Do you ever get over the ones that ‘got away’?

How often do we randomly get hit by an old memory of a person who is no longer in our lives? How often do you hear a random tune, see an overly specific color, read a poetry line or smell a familiar smell and a wave of emotions hit you like a punch to the gut?

We come around people in every sphere of our lives. Some become the best of our friends, some the love of our life, some mere acquaintances. Some of them stay for the whole journey, but many drift away one way or another.

I had a friend in class one. She sat beside me on the first day, I called her my best friend. I left the school next year and don’t even remember her name anymore. My first crush was on a school senior. I used to wait for days to get one glimpse of him. I never confessed, and we both got busy with our lives in different directions after school. My first love, we had a relationship for 3 years. We shared our love, our differences and disagreements. At the end, we grew apart.

We are made of the experiences we go through. We are shaped by all the songs we liked, all the books we cherished, all the movies we enjoyed, all the places we travelled, and all the people we loved. We shared our dreams, fears, and deepest secrets, and for a brief while, the world made perfect sense.

I listened to my favourite song because someone introduced me to it. I feel confident wearing yellow because one of my friends told me it was my colour—I look good in it. When I open the left drawer on my desk, I still find a bunch of Eid cards. We used to exchange them when we were in primary school. These cards have drawings of cartoons, flowers, mosques, and more. One of them has a picture of Rapunzel on it, my favourite princess. I still remember how rare it was to find one and how happy I was when one of my friends gave it to me.

But life often has other plans. Circumstances change, paths diverge, and the ties that once bound us start to loosen.

Sometimes it is distance that pulls us apart. Other times it is the unspoken words, the misunderstandings, or the decisions made in moments of doubt or fear. And so, we drift, like leaves on a restless river, carried away by the currents of time.

In the aftermath, we are left with fragments—pieces of stories that ended. We replay the moments in our minds, searching for answers. We wonder if there was something we could have done differently. The scent of their perfume lingers in the air, the echo of their laughter haunts our dreams, and we find ourselves longing for the touch that once set our hearts aflame.

When I had my first breakup, I thought I would never be able to listen to another Hozier song because he introduced me to it. His love for Hozier and my love for him, I am not sure when it intertwined and created my love for Hozier. But one day, while listening to a random playlist, ‘Francesca’ by Hozier started to play, and I didn’t skip it.

I had a cat named Riko. He died when he was 6 and I was 17. Every time I thought of having another pet, all the memories of Riko crept back like ghosts from the past. When I was 20, I found an injured cat on the road. Initially, I thought I would foster her until she recovered, but she clung to me, and I couldn’t give her away.

Whenever I had to part ways with someone, I thought I would never get over them. But time always surprised me. My world grew larger and their part in it became smaller. I learned it is possible to live without them. The people I used to think about every day started coming to my mind every other day. Then once a week, once in a few weeks. Now I only think of them on a random evening every few years or when I stumble upon something I didn’t realize they had left in me.

Life goes on. The ache of loss slowly fades. We build new relationships, make new connections, create new memories. But deep down, there still remains a tender place, like a bruise that we visit, whether voluntarily or involuntarily in our quietest moments.

The echoes of their presence linger on. Most become a faint whisper in the corridors of memory, a ghost of the past, a bittersweet reminder of a love that once was, and a life that could have been. We must learn to coexist with these ghosts to survive. It’s a tough thing to do, but not an impossible one. It involves acknowledging the pain but not dwelling on it, and remembering the good times but not romanticizing them. The memories we had with them, the love we shared, and the lessons they taught all have shaped us into who we are now. But we need to acknowledge that they have played their parts in our lives. And now it’s time to let go. In time, we will realize that we can have a new best friend, we can have a new pet, we can fall in love again.