OBLIVION

{wearing: dress from bali, rubi sandals}

Augustus Waters once said, "I fear oblivion ... I intend to live an extraordinary life. To be remembered. If I’m scared of anything, it’s not doing that." I confess to sharing Gus' fear, but before you go all Hazel Grace and lecture me that we'll all be forgotten at some point, that doesn't mean I can't leave a mark and make a difference, no matter how small, now.

Before I left for Singapore, I remember telling my friends that I didn't want to be forgotten. Life goes on, I'm well aware of it. But to stop existing in someone's life, and I don't just mean being physically apart, is very unsettling for me. Like the saying goes: you die twice in this world, one is your actual death, and the second is when your name is spoken the last time. For people that we used to know, sometimes the second one happens before the actual.

It's one thing to be forgotten, but to be deliberately erased is another. It feels like a punch to the stomach when someone chooses to rid themselves of you. If the person is not a hundred percent asshole, chances are they didn't do it to hurt you per se. For one thing, we encounter the tip that "we need to cut of people who no longer contribute to our happiness or wellbeing" almost always when going through betterment lists for millenials. When you find yourself in this scenario, you have to put yourself in the other person's shoe. Or Clementine's. Or Noel's. Or sometimes even a different pair of yours.

That said, the bottomline remains that it sucks when this happens especially if you hold the person in high regard. It makes you feel insecure; that small act, that may or may not even be intended to be personal, becomes an insult to your self worth. It's like "aww, I don't mean as much" or "aww, we didn't mean anything". But once you get past the shock (of your smashed ego), you'll realize that you shouldn't even be bothering. You wouldn't even be in this situation if you yourself did things differently in the past. As with all relations, it is a two way street. You should've kept in contact, you should've made conversation, you should've been a better friend. There's no point dwelling. Either fight back or let go. If you choose the latter, the best way to beat oblivion is oblivion. Don't care and be unaware. Shrug it off, and go back to working on the things that matter. Let this be a reminder that relationships are in constant need for nurturing, because in this case, the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves.

And as for worrying about being acknowledged the last time, work on being a person that creates so much positive impact that you affect others on the microlevel. That even if they forget your name, there will be traces of you lingering in their actions even without them consciously knowing it.


xx