Memoirs of an Amnesiac

For some love is like a train ride. If you don't take it, you'll probably have to wait for the next trip. Still others have been unluckily made to believe (like a robot that's been programmed to do the same things over and over again until it breaks down) that like a train ride, once it's missed, it will be totally difficult to get another ride.

I thought I knew love in Grade Six when I had a huge crush on a classmate who made a funny remark that will forever leave an impression on my rather day-dreaming brain. He stood up in class, armed with his unrelentless and often anachronistic chivalry (like Don Quixote), to answer a question he never deemed he would be asked. Love back then had cute dimples and a nice set of teeth.

Love came back in high school when I was struggling with peer pressure, menstruation and infatuation. He was smart and quiet (the type most talkative girls like me would fall for). But love was not ready yet. It was a bit too early.

Then love showed up again in college, bringing with him a red card which he made himself on Valentine's Day. He was tall, dark, and handsome and had a great talent on the guitar whose songs he played so wonderfully reverberated through my college days. Back then, it was I who was not ready for love.

But when I was all ready for love when I graduated, it turned out that love loved somebody else. I blamed love for the pain but love left no mark. No explanation, no words. Just silence.

Maybe love was not meant to stay. Maybe love was just an emcee ushering us to the main event, giving us hints each time, back and forth but never giving us everything at once. Maybe love is just a dress rehearsal. Maybe love is not in the right place and the right time. Maybe love is in the other part of the world--while you're sleeping, love is just about to make himself coffee. Maybe love stays when it chooses to stay and goes when it already needs to.

When love goes, sometimes love has the decency to leave an explanation or a host of reasons. Sometimes, it just goes because love itself could not even find the right words to say goodbye. When that happens, it would be better for us to accept what love does because it was what we have made ourselves vulnerable to in the first place. Love will either stay or go but we risked no matter what.

Maybe love is not meant to be just for one but shared. Maybe love was just meant to be stared at a distance.Maybe love was for keeps. Maybe love was meant to given away at the expense of one's happiness. Maybe love was meant to be received. Maybe love is worth giving a second chance. Maybe not.

When love arrives, welcome it with both arms. When it goes, use those two arms to usher it.

With the parting words, "Thank you for dropping by."