His name is Sid, he’s in his early 30s. He’s gay and a hopeless romantic.
He fell in love many times over with those we may call “not the right people”, though for him, it was a continuous journey of learning – several weeks or months or even years spent in relationships that taught him all the lessons he needed to learn, and which made him the better person that he is at present.
Every time he entered a relationship, he couldn’t detach himself from the fear that’s been bugging him, that no matter how much he loved his current boyfriend, at the back of his mind, he unconsciously created a scenario that the relationship he’s currently in might and will turn out to be what he most feared of… that is for it to just end.
It’s not an issue of trust, no. It’s more of trauma. Because of what he’s been through before. The experiences he had with his previous relationships. It’s not an easy thing to forget; and while he may have moved on, the memory still and will always linger in his mind. He’d rather forget everything altogether, but he can’t seem to accept each and every event that had happened to him.
And based on experience, that never resolved anything. Thus, greatly affects his current situation.
His story may have happened a long time ago. His story may have happened years or months ago. His story may have happened just days ago or just yesterday.
Sid was already feeling hopeless… hopeless that he might not be able to stand up again and bring back his self-confidence and his clear view of life – all this because of the painful and traumatic experiences he had before.
And suddenly one Thursday night, time stood still.
It was supposed to be one of those quickie type of meet-ups, but a better thing happened.
He met this guy, this guy who would (at least in that time frame) change his life. A kind of change he never thought is possible and is supposedly intangible.
This new guy forced Sid to go back to his past, to reconvene with his past painful experiences and feelings, and little by little accept everything and learn from them.
Most people would say that Sid should have done this early on. That is, when he experienced those challenges and failed to resolve most, if not all, painful incidents that have happened to him before, he should have faced them all. But they (also) need to realize that every person has his own way to cope with different situations.
He froze time… so that he could run away from his past and escape the painful things, and forget everything that ever happened.
For many, what he did – forgetting his past and letting go of them without proper resolution – may be wrong; but for Sid, who experienced a series of traumatic experiences, at that time, that’s the least painful possible way he knew how to deal with them. What’s important is, at the present time, he’s already on the verge of completely accepting what happened to him before and uses every memory as his tool to stand back up and make a better life out of it.
This story may have happened a long time ago. This story may have happened years or months ago. This story may have happened just days ago or just yesterday. But the important thing here is, Sid stood brave to face his painful past and learn from them.
This new guy was not solely the reason why and how Sid bravely faced his past. He was just an instrument and inspiration. He just whispered to Sid’s ear, “Now is the right time to look back and resolve things; things that were supposed to be resolved a long time ago. And along the way, accept and learn from them. You owe it to yourself.”
In the end, Sid is the one who should be given credit for his own improvement, realization and acceptance.
After all, when Sid met this new guy, when he finally let himself go and open up, when he decided to take a deep breath and look back, time stood still. And this time, it was for the better.
Every time we experience painful things in our lives, we unconsciously resort to two things: revenge or forget and not forgive. It may not be wrong at the time of our pain and suffering, but we need to realize eventually that revenge and letting go with no proper resolution will only make things worse for ourselves – especially for our emotions, and the new people that enter our lives may also suffer because of it.
