“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops — at all —
Poem by Emily Dickinson.
I was talking to my roommate last night about my previous journey, and she mentioned about my most recent relationship that started exactly this time last year — right on my birthday.
He appeared as if he was the birthday present from the universe.
The thing she remembered was not the course of the relationship, instead, she remembered how the breakup shattered me.
For at least 3 months after the breakup, she came home to find me being on the couch every night. I completely shut the whole world out, as if nothing meant anything now that he was gone. Nothing would be able to ease the pain I carried, everything made me cry, everything brought me pains, even if anything made me happy, it would cause me pain too knowing that he was no longer there to share the happiness with me.
When a relationship ends, crying is weak, being strong is fake, even breathing seems so wrong.
I stopped reading for a couple of months after we broke up, the thought of opening a book brought all the memories of us reading together in his library, how we danced the night away as he reached over my shoulder to get the oldest version of Moby Dick to surprise me, how he always enjoyed watching me read, how I secretly left the love notes in random books to surprise him,
“Honey, no matter where you might be, a piece of my heart will forever be with you.”
how we hugged each other after an argument, how we had our first kiss when he showed me the collection of ‘The thousand nights and One night.’
Book — the thing that once brought me the greatest pleasure now feels like a knife constantly stabbing my chest.
Right after we broke up, I had my surgery.
When I came home to recover and was still under the effect of painkillers, I experienced a hallucination that he had returned and was lying right next to me in bed. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I asked him, ‘Why didn’t you want us to be together?’
But as soon as the question came out of my mouth, he vanished, and I kept waiting for him to come back, but he never did.
I wonder which experience is more painful: the day you break up with someone or the day your hope for the relationship finally withers?
As we were talking through the memory’s lane, she mentioned how she witnessed me falling in love, being shattered, and how I handled myself through the breakup, how I carried my pains and how I picked myself up.
It’s a wonderful experience having the real audience for your life movie.
When we talked about it, all I could remember was the love,
The love that I shared with him.
The love that I had for myself.
The love that I had for my love for him.
The love that I had for my heartache.
And the love that I had for all my memories with him.
I told my roommate, “Maybe when you look back, life is nothing but a sequence of experiences.”
If you have gone through some painful moments in life and made it out alive,
What reason you have to not keep living?
What reason you have to not keep believing?
What reason you have to not falling in love?
With life,
With yourself,
And with the person,
That’s worth all the risk of being burned,
Alive.
