A friend once promised me that a long distance relationship would be horrid because I would “forget every goddamn thing that was a reason to love him.” At the time, I thought he had a point. The worst times in my relationship with Ka were the days preceding his move to France, with both of us petrified of change to the extent that we made promises about breaking up if it got too hard.
Did it get “too hard?” It most certainly did. We had hundreds of little arguments, lots of big fights and even a few serious episodes when everything looked like it would go just downhill.
But I have a trick – I think of his smile. I doubt if anyone has ever seen Ka smile in any of the photographs he’s got up on Orkut, Facebook or the like. He gets by mostly by looking into the camera with serious eyes and a little smirk playing about his lips, but never a smile.
It is only when he is amused by my silly antics or looking at me lovingly that he breaks into a smile. And what a smile it is! It lights up his entire face, including those piercing eyes. That smile is one of the reasons that I fell in love with him and its carefully preserved memory is what gets me through arguments and fights – big and small. My friend was wrong – it is something I could never forget.
To anyone who is afraid of being apart from someone they love, all I can say is – take one memory and keep it carefully in your heart. And wait till you can recreate it all over again. And if you do forget, ask yourself whether it was love, after all or simply a game of pretence.
