A promise made is a debt unpaid

*Author's note: This post was not written in any way to be a point-blank assault to anyone. I write this with a light, open heart and I chose to write because of the realisation I have gained and more importantly, acceptance. This has been, among everything else, an eye opener. 

"Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load."

- The Cremation of Sam McGee (Robert William Service)

Although the opening lines refer to what I'm assuming is the story of the cremation of Sam McGee, what caught me most about it was the line "a promise made is a debt unpaid".

A promise: "A declaration or assurance that one will do a particular thing or that guarantees that a particular thing will happen."

20 years and I have never once stopped and fixated on what seemed like a seemingly small word, "promise". Not until now that is. A 7 lettered word that can bring the world crashing down on a person. Depending how one looks at it: lucky that it only took 20 years or unlucky that it took me 20 years, I've now experienced the true magnitude of a broken promise, magnitude so big it doesn't register on the Richter scale. It's one thing to promise your mum you'd clean your room (a reasonable, achievable task), it is another thing altogether to promise another person that "you'll love them forever" or that "you'll never leave them".

"If only people realise the damage words can do. The sting of a slap lasts only seconds but words reverberate endlessly, causing damage with every echo."

Only now I realise that it is such a cruel thing to promise someone what you can't guarantee you'll be able to see through. All is true and well when everything is still blooming and rosy but when the hardest hits, that's when you'll be tested on your word. Between now and forever, I imagine a lot of things could happen, a lot of inevitable things. The naive part of me always so innocently believed that promises will always hold true but then again perhaps I should've taken a hint when people say things like "promises are made to be broken" and thought then that they might just know a thing or two about what they're talking about. 

One thing (or one of the things anyway) that haunts my thoughts now is that one sentence I dare uttered all those months ago. I still remember exactly what it was I uttered, when (time of day), who I was with, where I was, and why I said it. That one sentence has to be the most arrogant thing I've said all year. 

What I said: I wonder why people retaliate so hard when someone breaks up with them. I can't imagine I would do that knowing the person breaking up with me doesn't love me anymore (and that very last sentence came back to slap me in the face months later *smack!* If the situation wasn't so grave, I would be laughing at the irony. Actually, I do find a laughter to escape me now and then. Perhaps I do find the irony funny after all.)

When I said it, who I was with, where I was: Sometime nearing midnight on the drive back home with my best friend at the corner turn to my house.

Why I said it: A girl I knew (though I've never met her) just broken up with her boyfriend (boy's decision) and she retaliated so violently and relentlessly even knowing that he doesn't love her. I wonder then why she didn't just let it rest.

It is only now that I finally understand. You see it in countless movies, read about it in countless books, hear the stories in countless songs but not until you're in the position can you truly understand the magnitude of the situation. Of course people would retaliate. It was naive of me to not properly see why (although I suppose I could be excused for not personally experiencing it before). 

Reasons why people retaliate:

1. Everything they've ever thought of what might be, all the visions of the future suddenly (if this happens out of the blue) gets yanked from under them (a person that knows what's coming would have more time to brace him/herself).

2. They think about all the time and emotion they've invested into the relationship that will be erased into nothingness.

3. They don't understand what is it that's gone wrong and so furiously try to fix whatever it was that is thought to be broken.

4. They think about all the promises made and wonder how is it that one day you know someone like the back of your hand but the next you're looking at a face of a stranger.

5. It's hard to let go of familiarity. Human's instinct of fight or flight lives in them even now and most times, people don't easily give into flight. They're comforted with the thought of what has become a part of their life. Should that part be taken away, it'll feel like losing a limb and who wants to lose a limb really?

The way I see it, people break up in one of three situations. Either by mutual agreement by both parties (an ideal situation perhaps) or by the decision made by one person (the breaker) and when it's the decision of one person, either the other person (the breakee) have known all along and has been waiting for the inevitable or the breakee is caught completely off guard. Now, among these 3 situations, I imagine the situation when one is caught completely off guard would be the one that would retaliate the hardest. How can two people mean the world to each other one day and the next, the breaker would go on to say that he/she doesn't love her/him anymore? A harsh, cruel situation. Sometimes people are lucky in a way it works out in their favour, most times it does not. 

6.8 billion people that populates the Earth and to the world, I am just another person. Although we are all different, in many ways we are all the same. It's always the same old cliche and I suppose if you really think about it, in all the people in the world and all the couples who ever lived, we can hardly be the first one to go through what we're going through (see Exhibit A). I would think it's all happened before, only on someone else. Though we don't personally see it, I suppose countless movies, books, and songs would be documentation enough.   

Exhibit A: "Somebody That I Used To Know" by Goyte ft. Kimbra

I've only experienced a true, blue massive broken promise once and that alone has thought me not to make rash promises or to believe every single promise thrown at me. I don't believe people intentionally go out of their way to hurt another person but knowing what one already knows about promises and breaking them, why would one repeat them? Wasn't the first time lesson learned enough?

Right now or anytime in the near future, I can't imagine myself to ever believe a somewhat long term promise or even making one. Such cruel reality that engulfs you when you realise that promises like "forever" and "never" in the end are just words that were said by a long shot, not really meaning to last till the end of times. "Never" has never mocked me more than it's mocking me now on this very day, a day that on any other month would've been a "perfect" day. It's like a knife to the heart, a slap on the face, a punch in the gut.

It's when I think about all the tiny details that makes me ansy so I try not to think about them and all seems right with the world.

It's not that I've turned bitter with what happened and would remain "forever" stubbornly guarded. Only that now I know better. I know what could've been different and I know what I would do differently should there ever be a next time and I say that with pure acceptance.

"You promised you would protect her," Nico said.

He might as well have stabbed me with a rusty dagger. It would've hurt less than reminding me of my promise.