Perception is a unique thing people experience. Each person can see or experience something and choose to have specific thoughts and emotions about it. Two people can have the same moments together and take away a different perception of that thing.

This change happens all the time in relationships, and recently I have been reminded what I have perceived about other people, the places we have gone, and the emotions we shared were not the same. Throughout the past year, I have had many adventures that greatly valued me. I look at these experiences as rooms in my memory. I can visit any time I choose and remember the joy of the shared experience. The sad truth is that I am only half of those memories, and perhaps my thoughts and emotions about these times were less than I imagined. In this story, you will have to judge the value of my room of memory.

Entering a memory in your mind is like entering a standard room from your childhood home. You walk around and see things that bring up thoughts and emotions. However, some of the things you think you remembered well, you did not remember clearly. Or at least it must be so, or how else could that experience carry no weight with another? It was only you that loved that moment. A special memory of something loses its magic and loses its power. Somehow knowing what you thought was one thing was another makes it seem like a waste. I have entered many rooms lately and seen many valuable things destroyed.

The Entryway

The beginning, a friendship that turned into something more, the exciting beginning where I remember every detail and know that I was out of breath simply because I was near you. I felt fun, alive, spontaneous, and invigorated. But most of all, I felt accepted. I look around the room and see the world’s giant telephone, a cold day in Rockland, pancakes at a diner, all things that happened, or at least I think they did.

But if they did happen and the events of this room are actual, how could it be like a museum now? Where did they go? If joy like that was meant to be so fleeting, then why bother anyway? I do not know the answer to these questions, and I only see as I look at the dust-covered thoughts of that time that there is no way to touch them now.

The Living  Room

This place is one of my favorite rooms to visit because it is all I loved about being with you and all the things you hated about being with me. The emojis I would send you every day to tell you something about how I cared about you. A cello because it is your favorite instrument, a boat because my ship came in the day I met you. A red balloon because of a movie we saw together. All of these things are in this room.

But we know now that they don’t have any real meaning. These things are only remembered here by me, and that is making me wonder if they ever happened or if they ever existed at all. Was it all in my imagination? No, it couldn’t have been because I am in this room. But I am here alone remembering…………

The Entertainment Room

Well, then, there is this room of yours where I have difficulty opening the door. As I step in and look around, I am hit by the feeling of being kind and friendly. I once thought I had never met anyone as kind and gentle as you, and you were all of that: supportive, accepting, understanding, and everything a person could want. I often wondered what I had done to deserve such a beautiful soul in my life. Like a sunset or a sunrise, as the sky turns a fantastic color, it will only be for a short time, and so were you.

As I move around the room, the mood changes from kind and sweet to selfish and aloof. The kind words, pleasant thoughts, exciting ideas, and support receded and were replaced with uncaring, unfamiliar coldness. I think the person I knew and loved died that day, which took away one of the best friends I had ever known. She was gone, and only a shell of her was left behind. A sad replica of something beautiful is all that is left. This feeling only stands to remind me of the promise of opportunity lost. That room is the most difficult to visit, but it teaches the best lessons.

The Recovery Room

There could be no trip like this without a recovery room because we all need time to heal and start to come back from these moments of pain and suffering. Please make no mistake about it; you caused a lot of suffering: your choices, your words, your actions, and nobody else’s. Fortunately, even in a horrible situation like this, where you feel deceived for months, there are valuable lessons you can gather. There has been little about you that has been kind or nice in a very long time.

First, your situation is not the thing but how you think about it. I have learned to be less of an enslaved person to my thoughts and emotions, and I had to survive you. Second I have learned that though it was all a lie. I enjoyed being a part of a duo and that there is a power in that combination. Even though your joyful moments were seemingly all fake, mine was not, and I am grateful for the experience of being happy and sharing those moments. I cherish them even if you don’t. Because I can’t make you remember these things with fondness, but neither can you rob me of the joy I had in those moments.

As I close the door, I wonder why I bother to visit these places of memories of camping, sightseeing, birthday celebrations, and daring fun. They happened in my life, but what did they mean? I have to admit I have no concept of what is meaningful to anybody anymore. Or at least I don’t know what should be significant for me. These are my rooms, and I am doomed to wander them looking for answers I never found.