Echoes of Past Love: A Tale of Nostalgia, Guilt, and Introspection
Echoes of Past Love: A Tale of Nostalgia, Guilt, and Introspection
"O Ellen, what will you say when the recording angel asks you why one of your sins has my name to it?" George Bernard Shaw wrote to his love, Ellen Terry, in a letter dated 1897. Almost 127 years later, reading it this fine morning, I am reminded of a past love in which I had a chance to play a role in. I wonder, how would her recording angels take my lover's sin to be?
I still feel guilty at the thought of how the affair ended between her and me, abruptly, even though it took years to ignite our passions for each other. The guilt I feel has been mine to bear, and I do so as quietly as I can and without complaint, as I am certain is the case with her. How must she feel when remembering the moments we had together, sheltered away from everything? I feel nostalgic visiting places we went to, and in that nostalgia, I imagine how she must feel visiting those same places.
Though intense and intentional, our love fizzled out like a candlelight does when covered by a glass enclosure. As much as I wish to take the full blame on my shoulders, I know somewhere within her too lies the same thought, to bear the guilty weight. And what purpose does this guilt serve, I wonder? Guilt and shame are faucets of fear that let out rusty water where pure bliss should have flowed instead. Bliss of the wonderful moments lived and yet to be lived.
Through these words, I wish for her to recognize that, yes, pieces of our shattered love have left scars that will take long to heal. They might not even heal, but within those scars are found memories—memories of care and love that each of us is capable of bestowing upon another human. Instead of shame, guilt, or hurt, I wish the light of life that we ignored in our peril to be found within you and me.
Those fleeting memories of the past, soon to be distorted by age, if not forgotten entirely, are just that—memories that you can choose to lament or cherish. If only for a moment, our sin was only to have loved each other dearly. I plead with you now not to regret those moments out of what life promises to be, infinite moments filled with infinite ways of being.
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