Thought Catalog

How To (Almost) Forget Them

"How To (Almost) Forget Them"

By Ari Eastman

Drink too much on a weekday. Listen to channel ORANGE and see how many songs you can get through before you start crying. See how long your heart remains stubborn. How long you keep up the brave face you’ve spent so long perfecting.

Break at “Bad Religion” every time.

Cry into a cup and promise yourself it won’t happen again. Promise yourself this is the last night of self-hatred. Promise yourself tomorrow is a new day, a new start. You can’t keep swallowing nostalgia thinking it will turn into something good. You can’t keep fucking sadness and thinking it will birth happiness.

Delete their number. Delete the thread of messages. Throw out the box of letters they sent you. You’ve held onto them for nearly seven years. Realize it’s time to let go. You were supposed to a long time ago. Remember?

Read the screenshots of the deleted texts. Of course, you saved them. Of course, you kept some sort of proof that this wasn’t imagined. That this wasn’t some sick dream you had. The reconciliation. The almost. The we were so close again.

Burn it. I mean, don’t burn it. Fire freaks you out. Burn it in your mind. Or, try to.

Sage the damn place. Feng shui everything. Get furniture they’ve never touched. Go to an estate sale and thumb through vintage photographs. Buy a few. Give these strangers a home.

You’re always doing that. Always giving strangers a place to stay. A place to crash. A place inside your heart way before you should.

Call up a ghost from your past and hang out with their memory. Convince yourself it’s better to be alone with what once was rather than what’s now.

Change your mind. Perform an exorcism on every spirit lingering on your skin.

Turn your laptop off. Put your phone underneath a pillow and try to forget it’s there.

Try, try, try. 

That’s what this is. Trying. Trying to get over it. Trying to move on without looking back. Trying not to repeat the same mistakes Orpheus made.

Trying, trying, trying. 

Let your mouth become acquainted with another. Dance until the place shuts down. Sweat pooling at your every curve, keep going. Push your body to the edge. When you can’t feel your feet, know it’s time to go home.

Go home. Laugh with friends and hold a cigarette between your fingertips before chucking it in the nearest trash can. It wasn’t even lit. That’s not you. Never has been. “Smoking kills,” you say.

But so does this ache. So does this remembering.

Maybe you don’t forget as much as you accept.

Maybe it’s not even about this part. Maybe it’s about what happens next.