I had spent an amazing New Year's with Joe. We only had a couple of days together and I hadn't seen him since Paris (almost a year and a half earlier). Things hadn't changed between us - everything was fun, easy, light-hearted and wonderful!
When Joe headed back to Asia, and I to the UK, we did talk about the difficulty of knowing that we couldn't be together and wondered if that would ever change. I explained that I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Nothing would ever change my parents' mind so it was really whether or not I could fight them on the issue, and what I thought the possibilities were that they would even remotely accept what I was proposing.
Joe and I had some incredibly long, and difficult, conversations in the following month before we decided that I would tell my parents. He wanted me to move to Singapore, I wanted him to move to the UK. A lot of change was coming for both of us. Nothing good could come of fighting, but I had to try. And, so I did.
I had my brother and sister come with me for moral support as I broke the news to my dad. He had been expecting it - I had seen him in the UK a couple of weeks prior and had planted the seed that we needed to talk about boys. He figured that I was going to talk about Joe.
The conversation was not pleasant. I stayed quiet for the most part and tried to let my dad do the talking. It was emotional and heated and I would like to think that he didn't really mean most of what he said that morning. He was disappointed and hurt. He was angry. I didn't understand. I could only sit there and acknowledge his feelings and try to explain (with a lot of help from my siblings) that in fact, this was not a malicious act against my parents, rather someone I had met, gotten along with, fallen in love with and no matter how hard we had both tried, there was a bond there that couldn't be ignored. That didn't matter. He was Muslim. My dad knew very little about Joe, except for his name. He didn't want or need to know anymore. That was it. The barrier was up and it was barely going to come down, if at all.
Later that afternoon, it was evident that my dad was trying to see things from my perspective. Our conversations continued for a month. With each conversation, I could hear that he had spent many nights lying awake, thinking about Joe and I. He sounded exhausted and worn out. He was starting to treat it like a corporate error that required a PR campaign to put a positive spin on the situation, to help mitigate the community's reaction. He knew that he couldn't convince the community, his family, my mom, or truly himself, that this was okay and acceptable. He was torn between my happiness and everything else he had ever known.
What else could I expect? It was far better than my mom's reaction, which involved a lot of yelling, name-calling, guilt-tripping...everything you would expect from a disappointed and distraught parent. Could I blame them? Not really. They didn't know any better. In their minds, they were dealing with this in the best way possible. They were doing what they knew to be right.
And I? Well, as usual for Joe and I, timing was not on our side. His best friend was going through a very rough time and was staying with Joe. Sharing a tiny bachelor apartment with your best friend means that you have little privacy, which for me meant that Joe had limited time to talk to me. Unfortunately for both of us, this lack of time (in which an 8-hour time difference was far from helpful), meant that I was basically fighting this battle on my own. I wasn't prepared for that nor was I sure I could handle it.
I can't blame my parents for their reaction - it was expected. It's all they knew. I knew it wouldn't be easy. I just hoped it would be easier than it was. I hoped they would, on some level, understand. I hoped they would have a more open mind.
And I wasn't sure I was strong enough to face it. I was mad at Joe for making me choose between him and my family. I was mad at my parents for making me choose between my family and Joe. Why did I have to choose? Why couldn't the world just be the happy place I wanted it to be without prejudice and bitterness?
I've always had adventurous dreams in which I am the good guy, being chased by bad guys with guns. Not far from an action movie of sorts. Adrenaline filled dreams of being chased through alleyways, dodging bullets, etc. I usually find them quite amusing when I wake up (I clearly watch too many cops/robbers shows). Throughout the fight with my parents, sleep eluded me. When I did sleep, my dreams were all over the place, reliving the arguments and discussions had with my parents about Joe. Then, one night, I had another adventure dream. I remember it well - I was once again being chased down tight alleyways and around corners and, finally, I had found a way to outsmart the people chasing me. I cut them off around a corner and for the first time I dreamt that I had a gun in my hand and had it pointing at the people chasing me. What startled me the most, and had me wake up in cold sweats, was the fact that on the other side of that gun, stood my parents. The fight for Joe had to end. Now. And I had no way of explaining that to Joe. How would he understand?
I did what I thought would be the right thing. I did what would make everyone except two people happy. Two people's broken hearts is better than many more...right? I figured I didn't count, considering I was the one making the decision, so really, it was only Joe's heart that I was breaking. And I had convinced myself that it was the right thing. I reminded myself of all the things he had done wrong over the years to make myself feel better. I convince myself everyday that we just weren't meant to be. Our timing was never right. And I never told Joe about the dream nor all of the details of the fight. Just that we couldn't have been meant to be.
A year later, I still get annoyed thinking back at it. The same questions always come up - will I find someone else who made me as happy as Joe did? Did I make the right decision? Will it all work out? Perhaps it's just the place that I'm in now where those questions come up more frequently than at other times. How long would it take me to stop second guessing and get over a decision that (as someone rightly pointed out) wasn't mine to begin with? I wasn't sure...
My hope is that I will never resent my parents, and that Joe will never resent me. I can't blame my parents for how they reacted - it's all they know and in their minds, they are doing everything they can to protect me. I will never understand it, but I have to accept who they are. As for Joe, I'm not sure he will ever forgive me. I'm not sure he'll ever realize just how bad things were and how much I truly needed him to be by my side (and not 8 time zones away!). I made the decision. I chose. And, I will live with the consequences...for better or worse! My fingers are crossed, for better!
It was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved before - and I remind myself of that each morning. I have to...
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