Somewhere along the way, as you live your life, someone will leave you. The circumstances might be different but once in your life, at the very least, someone will walk away from your life. A parent may abandon you, a lover can betray you, your roommate will eventually outgrow your familiar presence and decide to get a pad of her own.
It’s going to be painful; it’s going to hurt like hell; it’s going to make you wish that you’ve never lived. You will be disappointed because you’ve trusted so much. At some point, you’ll hate and blame yourself for what happened and no logical explanation will make you feel any better. Someone left you. You’re alone. That’s it.
But take courage. Because as with other things in your mortal life – the ephemeral nature of your mundane existence – it will be easier to handle the pain over time. Some pain will go away but there are kinds which will stay but you’ll learn how to manage them because it’s the lone thing you can do to move forward and refrain from being haunted by the memories of the past. Some types of pain will make you feel numb; others will leave scars, unsightly reminder of bad decisions, terrible mistakes, lapse of judgment, moments of indiscretion.
To avoid pain, you can always decide not to get involved. Cloister yourself in a room, order fastfood, buy your stuff online, subscribe to Netflix, meet virtual friends, play sports with a console. You won’t be detached from the world as the world as we know it is now shrinking. What they called global village in the advent of various forms of mass communication has further shrunk into a minute zone that stands on a platform called Facebook or Twitter or Instagram. The craftier among us calls it Pinterest. It’s far too easy to pick up a tablet or your mobile device and tweet status, like a post, or share messages. Having a cup of coffee with a high school classmates is so overrated.
Or… is it?
In another life, you might be the parent who abandoned his children; the lover who cheated; the roommate who packed her bags and left. In another life, you might be the source of the pain, not the object of pain. In another circumstance, you will feel guilty, scared, or perhaps, indifferent.
The mystery of human relationships lies on the opposites, the two sides of one spectrum, the beauty of contradiction. You have the choice to stay connected online or offline. The choice is yours, whichever rocks your boat or… in the context of pain management, whichever will expose you to less hurt and disappointment.
There are different worlds to explore or not explore. There are people to meet or not meet. There are choices to make or not make. The decision is yours and yours alone.
If you’re not the you that you are now, which someone would you have become?
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T30WC or The 30-minute Writing Challenge is a writing exercise born out of this blogger’s need to maintain a habit of writing. Subjects of each writing challenge is just about anything but should ONLY be written within 30 minutes.
