Of Remembering & Walking Forward.

I remembered him today.

He was just a passing thought while I walked the streets of the city I would say goodbye to in a few weeks. I stopped and I looked-up to the sun-scorched skies, felt the heat and the wind on my face. In a city where people seem to solely look at traffic lights and their destinations, I was there, standing still, remembering the one I used to love & the changes ahead.

All my short adult life, I have been that – an adult.

I have looked at my priorities and the planned life I supposedly wanted and needed to live. I have been so concentrated on being one thing that I forgot to be the other things. Yes, we can’t be everything we want to be but we must also not confine ourselves to just being one thing. I have lost track of this thought, I have also lost the value of seeing things like a child: that understanding, belief, and imagination.

This, me concentrating on inflating my own corporate ego, has cost me so many friendships, opportunities, and even, love. I close my eyes, and still I remember him.

I wonder where he is right now & exactly what he’s doing. I have forgotten about him up until that moment; I still have the scars from the night we parted ways. I had made a promise to myself that I would never beg for someone & that I would never allow myself to be that vulnerable ever again. I have kept myself strong for the longest time that I had turned to stone.

The depression & the unhappiness I had felt was so overwhelming that often times, I would just sleep and wish for a better tomorrow. But depression does not end this way. Life isn’t supposed to end this way – with us just sleeping it away.

I am not going to pretend that I know what I’m doing or that my journey is laid out in front of me, paved with happiness and love. I have never been this lost but I have also never been this excited to live. The journey I am about to take is a hard one, but it is one I am glad to take.

I would rather have scars to show for living than the money to show for merely existing.

Then in that moment, I remember him walking away from me.

I open my eyes to a handful of stares, I smile at the man who was too busy to see me smile. I shrug and feel refreshed and continue to walk once more. The more I walked further in this concrete jungle, the more I realized how much I didn’t belong here even though I always thought I did.

I had remembered him, the ghost of all relationships past. I remembered him because, perhaps, I needed to be reminded that I once loved unconditionally and I could do it once more, smarter this time. I remembered him because maybe in this life, we need to take a step back in order to move forward.