Not ready to make nice

I woke up with a clogged nose and sniffles this morning.

Great, I thought, 3 days before my trip to India and I’m about to have a flu. This started yesterday when I woke up with pain in my throat. I ignored it and by lunch time I had completely forgotten about it. I joined my friends for lunch in another friend’s house, in celebration of Hav’s birthday. I had roast chicken, pork asado, mashed potato, spring rolls, and spaghetti. Though I hadn’t eaten my (usual) fill, I found myself feeling too queasy to eat dessert, which was unfortunate because Ted prepared pineapple cheese cake–a favorite.

When I went back home at 2PM Kimrun was already waiting for me. We almost jumped into each other because we hadn’t seen each other in 2 weeks. After a nice quick round of farewell sex (he was set to go on his monthly provincial monitoring visits the next day and we won’t be seeing each other until after I’ve come back from India) we talked over cups of hot chocolate. My throat has become very sore at this time and I couldn’t taste the sweetness of the drink. I joked that it was probably sexually transmitted. Kimrun didn’t find it funny, though.

Towards early evening I began to feel body pain–a clear sign that I was about to have fever. I called Marikit and asked her to send my masseur over. She had to send another guy because apparently it was my regular guy’s day off. New guy administered a hard-enough massage that relieved my pain, but clearly he still had some ways to go to reach the level of skills of my regular guy.

After the massage I felt well enough to work on my presentation for India. Too well, in fact, that I couldn’t focus on the task. I realized I didn’t have dinner yet. So when Marikit and Nill called at 9PM and invited me to meet them at Talkin’ to a Stranger, a bar just walking distance from my home, I went. The 3 of us didn’t drink anything alcoholic. Nill had iced tea, Marikit had lime soda while I had ginger soda. I also ordered a sandwich for dinner.

The heart of our discussion was the little drama unfolding as Nill is setting up the magazine SQUARE, for which I will serve as Editor-in-Chief. Somebody is causing Nill much grief and frustration but he has decided to deal with this person later, when things in the magazine have become less hectic. In my view what happened was a very minor setback, one that can ultimately prove to be a blessing for Nill’s company. So probably because the topic of our conversation was about people who have wronged us, Mikey’s name came up.

Marikit mentioned seeing him in one occasion and we noted the fact that now he is in the company of people that my friends do not consider as friends. It’s true, actually, he had gravitated to this other group of people that me and my friends do not socialize with. It’s actually a bit funny that in the 8 months since I drove Mikey out of my house, our paths hasn’t crossed even once. For a city as small as Phnom Penh, this is a bit strange. It could be because I hadn’t gone out at night in a long time. I mean, I only started going out again in the last 3 weeks or so. 

Honestly, I don’t mind not seeing Mikey. I will be fine even if I never see him again. should we end up in the same place, I know that it will not matter to me because I am very good at ignoring the people that I don’t want to see or speak with. I will not raise my eyebrows or say some side comment in his presence. I will just totally ignore him. I told Marikit and Nill about the email Mikey sent me a few months ago. How he said he felt bad about what happened and all that BS. They asked me how I responded to the said email and I told them that I didn’t see the point in answering the letter. Marikit said that it will probably be good for me to forgive Mikey so he won’t be a burden to me.

I disagreed. Not because I am still mad or angry at Mikey. At this point, I can safely say that I am not upset with him. I don’t feel anything for him anymore. I do not consider him an enemy. He’s just a stranger to me now. My view on forgiveness is this: forgiving someone is done after careful consideration, and it doesn’t guarantee a resumption of a severed relationship. I do not adhere to the adage forgive & forget. The reason I did not answer Mikey’s email is primarily because I did not feel that he was being sincere. There was no admission of guilt, especially about what he did to my mother, so the request for forgiveness felt hollow and contrived. I think that email was written because he was sad at that time (for reasons I will not speculate on), and not because he was sad at losing my friendship.

I have mourned our friendship and I have accepted its end. I have moved on so now, I am under no obligation at all to even be civil with him. And no amount of Mikey-sightings will drag my emotions down like a crab pulled back by its brothers. This is not just my flu talking.