It winked at me, innocently, nestled as it was amongst the tic-tacs, Mars bars and odds and ends that supermarkets seem to think are the most likely last minute additions to a basket full of groceries. It had a dark glossy background, with a sliver of green, a line that ran along, meandering without course or so it seemed, until you refocused, and saw that it made, when viewed from a particular angle, an artistically abridged version of the number 5. A pack of gum. But not any pack of gum. Sometimes, the memories hit you with a force that seems unwarranted. How many times had I seen that very pack, in the glove box of a car, shoved into a laptop bag, wrinkled in the front pocket of a pair of faded jeans? More than I could remember. But it isn’t the number of times that matter. All it takes is a trigger, and you’re back right where you started.
In the aftermath of every relationship that doesn’t run the course it should – as in togetherness -- there are periods of progress, interspersed, almost in a disciplined fashion, with periods of regression. Just when you begin to cautiously tell yourself that you’re getting better, just when the periods of utmost gloom, seem to be lightening even just a little, you hit upon a trigger, which sends you hurtling down the path to square one. The good news is that it’s normal. Truly. It’s normal, because it happens to the best of us. Even better, it’s likely to fade in intensity, no let me rephrase that, it will fade in intensity, as Time, with its ever healing touch, passes. The bad news, apart from the obvious, is that there’s no reasonable escape route. Yes, there’s alcohol, there’s flirtation, there are exes, and the resident evil that is rebound relationships, but these are transients. They just postpone the inevitable, and truly, what good is that?
These memories, unfortunately, will often turn up in the most inopportune places. My pack of gum, hit me square in the middle of the chest in the check out line at a grocery store. For the next 60 seconds or so, it felt like there was a giant hand pressing down on my chest, making it difficult to breathe, a minute of blind panic, and an unyielding sense of complete and utter desolation. It’s never going to get better is it, was my immediate reaction. However, you can’t burst into tears, in the check out line at a grocery store. You can’t even dump your basket and make a blind mad dash to the exit and some semblance of solitude. The irony and the practicality combine to make sense -- I needed those groceries. So I took a deep breath, to compensate for the temporary lack of oxygen, and continued on.
I can’t really take too much credit for my (rather mature) handling of things. I’ve been at it for a while, so it’s a work in better progress than a few months back, when venturing into public places wasn't really something I was doing voluntarily. I’m not the self help kind, but in the place that I was, I was ready to take any sound advice, relationship help, anything. So I kept at it, followed the rules of no contact, gave myself time, threw myself into work, and put the memories in a place where I seemed to have just a little more control than earlier. I cried, every so often, but it gradually lessened, and slowly, my life began limping back to a shallow image of externally normal. But that didn't mean and doesn’t mean that it hurts less, and hits me with a less intensity, it doesn't. I’m just a little better equipped at handling it than I was.
We all tend to shy away from things that we anticipate will hurt. Think about it – it’s there in every aspect of life. Scheduled surgery? The thought will have you antsy for weeks. Dentist’s appointment? You have my sympathy. Prospective meeting with an ex? Don’t get me started. It’s the apprehension; sometimes it’s the anticipation that’s actually filled with more feeling than the event itself. We psyche ourselves thinking about the pain, the sorrow, the grief, the fear, before it even manifests. Trust me, it’s true.
So the next time a bout of memories hits you out of nowhere and leaves you grappling with emotions you can’t seem to handle, face it head on. Let the memories flood your mind, let them take over, and don’t fight them. And when the tears start, let them come. Cry if you need to, preferably in solitude, but cry. As you do, the tears too, will dry up. They have to. Once you let your feelings out, they’ll swirl around you for a bit, the first few times, but soon, you’ll have to keep thinking of sad things to keep the tears flowing (it sounds insane, but it’s true.) As the minutes pass, as the onslaught lessens, you’ll feel braver, tougher and perhaps more messed up, but more messed up is better than numb. It isn’t better than less messed up, but one step at a time, okay? It’s always the hardest the first time around, but it gets better. You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for, trust me.
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