If there’s no end to energy, how do you describe the end of love? The end of love is pain. It must be pain.
We broke up and everything after that was blurry details. I can’t feel my body, I don’t have appetite- the urgency to live normal human would have. I’m still living, eating, reading, sleeping, but with no soul in it. I feel like I’m in my auto-pilot mode. Sometimes I feel extremely motivated, sometimes I feel blue. You’ve heard the 7 stages of grieve? I went through it all in one day.
Memories come like a kid who play hide and seek. When they find you, you immediately feel upset. Like when months after we part, under the crispy moon light, I walked through Ubud’s cracking pavements slowly through Monkey Forest street. It’s the road where we used to walk together. It still feels like I see us in front of me, walking. Your broad shoulder and strong hands holding some of my shopping bags. I can see us stopping at a store and you encouraged me to buy the expensive dress in one of Ubud’s overpriced boutiqes, “Get it. You look beautiful in it, just get it!”
Some part of Ubud’s Monkey Forest street is darker than the other. I walked past the fish spa where we used to sat and had our feet skinned by the small fishes. I still can feel our feet touching under water and we chuckled because it was so ticklish. When I’m with you… I have endless reasons to smile.
Our memories were black and white, but the anger in me was flaming red. I heard my voice blaring in my head, “You said, you won’t give up on me? You’re a liar… a LIAR!” You answered me rather coldly, “I don’t give up on you, I give up on me.”
I walked with tears tiptoed on the corner of my eyes and I carefully guard it not to fall down on my cheek. It was busy days with literary festival at the streets of Ubud. Ladies in Balinese dress stand up on the street, enthusiastically offering me food or massage. I can’t spoiled the fun and shared my agony with them.
“Why are you torturing yourself?” It’s you again in my ear.
“I’m NOT torturing myself! I’m making peace with myself!” I’m upset at how easy you dismissed your feelings toward me.
For the record, I don’t want to avoid pain. I just want to look at the memories in the eyes. If there’s a perfect time for that, it’s now. I want our memories to be cleared out of my head and my heart, so I can peacefully moving on and meet someone who genuinely share the same vision in life and love me unconditionally like the way lovers want to feel loved.
I was a bit tired. A motorcycle taxi helped me to go to Bebek Bengil, where I ordered my food as usual without looking at the menu: original crispy duck and cold water, please.
I sat down on the chair facing the desk that we used to sit. I ate my duck slowly with a lot of sambal matah, the kind of sliced chili mixed with something that taste like lemon, trying to numb my headache. Boxing my feelings for months and unboxing it in Ubud was not a good plan. The pain didn’t go away, I only postpone it and it became worst.
I remember I prayed to God for you and you came into my life. I cherished the love we had and nurture with lots of love that I can give. You told me, when the dusts are settled between us, I will understand that our love is not as deep as I imagined. Life will kick in, there’s no Prince and Cinderella no more, no more fairytale, there’s only harsh reality.
You’re logical and realistic like that, but I am a dreamer. For me, the dusts are never settled. There were no dusts, in the first place, only glitters.
I am kissing the ray of God who creates you. I used to try to bargain with Him in desperation. “Please God, I am a good person, he is a good person, we deserved love and happiness that we can give to each other. Please God, I AM SURE, he is the one.”
But broken were we. And I am trusting God better than my infatuation. I am trusting His timing, I am trusting His plan.
I surrender, I accept.
With ease, slowly, I found my core self.
Today I wrote a letter to God:
“Dear God, if Your plan for me is for the betterment of the whole, I accept Your decision. I am Your servant, Your creation. It is Your blessings that allow me to meet somebody that will bring me closer to You and who’s going to work with me to complete our mission on earth. Someone whose love reminded me of Your love to me. I love you, God. My mission is to live by the path You planned me to be, living the blueprint of my life to the fullest, and I’m going to walk on it with the most memorable dance, so everyone can see me having a good time with life.”
Months after you left, nothing changes in me. I’m still in love with you. The difference is, I am more aware of what I thought a perfect love. You and the relationship we had were no longer perfect. You’re a mirror, you’re a message, and I understand the message. I am back on my path, thanks to you. The heroine’s journey has moved again to the next stage, I am shifting, thanks to you. I found the Goddess in me, thanks to you. And I wouldn’t change anything from the story. I’m moving forward.
‘Let go’ has a new meaning every day in me, and I’m willing to be open to receive love, so this tragedy I called ‘process’ won’t crippled me, and I can learn to be better human.
Just so you know, in few months, I will be in your country, finally my focus and determination to connect with where you are and where I should be living, paid off, even when it’s few months too late and you’re no longer in the picture. I’m grateful.
Farewell, my soulmate. You’ve been the one. And you will always be remembered as one who taught me how to dis-cover: life.
