Thanks for the memories: Epiphany.

We all have had crushes growing up, and for some us even after we are all grown up. Some stronger and lasting longer than others, some stubbornly intermittent, while others were so tenuous we can barely even remember. Its all natural I guess. One thing is for sure though, they all come and go. They go. They have to somehow. So I happened to be pondering about how and why for some reason or another, we have the proclivity to get over our crushes, without fail. And then it hit me, quite astoundingly, the rationale behind it; crushes are perpetuated by fantasy, more or less. There and then, my mind reverberated with Collins' words “...let fantasies be fantasies!”. How stunned I was by how meaningful that statement was to me then. 
 

Fantasies, are merely creations of our imagination. Fiction at best. Yet there's a very fine line between fiction and non-fiction, fantasy and reality. Consequently, one can so easily obscure the other. And that for me, explained why we never crushed on someone forever; why sometimes we suddenly stop crushing on someone just as soon as we had come to know them for real; why we so often start crushing on a different person and forget about the previous one in the blink of an eye. Among other things not necessarily 'crush-related' per se. 

 

It got me thinking again about how I had been obliged to end my relationship with Hailey. Just why it had to come quite soon after I had finally met her, rather than later. I saw her for the very first time, and almost pronto a doubt crept into my mind. I all of a sudden doubted that I was in love with her; doubted that I was going to be with her forever-after as I had promised. Well, for the moment we were together that day, I almost effortlessly held back the doubt. I couldn't let it ruin it for me; for us. That meet had been such a long time coming. I had every intention of having a great time and making the most out of it. Then again, time waits for no man, and neither did it for us. Evening came and she gracefully departed. Right then was when the flood gates crashed open. The doubts in the depths of my heart began burgeoning. Hell, I couldn't stop thinking about it! 
 

By the following day, they seemed to have overwhelmed the love I thought I had for her. I reckoned all the months we had been together, I partly had been in love with a fantasy of her. The image in my mind that embodied her voice and character during all that time, was a distant resemblance of what she was in real life. She sure was pretty and all, but different from what I had imagined. However hard I tried to fix her real image onto where the fantasy-image was, because I really did like her; it just couldn't feel the same as before. And I remember thinking to myself, that if I just suppressed my doubts and focused on loving her, maybe the doubts would all vanish over time. After all, they say time is the healer of all things, right?..

But again I thought, what if they didn't? What if they'd tenaciously bug me until such time when it would be too late or too costly to back out? I would never wish that on anyone, let alone myself or someone I regarded so dearly. I would never forgive myself if I strung her along just for kicks. So I weighed the pros and cons, and saw it wouldn't be worth the risk to hold on. I did what I had to. And I couldn't lie about the whole thing or even barely sugarcoat it to soften the blow, much as I wanted to, by the way. She was too smart a girl for that. She'd already figured it way before I confessed it, which didn't make it any easier for me. Oh well, the confession I wrote earlier gives the long and short of it.

So much for love. :-)    

“...As a man of honor I cannot promise eternally what I've never felt momentarily.”

- Leopold in 'Kate & Leopold'.