III.I.I – Back
III.I.I
BACK
I arrived back home in one piece, unprostituted and as sober as ever. I had been expecting to come back a different person, and that I did. Only I couldn’t quite recognise what was so different about me. On the outside I was still the same; though lighter and my skin now perfect, shiny and tan in the middle of December. I’m not joking, mothers all over wanted their babies’ butts to have my skin.
But on the inside? I now craved adrenaline, adventure, to be alive. To be out on the road, with all the vicissitudes awaiting a nomad. It was all I could think of – and thinking about freedom was the only thing I could do. Waiting for me I found the same old stultifying routine, and, with exams looming over my head, it felt like I had to stifle all my impulses. My time wasn’t my own. But it didn’t really matter. I knew this wouldn’t be just a phase I’d eventually outgrow. I felt re-energised and ready to get back on track. I had missed medicine, but now, medicine wasn’t the only thing keeping me going. I now had another passion. Exploring the world suddenly stopped being a dream and became yet another goal. Of course, that’d have to wait and I’d have to suck it up and study like a maniac.
And so, I studied. To be able to hold a scalpel and cut through flesh was all I had worked so hard for, and that was still far ahead in a future that seemed all too distant. Medicine was once again my top priority. I compartmentalised all my other desires; my craving for adventure, my friendships, and also, my love for Pedro. By this time, our relationship was as solid as any long-distance one could be. Coming out to my mother and telling her all about my adventures with my boyfriend; a Colombian man almost twice my age, made it all real. Her reaction? “Pity he’s with you cause I would’ve snatched him up myself”. I can say anything about my mother, but she won all kinds of respect that day. And with that, our love was now official. I met his country, his family and his friends, and now, my friends and family knew about him. It was a full-fledged relationship by all accounts.
Only that too started losing its importance once my studies had taken the first seat. And having now found a full-time job himself, he too had other priorities.
And so, with one painful, miserable, devastating, excruciatingly heart-breaking phone call, we decided it’d be best to end it. That’s it. Just like that we were broken up, we had split, parted ways. His life was now his own, my life, mine. So pedestrian, so cliché, so normal. And the worst part? It was amicable. We didn’t fight, we didn’t have an argument, no cheating, no lies, no secrets. We both agreed this wasn’t sustainable, that our futures were incompatible, that his present could only be my future. And that made it all the more harder. I couldn’t hate him, blame him or accuse him for ruining us. There was no hate, only love and remorse for not being able to make it work, and that, I alone shouldered.
On some level, I think I had always been rooting for the day I’d be free once again. I loved him, I really did, but the idea that all of it might one day end, and that on that day I’d feel free, made it easier for me to not fully invest myself in our relationship. But free is not how I felt after we hung up. “Here, this is what you wanted all along, right?” I told myself, full of venom, “Are you happy now?”. I wasn’t free. I was chained to myself, my selfishness, my ego. I had finally managed to drive away the only person that I had ever loved, that ever loved me. And with that, Cristina’s “He’s gone… I’m free! Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!” lament resonated with me on a whole new level. There she was, sobbing in agony, as Meredith cut her out of her wedding dress soon after being left at the altar by the man she loved, realising that there is more to life than freedom. Of course I’d find a perfect scene on Grey’s to complement my current predicament. And much like her, I was now also captive of my own solitude.
The next couple of days were basically a post-break-up episode on any self-respecting rom-com. I laid in bed, bawling, red and puffy-eyed, wallowing in my new-found freedom. I devoured anything with the potential of sending me into a diabetic shock and I binged dozens of TV shows, dozed in and out of multiple comas and then cried some more. Classic post-break-up stuff.
I have to admit that it felt more like the death of something beautiful rather than a break-up. I was grieving. But somehow, knowing that he’d still be there for me, half the world away, made it better. And so, the stage of acceptance was now a much welcome period of respite. I came to realise that what we had didn’t die. It would always be there, enclosed in a bubble that would never burst. In this bubble were all our memories, our adventures, our love.
To this day, that bubble still floats. So thank you Pedro, for the wonderful memories, for making me a better person, for loving me. Thank you so much.