We Used to Drink Until Night and Pray in Our Church Not Sober (Week 286)

Our memories contain the ins and outs of our life experiences, may it be things we chose to retain or those that simply and subtly made their way into our mind before we wanted to forget them. There is no science to zoom in on what is in our mind and simply erase the particles like a chalk that carries our past, especially the bittersweet or poignant ones. But there is poetry, in the absence of science, that doesn't erase but helps us make sense of these memories and forget these things by acknowledging them and carrying them into the next years until we find ourselves by a café or in our bedroom, not thinking of them again, and have completely forgotten them. By the time we figure it out, we are completely different people, and although we can remember it, it doesn't hurt anymore like the one in the past because to forget things is to first remember them.

Memories can be an experience, a milestone, a gift, or a pet. These are all fleeting creatures that exist in our world; we accept them, however, the idea of leaving is always in the presence of those who arrive. Most of the time, memories are people—a lover, a mother, a stranger, or a murderer.

And I say, people are the worst memories, whether it sounds right for you or not. Simply because they create a space within us, a familiar place for beautiful experiences only, that touches the vulnerability of humanity, and then they leave, like a bubble you blew one summer morning in a kids’ park where you first encountered each other. We have the highest form of intellect; therefore, people are the most capable of hurting each other, not to count the ways and processes we inflict pain.

Now this pain is the hardest memory we can store in our minds and hearts. It is the greatest villain to change one's sanity, break one's life, and put things in front of you with completely no meaning. It takes courage to battle this intangible force we cannot explain to people. Luckily, we share pain like a collective feeling, so other people can understand the words we cannot speak. But seldom do we find the right people, the right space, and the right time for these stories.

I'm lucky to have found this weekend engagement, and the first topic that asked what thing we wanted to forget but cannot touched a poignant memory in me and a hope that maybe I can share it this time and allow it to be read by other people like one of the greatest tragedies ever recorded in history. But I have to say, this is a simple thing, a normal story, but a memory so dear to me and a wonderful experience I no longer want but still love.

In the summer of 2020, during the time people were still adapting to the post-pandemic life, I had an encounter with this man in the same church I believed was a divine intervention. We all were miserable people before we touched the light we have today, and the time I met that man was the time I was miserable. We used to be a pair in the office while scribbling and scanning the documents of our church members, filling out important notes and events on their records. Time revolved around it. And eventually, we became bestfriends.

What is your measurement of a bestfriend? Because for me, it is a deep connection between two people, a connection that is beyond romance or beyond knowing a person, and rather a connection that penetrates each other's souls, acknowledging each other's life without judgement, learning from each other, understanding the complexity of the world, and lifting each other when one hits rock bottom, but in a way that almost feels the same as your mother's caress when you were a child. I rarely label a person my bestfriend; in fact, I only used it once in my life, and I am not certain if I can use it for the next pages of my life. The word bestfriend is a sacred and holy word for me. It is not a normal relationship nor a thing you can point out to any person. It requires love, patience, and growth to know a person is your bestfriend.

It might take long for us to recall every life I had with my bestfriend for four years. But in a nutshell, we were addict drunk men who prayed in a church every midnight with alcohol in our breath, were once teenagers who praised the Lord by morning but smoked cigarettes by night, were once miserable people not serious in education but had great political insight and stand, were adults who explained things through theories and hypotheses while we read Franz Kafka's books, and were just little children who encountered each other in their miserable years when their parents broke up and so did their families.

As miserable as it may sound, we found solace in each other's company. The bad habits were once our healthy outlet to release madness, and the church thing was our way of redemption. But happiness—friendship rather—found in miserable things never gets its way to a long life and years. It is bound to end and is a temporary first aid for those who are wounded. Truth be told, our friendship ended in the same place we met—in the church—where we told each other our need to separate and make a life that is not hollow and bare. By the year 2024, the friendship finally ended, because the two of us chose to be good adults with a clear path in life.

So why do I want to forget it amidst finding a home in that friendship? Simply because there is pain in leaving a life you used to live with the person you used to know, and there is pain in the reality that the person I used to be with will never be the same person in the present. My friend, there is pain in leaving; have you ever been there?

The friendship I had was romantic and deep to the point it consumed a piece in my heart I cannot remove while it pumps. He was a beautiful experience, for he gave me a world so unsure but joyous while we didn't know it was slowly killing us inside. He was a prayer, a poetry, a life, a muscle, and an organ that kept me alive for years while I died in reality. Our friendship was so sacred and unworldly only we could understand, and we could not find it a place in this world, so we chose to erase it. A friendship so dear to my heart that I don't want to experience it again.

There is pain in leaving a person, but there is a happiness when you finally leave the pain and turn it into a memory. He is now a memory I can recall every now and then, and it is one of the things that keeps me grounded and alive in a healthy way in the present. If you are curious what happened to us, after we chose to break each other's connection, I became a psychology student and he became a church minister.

And yes, we chose paths that help us understand the misery we had from each other. But until in this very thing, we have a contradiction that says we can never be together again. Science and faith will never be a good pair, do they?

But perhaps forgetting is not the end of it, for memories like our friendship don't completely go away; they leave tiny bits and rest in quieter rooms of the mind. Maybe one day, when life is successful and firm, I will look back at that one summer and I will know that what we had was never a mistake but our own way to live and grow. And in that gentle remembering, I hope it is no longer containing pain; instead it carries the pure friendship I once had in a light, in a hope.

Before I end this, I have to tell you the meaning of the photos. These were the places we once visited and made our friendship more meaningful through shared trips and experiences. These places are poignant now, but I wonder if they do still carry us until now? Nonetheless, life will take care of it.

I thank @galenkp for creating this safe space in Hive that gives people a room to uncover and acknowledge vulnerable things in an unshameful way. Great things really have their way to get in our life, and this one luckily found me. Thank you for reading, and remembering with me,my dearest readers. See you around this planet and this beloved platform.