No such thing as bad experience.

There is no such as thing as losing. You either win or you learn.

— Carlos Gracie Sr.

Let me tell you a story. (Actually a series of stories. Don’t worry, they are not too long.)

As usual, it’s about a girl. A girl that left me.

At the tail end of March this year, I was deeply in love with…let’s call her Emily. Emily was a 35 year old blonde goddess who just so happened to have every single characteristic for a perfect partner. That is not to say that she was a perfect human being. Instead, she was someone who accepted her imperfections with class and maturity. She was deeply self-aware of her faults and weaknesses. Her humbling, almost self-mutilating style of humor often over shadowed her intelligence. Often people refer to their partners as being intelligent so let me clarify that Emily was intelligent on a level that was frightening.

So, paradise.

Now, you know those guys you hear about who, when they get in a relationship, at the drop of hat stop doing everything else in their life. All their passions, goals, interests and basically any other extracurricular activity, gone. Well, I became that guy. Now truth be told, I have many friends who have been in this same situation and upon hearing their predicament, I used to ridicule them beyond belief, swearing that that will never be me. I was so wrong. I am not going to get into it (cause that will fill up a whole article on it’s own) but I became a pathetic reflection of myself that the now-me would refuse to recognise. I have come to understand, in hindsight, that love is a powerful thing and if you let it, it soon turns into an obsession that tears you from the inside out. Scary thing is that that from the outside it still looks like love but it isn't. Love doesn't look to hold or bind someone down. It doesn’t erode people’s soul. Most importantly love is fun and enjoyable and when it stops being that, we all need to reassess.

Now at this point, I need to take you guys on another ride and make you understand why being with Emily in the first place was so wrong.

Emily was a client of my company, a particularly loved one as my boss fancied her. I always knew before asking Emily out on a date that it was unethical to have any sort of a relationship, other than professional, with a client. On top of that, I was already warned face to face a few months back for another similar incident with a co-worker. Luckily I was let off the hook as that particular person was leaving but, summing it up, I was hanging on to my job by a string purely because I was good at it. I would like to, at this point, mention that I loved my job. I was doing something I loved and at the same time I was helping people.

So why did I screw it all up?

Well, as I said, Love changes everything.

So…paradise?

Emily left me. At the tail of end of April, Emily was struggling to find a job. Though she was intelligent, Emily was in an emotional turmoil, unable to decide if she should return back to London to take back her old job or stay here, where her family and I were, and keep searching. We decided that it was too much stress involved in making such decisions so like any sane average couple, we took a holiday. I decided while we were away, much to Emily’s delight, that I will move to London with her.

Emily left. The reason that was told to our respective families was that she couldn’t find a job in Australia in her chosen field and had to move back to London. The truth was that I had come to my senses after my return from our little vacation in Vietnam and in disgust with myself decided not move to London with her. It was painful but the right thing to do. Though it may sound altruistic, she deserved better. I was becoming toxic. To myself and her.

Adding fuel to the fire, a week later I lost my job. The obsession masked as love that I used to blind myself from logic and rationale forced me to not tell my boss that I was in any sort of relationship with Emily. Several questions were raised by other co-workers and it was widely understood, though never publicly mentioned, by almost everyone that we were together. However, my socially inept boss who decided to trust my integrity found out while we were away that I had been together with Emily for quite sometime now. It was only a matter of time.

June. To say that I was in pain was an understatement. But like any sane average man, I went into denial, using the powerful healing process of ignorance. I refused to talk to Emily over phone, skype or facebook. Broke of any connections I had with my friends at my old job. I moved back in with my parents so I could feel safe and completely ignore the fact that my life was in pieces and I had no idea what I wanted to do anymore. I even got a job laboring and concreting. I had never done laboring or concreting in my life.

The two months that followed was exactly what I needed. I overloaded myself with work and drugs, doing anything to create a partition in my brain. A barrier to stop the part that was in pain of losing a “soul mate” flowing into the part that was telling me “there are plenty more fish in the sea”. In order to firmly cement that barrier in place I worked 70 hours weeks doing a mundane job that oozed no creativity or intelligence, just plain old hard work. I occasionally stopped and met up with my friend cocaine and her brother acid. They are cool people. They grow on you (part of the problem).

August came and went. My family, who are normally so involved in my life left me to just be. Until one day my dad said, “we need to talk”.

What followed was one man’s determination to turn his son’s life back around and make him realise that there is “no such thing as a bad experience”.

So…paradise?

Obviously at this point, as I’m writing, I am truly wondering what you are thinking now. I am wondering if you feel that just like any other monomyth like hero’s tale, there will be a happy ending?

Well, yes and no.

Even after 6 months, as they say these days, I am still in ‘struggle town’. Though people say that time heals everything, I feel that it’s only true if you let it. I am not sure if I am ready to let Emily go yet. I do know that we shouldn’t be together. We are both at different stages of our lives and want different things but the pain from losing someone important has very valuable lessons to teach and over the course of last 6 months, I realised that there is “no such thing as bad experience”. Looking back, I have a ton of regrets but what I have learned about love would not have been possible if I had not gone through that emotionally traumatic experience.

What lessons?

Lesson #1: Let yourself fall deeply in love with someone, so much so that it tears you to be apart.

The rest another time.