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| Portrait of Margaret van Eyck , 41.2cm x 34.6cm. Groeningemuseum, Bruges, 1439 |
We meet numerous and various kind of people. Some are new faces; some are old friends. Some search for a sincere hug; some offer you a gentle hug. Some bring you down; some give you wings to fly. Some love you; some you’ve come to love more than most. It was impossible to remember all of them and it would be irrational for you to remember every ass-hat-whack-job in your life. It is unfair and poisonous for your heart.
When we insulted someone, when we called someone ‘bitch’ or ‘ass’ or ‘bastard’, it was actually our reality, not theirs no matter how objective or fair our evaluation was. This asymmetric reality was the reason why people felt the need to forget someone and also the source of pain when we were being forgotten.
It was always easier to forget someone that left no prints, but more often than most, people we needed to forget were the ones that carved so many marks in our life. Let me tell you this, it is impossible to forget them unless you had amnesia or actually became senile. This is where forgetting someone becomes an art. It is the right time to become Jan van Eyck who beautifully created layers of images or an extremely ignorant curator who allows a painting to fade.
People love the first one, the Jan van Eyck thing. You start to remember all the bad things about your exes (Xs), over-paint the memories, and blame Xs for your inability to move on. But the thing is…you are no van Eyck and you will end up with disfigured images of your Xs. I once advised someone to do this because this is relatively easier than what’s going to come next (the fade thing). However, personally, I don’t like to do this. I don’t want to disfigure someone’s image just for my own sake; label him or her as a bad person, so I can feel better for breaking-up with him/her. That’s not right, quite low actually. But, don’t get me wrong…this standard only applies to me. I never asked my friends to march to the same drummer. I know that forgetting someone is hard and painful to varying degree. Maybe my feeling about break-up is not as intense as some of my friends ^_^. So, judgment-free zone here ;)
The second method of forgetting is the ignorant curator style. Say you had an intimate relationship with a painting once; you cleaned her, restored her beauty, but then…So, what should you do next? Hang the painting in the corner and let it stays there. Go to school, go to work, eat, sleep…keep yourself busy with satisfying activities (charity works, nailing IELTS test) or fun ones (watch movies, play video games) with your friends or odd ones (fill a pickup truck with pillows and blankets, drive it somewhere quiet at night, sleep on the back of the truck, and stargaze). The trick is keeping your brain busy enough, so it does not have the time to think about the painting. Do it one step at a time, day after day, until the painting become less and less important. This way you can retain your happy memories and you can also recall them as ‘something from the past’ with a lighter heart.
Who am I to give an advice? Hahahah.
Cheers,
Dya
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