Memories That Bind. And Gag.

They say familiarity breeds contempt. But mine is a curious case. Familiarity bred no contempt, because time robbed the familiarity. If I say familiarity is knowing what you eat, what you wear, what you do and what you think. But my definition surely lacks substance. I m sure it should be much more than that.

But looking at yesterday, I would still say you were familiar. Even though I don’t understand what it completely means. I thought you were with me when I laughed, when I cried, when I read, and hell, when I slept. You knew the passage I loved, you knew the soap I used, and you even knew the last movie I watched on my laptop. I used to be worried sick when you were not well, I always knew the joke that would make you laugh and I could tell in my sleep when you had to go to the tailor to collect your dress. If this is not familiarity, I don’t know what is.

Time hurts as much as it heals. Especially when I have too much of it and you too little of it. It makes me wonder who would want to listen to those stories I used to bore you with. Of course, wondering has produced no results so far. But I know you are caught up in no such web of trivial needs. You adapt and you adapt fast. And I try something neutral between admiration and resentment, but settle closer towards the latter. It is not your fault that you have a new pair of ears to fill in and it is definitely not your fault that we are looking at different things: you at the future and I at the past. The divergence is strangely unable to obliterate the memories I cling to. The ones I know I should not. But if you offer to erase them for me, I would politely decline. For I know they would be the only reminders of you, in the next many days to come… As Adichie says, “Heart is where home was”, and home is where familiarity is.

(Image Courtsey: http://fineartamerica.com/featured/the-loneliness-of-abuse-leisa-collins.html)