Midnight memories

I have major commitment issues. So I wrote a post two years ago to remind me of what I'd learned every time I felt like running away from commitment. Tonight, as I stumbled across that post while browsing through my old blog, I realised how desperately I needed to read it.  

I know it seems like I don't, but I think of you every now and then, and wonder how different our lives could have been.

If we had met at a different time. If we had not met at all. 

If we had done more. Or less.

If we had said more. Or kept silent.

Sometimes the memories hit me like a flood and in moments like that, I want to squeeze my eyes shut and make them all go away.

But try as I might to imagine or pretend things didn't happen like they did, 

we did meet, when we did. We did do, what we did. We did say, what we said. 

And there's nothing that can be done about that.

It would be easier to just look at all the things that went wrong, because it makes it easier to leave behind the memories that way. People do that all the time. 

But it'd be a lie to say there were no good parts, no parts of 'us' that were magic. And for those people that don't seem to 'move on' - it's all those parts they can't shake off.

See, here's the thing you've taught me, that many people don't get. 

It was not us, as in, the combination of you and me, that made it magic.

It was 'us' - as in, the 'us' that happens when two people decide to take a risk, a leap of faith, and let someone else in unselfishly and unreservedly, that made it magic. And if that's what it takes to make magic, then it takes the opposite of that - selfishness and defensiveness and doubt - to creep in and steal it away. 

And if we're honest with ourselves, we both let it creep in.

But we wouldn't have known that, would we, if things didn't happen the way we did. Because human nature is like that. We don't know what we have till it's gone. But if that's the way it works, then perhaps the only way to not waste the pain is to make sure, when we get a second chance, that we never take it for granted. We never waste a single moment or a single day being thankful for a chance to love unselfishly all over again, to believe in the best in another person.

And maybe that way, the memories are not so painful to look back on. Because in the mess of emotions and hurt and betrayal and neglect grows a small, but resilient seed of hope, of grace, and of second chances, fertilized by the decay of wasted chances.

You can't erase the memories. But you can make them worth it.