I think all the fears, the insecurities and feelings of abandonment stem from one truth: We don’t want to be forgotten by the ones we love. We don’t want to be left behind. We’ve given it a silly abbreviation—FOMO, the fear of missing out. But it runs deeper than that. It’s not just the fear of missing out, it is the fear of it being okay to be missed out. A truer love emerges from the corners of one’s heart when a loved one reaches out, out of the blue, and says ‘I was thinking about you.’
A deeper call echoes from the depths of one’s heart in that moment: ‘Thank you, for not forgetting me.’
Theoretically and logically, you cannot ‘forget’ someone. Your subconscious stores each and every person you meet, however inconsequential. And when the time is right, they pop up, from the magical corridors of one’s memories. Made up and flawless, or real and flawed. But once they’re there, they remain.
And yet, once someone chooses something else, a deep sense of loss is felt. The loss is not as much about that person, but of the version of self that one experienced when one was with them. The person that came out from inside of us, in their company. That person, in their true authentic sense, is lost forever. The ‘me’ I was with my first pet, my first college friend, my first roommate and the ‘me’ I was when my brother and I used to watch new movies every day during the pandemic—I miss those versions more than the people themselves.
It does sound a little selfish. But it is not. We perceive the world through our senses, through our flesh and blood, through our rights and wrongs, and through our good luck and misfortunes, through ‘selfish gene’ as Sir Dawkins said. But despite being biologically concerned about our own survival, we’re nothing without each other. At least, not on a philosophical level.
I can achieve all the accolades of the world but it would mean nothing if YOU did not acknowledge it. In that, I am nothing without you. In that, we’re all interconnected. And hopefully, never forgotten. Even then, I wish every day that if you’re reading this, you will never forget me, because I will never forget you.
Bipasha Shrestha is a student of BALLB at Kathmandu School of Law.
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