strangers with memories

"How did you bounce back?"

"How did you heal yourself so quickly?"

"For someone who's gone through shit, you look quite composed."

Truth is, I haven't bounced back and I am far from being completely healed.

I still wake up in the middle of the night gasping for air, as if I was mid-sentence in a heated conversation.

I still have dreams of falling off a cliff or a high building. Only to wake up in cold sweat.

Although much lesser now, I still have one-of-those-nights. Because to me, it wasn't a heartbreak, it wasn't a break-up, it wasn't just a divorce. It was trauma.

Do you know that it is easier to re-ignite the sparks than to un-love someone? How do you un-love? I tried doing that in October. It was hard, but day after day, I managed to un-love.

But only in tiny little particles. Flecks. Specks of dust.  Too minuscule too measure, but given time, I might be able to un-love.

It was virtually impossible to un-love in a month, I realized. You can only try to hate his guts, but you can't undo love, especially when there was nothing wrong in our marriage in the first place.

And then he came back, somewhat. I said somewhat because he came back, but there were no promises. There were no guarantees. There was a bit of remorse, there was talk of hopes, the future, and not ever letting me go.  That was the promise he made. He'd never let me go.

We reconciled.

There was talk of giving him time to battle his demons. But there was no deadline. And I felt that it was too early to impose one on him now anyway.

There was talk of maybe we should have a baby together. But this requires a lot of time and thought (which neither one of us have).

Sometimes I wish we can go back to being strangers. But then I can't remember a time when we ever were.

Circa 2008.