I read an article a friend once suggested. It offered the
view that, no matter what circumstances a human being goes through, he/she gets
over it and learns to be happy. Humans apparently have an innate ability to be
happy—or rather, go back to a state of happiness after being unhappy—no matter
what. In other words, we move on.
But ‘moving on’ is a palliative. It works in the short term.
It even convinces us that we are fine; that we are leading perfectly normal, routine
lives.
And then, one day suddenly, 19 years later, the memory comes
flooding back. It comes at a time when you’ve succeeded in convincing yourself
that you are fine; that you have healed. As a result, the guilt, remorse, anger
or any other emotion that you associated with it, comes back, too. And it comes
back with a vengeance. It comes back to mock you, because you dared to move on.
Yes, the human psyche was built to ‘get over’ things –
seemingly so. But no emotion, when felt so intensely, can ever be done away
with. Love gone sour simply turns to hate, because both emotions are too strong
to disappear entirely.
George Orwell famously noted in the classic 1984, “…you could not alter them (your
feelings) yourself, even if you wanted to.” Feelings are too strong to be able
to control. All emotions that are felt by an honest heart are. Love, loss,
grief, hatred – you can presumably move on from them all, but you never
do, and never will. Because they will come back to haunt you. And you will
never know what triggered it. Maybe nothing did. Maybe it was there all along,
just waiting to make a comeback.
So, what’s the solution? I haven’t a clue. But if I had to
wager, I’d say ‘get used to’ might be a more appropriate conclusion. Get used
to feeling love, hatred and loss. Learn to live with it. This way, when the
emotion rears its head again, you’ll be able to look it in the eye and face it
head-on. Else, you’ll simply find yourself cowering, because you, you moved on.
