You may deny it a thousand times, but yes we were on a date that day. You see girl, spending two hours with a guy you met a few weeks back, having coffee and then dinner is technically a date. But yea you weren't your usual self that day. Stress at work was clearly showing on your face and I would have wanted to cheer you up and have a great time together. But I guess something at work was still troubling you. After desserts the waiter graced us with the bill. See now this is the time when the guy has his chauvinism on peak display. He just has to flash his credit card or fish out some high denomination note from his wallet. But you wouldn't let me do either. I would have settled the bill but you insisted on sharing and to prove your point you left a hundred rupees note on the table. Lady that is a generous tip to pay at a not-so-fancy restaurant and I think I cut the waiter's joy short when I took it back. You wouldn't take it back either, so for lack of options I kept it with me.
Little did I know that that note would become a souvenir for me. A reminder of that first date with you and a forerunner of good times to come. Yes I yearned for a good time together and maybe a good future too hoping that things would become more meaningful between us. But that calling never came. You chose to move to another city and I knew I could not make a long distance relationship work. This is what I learned later : Proximity rules! You just can't drift away, try to keep in touch and expect to get back together some day. Proximity gives a chance to nurture things and be cautious when things go wary. But you were never to give me that chance, were you?
The night before you left, I told you that I still see good things ahead and that there could be an "us". I knew because I would have worked towards it but you had your doubts. I could see myself losing the ground. Denial was something which I wasn't fully prepared for. In an attempt to salvage things, I reminded you of our date and how I still have that hundred rupee note with me. I told you I would keep it with me for ever, never spend it and you could help me by signing your name on it. I would keep it as a souvenir with me for my entire life. I am happy you obliged but that happiness was short lived when I saw what you had written. "Best wishes ... " is all that you could come up with ... making all my previous words seem empty.
That should have been a final good bye for us. And I wish things could be that easy for me, but now that note had become my prized possession. I told myself never to spend it or damage it in any way. I kept in my wallet for good luck. "Best wishes" is what you wrote on it remember!
Years went by and every time I saw it I would be reminded of the series of events. No they did not trouble me any more. I had learnt to deal with it but yes the fact that I still held onto some weird connection with the past made me feel if at all I would ever have that courage to step forward and tread on the path life laid ahead.
And one day it was gone! A moment of shock was followed by a sinking feeling of how could I have possibly managed to lose it. As I later found out, my younger sister had taken it out of my wallet for some urgent need of cash. She wouldn't have known the price of that note. Not at all! It was priceless for a lot of reasons and now it was gone. I could have grieved longer but it was then I realised that holding onto it was actually holding me back. Learning to let it go was not something that I was prepared to do but I managed to cope with it. It no longer troubled me that it was gone now. I was indeed holding onto it for no real reason. Just an urge to dwell in the past and escape reality for some time. I was not angry at my sister for touching my stuff, I was not blaming fate for turning out things the way they were now and I was not yearning to get back to what was before.
I have come a long way since I had tough luck with love. Time heals and things change but this therapy works only if you don't have that urge to hold onto anything. Memories, memorabilia, gifts, cards ... nothing is worth holding onto when it is all over. Learn to let go. Seems difficult but not entirely impossible.
