That One Last Day

[This article is dedicated to my friend, Nessie [not her real name] whose recent experience inspired me to write about this topic. Nessie, you’re the man!]

Imagine that you’ve been secretly in love with a dude for years. Due to your pride and ego in refusing any unnecessary commitment, you never pursue any possibilities of such relationship. You feel better with just the sight of him – seeing him happy makes you happy, seeing him down makes you sad and regular verbal contact with him makes you a content enough woman. What more do you need? He has his own life and you have yours. There is no need to mix them up. For years this goes on and on. Now, bang! He’s moving away – to build a new life far away from you. Chances of seeing him again? Almost zero. Phone calls? Never work. Emails? Won’t have time. Therefore, what’s left to be done? Just keep pretending like him going away means nothing to you or show your true feelings of how sad and frustrated you are at the prospect of him being gone? And imagine if today is the last day you would have the chance of seeing the person you love.

What would you do? On that very final day of seeing him?

Let me confess something probably controversial for you - I’ve been in love before in some stages of my life [well, maybe not controversial but it feels odd anyway, coming from me]. More than one time actually. Never serious. But such feelings made me happy. In a way, we do need such delirious hopes in our heads – for the sake of gaining experience as a youngish individual maybe. That kind of feelings would help us know more about ourselves; our maturity, our patience, our perseverance, our self-control – all of them is to be tested once we’re in love. You may succeed and you may not. You may reach happiness and you may not. You may escape the misery of being rejected and you may not. Ever heard of the saying that ‘love is a risk’? We get that all the time.

I’ve always had this circulating in my mind – what if such thing happens to me? What if I am a girl currently in love with someone I have nothing to do with? What would I do if he is to disappear from my life forever? Or if the opposite happened – if I am the one who is about to go away? On that final day, will I let my ego rule over me like it always does? Or will I finally let my rarely-exhibited feelings surface? As cheesy as this may sound, I believe most girls have experienced the same thing. Like c’mon, some of us must have or had at least fallen in love with someone unattainable – that’s what makes the hidden feelings so much fun.

Some girls just don’t believe in relationships. That is why they tend to distant themselves away from any possible romantic attachments. It is one distracting and demanding commitment – it demands your energy, time, emotion, money and lots of sacrifices. Thus, when they are in love, they tend to deny the feelings first and foremost. They realize that the feelings are there already but still hope to eliminate such emotions from their head. Life is better without love – less problems to think of, is it not? But still, they would fail. And ended up accepting such feelings in their hearts anyway. As I probably mentioned to you before – un-loving someone is the most impossible task on earth. How do we do that? Once they find out that they are in love with someone they have no plan of falling for, try as they might, the boy’s image will not leave their heads. It’s going to stick there stronger than a piece of double-sided sellotape. After feeling tired of resisting, they begin to live with the feelings. Keeping your feelings to yourself is not that difficult. It just needs good self-restraint. Time makes everything okay [well, it may not but you know what I mean, right?].

It becomes repetitive for years. Then here comes separation. You won’t see him again. The rational thing is just to ignore him as usual – he’s finally moving on with his life and you with yours. But, what about those years of hidden feelings you had for him? Are you just going to let it fade away? Are you sure you’re going to just let it go? You have yet to try – who knows he might feel the same thing? And if he doesn’t, who the hell cares anyway? Do you really expect more from him than just a good and worthy friendship?

If such thing is to happen to me – hmm…

On that final day, I would go talk to him. Just have a nice conversation – we’ll talk about anything – books, movies, music, his interests, my interests and some future plans maybe. Then I’ll treat him to lunch with my other friends [having meals with just the two of us would feel very very awkward].

And I would like to just hang around with him while listening to The Smiths. I will try my best to be as kind and friendly as I can get. I’ll tell him what makes him a great person and I may apologize to him if there’s any purposeful wrongdoing I committed which hurt him physically or emotionally. And gifts – I’ll most probably buy him a book [I know, it’s lame but what can I do? I’m a booklover]. Maybe two books – Persuasion by Jane Austen because it’s my favourite novel of all time and another book of which I think would suit his personality best. And I’ll also give him my favourite album of all time – Scarlet’s Walk by Tori Amos. His reaction would most probably be surprised seeing my sudden behavioural transformation but I don’t care at all. It is to be the last day I’d see him, therefore any subsequent emotions coming from his side won’t matter anymore. There is nothing to lose. That is why I would want to do everything that I’ve always wanted to on that final day with no fear and precaution.

I will just wish him the best luck in the future and I will always be thinking and praying for his happiness. And if he ever happens to need a friend, I’ll tell him I’ll always try to be there [try, because we never know what’s going to come up in the future].

That’s all basically. No dramatic confession. No tearful farewell. There’ll be some sadness but I know I’ll be able to get over it. At this youngish stage, I know that I am yet to be ready for a relationship – the same goes for some of us. Anything that comes along the way – we somehow realize that it would most probably be only temporary. The issue of its permanency is out of our control. Life never stops at the event of our loved ones leaving our lives.

It keeps moving on, instead.