Stop for a moment and read this. My experience might be similar like yours.

I used to be a keeper when it’s dealing with a relationship. I don’t forget easily, not alone forgive. However, despite of repaying revenge, I keep one’s mistakes or misdeeds in my mind almost like forever. I had the same kind of attitude dealing with intimate relationship to someone, whether it’s reciprocal or nonreciprocal. Should I fall in love or like to someone, I also could hardly forget them. It’s like living in devotion: when I woke up from my slumber, my mind automatically set on them and when I fell asleep, they always became my last thought before I lost myself into dreams. Thanks to my brain that preferred thinking in details, all facts, memories and experiences were comprehensively filed. I was proud of it. I depended on it.

So it was in the past?
Yeah. It was in the past. Things started to change when I wanted to get some answers for my youth unforgettable love – which is now it’s pretty much forgettable. I had passion for this man for four years and expect nothing. He probably even didn’t remember that I existed. I lived my life like devotion: when I woke up from my peaceful slumber, my mind instantly remembered him and just before I closed my eyes to sink myself in dreams. I thought about him every single minute and set a prayer for him. I remembered him when I saw something or someone. I remembered him just every where at any time.  A dream about him would be a very thoughtful surprise for me! During those years, I lived like an automatic machine, doing exactly the same thing every single day. However, I’d never seen him again after he graduated from Senior High for another three years until that Sunday. On that beautiful day, I saw him at the church where I used to go to every Sunday. I never saw him there before. It puzzled me. How come? He, who once had disappeared in the air, out of the blue stood there right before my eyes. I felt like I was attacked by post-juvenile-love syndrome. I was paralyzed for a moment. I was literally shaking. I sweat a lot. I couldn’t think nor breathe. My head was spinning. I almost passed out.

I didn’t believe what I saw: he was there, standing within my reach and he didn’t even see me! Even now, when I thought about that day, I could still feel the sensation, although it’s just a little tiny bit. I can never feel the same way as I did until now with anyone. I was deeply in love with that guy that I couldn’t even say it. The words stopped right on the tip of my tongue every time I saw him. In order to free me from this love heroin, I decided to find an answer. I tried to get his number this time and I got it (believe this old expression says: ‘when there is a will, there is a way’, believe it!). It took me weeks to decide whether I should call him and finally I did. To my surprise, he remembered me! I became more addicted. I called him again on the following day and the day after the following day and so forth. I started to get to know him little by little. It was nice and full of hopes. Patience had become a good friend of mine, so I didn’t mind to wait a little longer.

Long before this rendezvous happened, I was thinking about classic, beautiful happy ending. You’re smart enough to guess what it is. Walt Disney makes hundreds of movie about it. People are hoping to have it. It’s an ending where dream and reality meet in perfect timing. I was just that close to that sort of ending. However, to my own astonishment, I decided to quit. I gave up.

Getting to know him meant to know him better. After learning about him, I realized I was just living in my own dream and he wasn’t even close to this character of his that I built in my fancy land. I was disappointed to myself actually for I let myself live in a fake fantasy (can you imagine how it feels? fantasy already pictures so many false reality alone! It was more than just a disappointment really). I was shocked to know how stationary person I became and I just let the world move around without me. Instead of moving forward, I chose to stand right there, at the time when I was in Senior High, despite the fact that I was in college already. Whoa! A bitter surprise!

Regrets?
No. I never regret one single experience in my life because they make me who I am today.
See any bright sides of this experience?
Definitely!
I’d lost my most naïve and romantic love to a completely stranger when I was very young and that taught me so… many things. I keep falling in love or like up until now, but it did leave traces behind me to look over. But here’s my very basic lesson: how to fall in love or like to someone without losing yourself.

I feel totally deliberated ever since, given this experience, and lucky too! Had I never got this experience, I wouldn’t have been with the man that I’m married now. I also learned to let go, to forget and certainly to forgive. I’ve already switched my brain into a sorting-database mode, take what’s good into and send away what’s bad from my memory. Further, I’ve also decided to put on a forgetting mode to it, if it’s necessary. It depends on the experiences and situations. And yes, despite the fact that I still can fall in love or like to someone else (note: my husband also knows this helpless, useless habit), brain-wise and heart-wise, I am aware that he’s the best for me. Happiness is made by choice, everyone!

Have you been in the similar situation as I was once before? Did you ever felt that you’re suddenly awoke from your realistic-like dream? What did you do afterwards? What kind of experience has made you what you are now?