“After all this time?”
“Always.”
Disclaimer: Be prepared for the onslaught of cheesy, pseudo-romantic nonsense that is about to spring forth from this post. You have been warned.
It is no secret that I’m a huge fan of the Harry Potter series. What really sealed that deal for me was The Prince’s Tale; the story of the anti-hero, Severus Snape, and his undying love for Lily Potter. It is a story of how true love ‘saved’ a man from absolute evil, driving him to the other end of the spectrum of good, to protect the only son of the woman he’s loved all his life. I still cry like a baby every time I read or watch that scene.
Recently, I made a decision to bid farewell to a place I have called home for the past seven years. In the events leading up to it, I suspect I have offended some and lost several others I used to call friends. In spite of the pain and difficulty of this experience, I am heartened that there are still three I can count among my friends (you know who you are) and I am extremely grateful to them. I shall speak more of this in a separate post.
In true dramatic fashion, I attended one last service (at least for a while) and was greeted by one of the three surviving friends. For the sake of anonymity, let’s call him ‘B’. He is also the one I spoke of in ‘That One‘. He asked if I had a seat, I said no, that I did not inform my CG that I would be attending the service, and he very kindly offered to get me a seat with his CG. As he did so, I was acutely reminded of the fact that he will always be That One to me.
People say that the only constant is change; people change, circumstances change, everything changes. But I also believe in ‘always’. B and I have shared life experiences that brought us together and sealed us as friends – that will never change. B will always be ‘That One’ to me – that will never change. I have long accepted that we will never work out as a ‘romantic couple’ but he will always, always have a special place in my heart that no one can replace. That is not to say that I still harbour romantic feelings for him; it has gone past that. He has become a friend, a brother, someone I love dearly and whom I will move mountains for.
No relationship is the same. One cannot expect a romantic relationship to be the same as a mother-daughter relationship or a friendship the same as a marriage. Different people exist in our lives for different purposes. Sometimes, romantic relationships become deep friendships. My relationship with B is not, and will never be, a romantic one, because that has been reserved for someone else. In spite of all this, I firmly believe that there is room for ‘always’ and it is this promise of ‘always’ that helps bring some stability to an ever-changing world.
