How To Move On

F L A S H E S (Part II)

We talked in a little wooden room, where the light seeped through the tiny cracks in the windows. It wasn't so dim, just enough so we could see each other. I lay my head on his lap, and we talked about everything. The trivial things, like school, and the deeper stuff, like our dreams and ambitions.

"I'm gonna be a recording artist. I'm never letting go of that dream. Soon, you'll see me on the billboards, you'll hear me on the radio. And I'd host a grand reunion of sorts; I'd invite you, and I'd see your beautiful kids." As beautiful as you, I almost added. I said all those things with great conviction. And I saw it in his eyes that he believed me.

"That's good. Never let that go. I'll see you when you get there. I have great faith in you," he told me, with my hand in his tight grip, like we were making a pact.

Then we talked about that bittersweet day, when I was alone at home. But somehow, we ended up talking about other things, particularly the things that involved him, and the problems he had, too.

"It's funny that I came here to ask for your advice, but here we are now, and you want me to tell you what to do," I said, looking for the irony of it all.

"I know. But you know what, it doesn't always have to be like this. If somehow, you can't find the happiness you need in the situation you're in, be that happiness. Be your own ray of sunshine," he said, with a ghost of a smile on his lips. He said this out of experience. He truly was the sunshine in his own life. And he was to a lot of other people, too. He surely was the light in my life, at the moment.

The afternoon progressed. It was getting darker, and along with the dying sun, our conversations grew deeper. I lamented over the faults in my family. Suddenly, he was crying about his own: how he longed for his absent mother, how the love of his life couldn't be his because of a past that was never his fault. The oceans in his eyes were pouring out in rivers, and all I could do was hold him in my arms. I was struggling to keep him together in the frailty of my limbs. And he kept crying like the world was about to end. But I guess his world had already ended, many years ago.

Then he told me the one thing that changed me. My perspective, my world, my heart was torn apart and put back together by the words he uttered next.

"Please do me a favor. Love your mother. Love your parents. Love them for me. My father is barely here for me, and my mother left, years ago. How lucky you are, to have them completely, even though they're like that. I still envy you. I envy you for being able to complain about people you have. My sister is all I have. And all the other people in my life... but I don't have my parents, the way you do. So love them. Cherish them. Do it while you still can. Do it for me."

He was still crying then. And I was holding his face in my arms, listening to every word. And it is with a wholehearted honesty, that I say this: every single word from that moment hit me hard in the face. In the chest. In the heart that started to beat in it. He was right. My God, he was right. I started to see the beauty in my life, in all the ugly holes that seemed to plague my existence. He made me see the beauty in myself, and my circumstances. I don't even know if he knows the full impact of his words, now that he has faded from my life. He could be anywhere, and he would be oblivious to the consequences of his actions. But it isn't such a bad thing, I think. He has helped me this much. He deserves to find his own happiness elsewhere. Even if it means that I'm not a part of it.

Every minute after that day was spent thinking about him and his words. And waiting for the next time I'd see him again.

I came back, exactly 5 days later. I gave him my thank-yous in the form of one pencil sketch, and one hand-written song.

But something changed. I went home with a sense of something missing. Like something was starting to disappear. I don't know what it was, or what instigated it. But I guess, it was inevitable. He couldn't keep being my sunshine forever. Things were bound to change. Even if it hurt.

I still think about him, but not as much as I did before. It's been 11 months since that day in the little wooden room, where the light didn't dare to creep in, and we held each other close like we could fall at any moment.

But the thing is, it was only me who fell.

I don't see him as much as I did before. He has built a different life, on a different path, since our last goodbye. I'm happy for all the good things that has happened to him since. He deserves it. He deserves to forget me, too, in some twisted form of gratitude. I can't keep holding him back, I can't keep making him stay. He has to go. And I have to go, too.

My last heartbreak took me 3 years to recover. I don't know if it's going to take me that long to recover from this one, but I don't mind it now. I'll tell my heart to take as long as it needs to heal. I deserve that much, too.

And this could be the last time that I'll immortalize his memory on paper. He has left my life, he might as well leave my memories, too.

So I turn the yellowing screen off. The cinema has gone cold, and I'm still the only person in it. But there is solace in my solitude.

I'm alone, but I'm not lonely. I feel, but it doesn't have to end in tears. I love, and it doesn't have to be him.

It can always be me.

x

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