To find a way into someone else's life, we need to find a way out of ours - Part 3
If you haven’t read both part 1 and 2, read them first.
"All roads led back to you, even those I took to forget you." - Mahmoud Darwish
—
It was the first time seeing my ex since we parted 8 years ago. The Caltrain clattered over sometimes-uneven tracks, as it thrummed down the peninsula. The landscape shifted from messy urbanism into the scrapyards and graffiti of South San Francisco into the flattened suburbs as my pounding heart slowly became tranquil. Shivs of lights fluttered through the lush coverage and occasion suburban rooftop.
There she was. We moved into a cursory hug before sitting down for coffee by Peets. The eight years grinded all our feelings and memories into a mere acquaintanceship; a half hug and a weak smile crystallized into this meeting on a warm summer day in Mountain View. The separate paths that we took, untwined and disentangled, different goals, different lives, and different memories we chose to keep and to forget. There she was, sitting by Peats in a black top and blue jeans, with her hair in a loose ponytail; both a complete stranger and also every bit of the person I still knew. Habits, quirks, our value system—these we never change.
In between conversations and a glass of tipple, the evening sun gleamed into my eyes. It could be nostalgia or the sun; my eyes teared up. In the apparition of faces in the crowded bar patio, my vision of her blurred. I blinked, and she was there, always there. I finished the last swish of my whiskey, and we headed back to the train station, against the pearly glow of the late evening sun in the sky.
“I’ll see you back in Singapore. Or San Francisco again.” She laughed. We set some arbitrary date to meet again and nodded farewell. A cursory date for the future, which probably held no weight and meant nothing. Our trains set off in opposite directions, just as it has always been. The evening sun in the South Bay was warm and comforting.
In his 1997 novel, Memoirs of a Geisha, Arther Golden described grief as opening a window in the depths of winter: “Grief is a most peculiar thing; we’re so helpless in the face of it. It’s like a window that will simply open in its own accord. The room grows cold, and we can do nothing but shiver. But it opens a little less each time, and a little less; and one day we wonder what has become of it.”
My past relationship with A amidst many others led me to believe in the face of transient and the impermanence of love, the only facet within my control was the act of giving and unrequited love, even if love gave me nothing in return. Sunk in the abyss of entropy and depression, I was stuck, unable to look away, unable to ignore the fact that it has run its course. Just like the autumnal leaf drop. Yes, it could be a love that has persevered, but it was also a love that was past its time.
Note from Ash:
The rest of part 3 was not meant to be published - I’ll leave you with:
Part 4 here