant I was beginning to forget him, and in turn, that realization — that possibility, that I was capable of forgetting even the tiniest detail or memory of him was an entirely new shade of heartbreak that I hadn’t yet met.

“How strange it is, that after all that, we are strangers once again.”

At its core, the reason the ‘forgetting’ was so heart-wrenching is because it challenged my belief of true love, of the undeniable truth that I had found “my true love”, “the love of my life”. One cannot simply forget The Love of Their Life.

I didn’t know what to blame the ‘forgetting’ on. Time? Sadness? I have a history of blocking out entire periods of my life if they were ones that caused me certain amounts of pain; an unconscious self-preservation tactic. This time, it was working against me and doing the opposite of protecting me because I did not want to forget. I never wanted to forget.

Today would have been our 3-year anniversary. The “magic number” for relationships these days, it seems. If you can make it past the 3-year mark, you’re golden. Now, looking back on this relationship — this relationship that defined me, changed me, and will always stay with me — I do not remember most of it. My self-preservation has taken over again, and I only remember small pieces. This, in itself is shocking and still hard for me to wrap my mind around because this is exactly what has happened with the relationships that preceded The One, and those, now, seem fleeting and shallow. The conclusion, then, based on this familiar feeling, is that The Relationship was also fleeting; it was just “another one”. That is hard to swallow. It challenges my larger understanding of love, and challenging Love has the power to unravel you to your core.

Today would have been our 3-year anniversary. This night, 3 years ago, I was falling in love in New York City — in Park Slope, on 13th Street to be exact. It is a memory that will never fade, despite all of this pain, because it was so powerful and really is a marker for when my life began to change. The next year on this day, life was pretty normal. In fact, we forgot that it was our anniversary. We kissed (at home, in the apartment we had recently began sharing) and that was it. Last year on this day, I was in the worst of my depression. I listened to songs that reminded me of us (I couldn’t make the pain better, but I could control making it worse, which is what I chose to do) and laid in bed, sobbing, staring out my bedroom window which looked right out to his house, to “our old house”, to the house in which he was very likely inside at that very moment, perhaps cooking breakfast.

Today, I am curled up in my living room — in the apartment that is all mine, that has become an oasis and constant reminder of my independence and resilience. I am spending the evening in my living room, with a glass of wine and a pile of books that I have been eager to read for months. The windows are open and there is a light breeze. I can still see “our old house” but it does not devastate me in the way that it used to. I am no longer paralyzed with despair every time I catch a glimpse of it. Now, it is just a reminder of What Was.