All that year I had been looking forward to returning to Neve Eitan, but at the last minute I changed my mind. I didn’t want to sully the memories
Today I'm Alice ~ Alice Jamieson
When I first read this, I didn't understand it at all. It seemed absolutely senseless. Why wouldn't she return? She had loved it and been longing for it, aching for it even. To ultimately avoid what she had so anxiously been anticipating seems completely counterintuitive. I had thought it was something she would have done anything to go back to her paradise Neve Eitan. I had thought she would have been rushing to get there; why was she doing the opposite and running away?
I didn't know it was fear that held her back. I didn't know what it was like to love something so much it frightens you. I had never loved in such a way at that time. I was young and naive and lucky when I first read this. I hadn't known what it was like to lose something so precious and then be so devastated by it. And then be afraid to feel so much for something (or someone) again.
The feeling of euphoria. It was always good after that first time, but it was never quite as good
Sometimes, once something is gone, you can never get it back. Even when you're holding it in your hands, it's no longer the same thing. And it's no longer yours. What you've lost was a pure, blissful fantasy that reality ruined for you. The memories weren't actually real; they were only based on reality. They held truth, but they were not true to it. And it was better that way. Sometimes the truth is too ugly to be borne.
There are times when our imaginations are more powerful than our perceptions. Our imaginative abilities can be what save us from atrocities, but they can also be what shatter our souls. Instead of staying true to the memories, we put ourselves into them. We become their creators, rather than their curators, refashioning what's real into something that only resembles reality, deceptively so. In the end, we deceive ourselves and the disappointment strikes deep inside of us because it comes from within.
It's amazing how well we deceive ourselves. We usually consider ourselves honest people. We usually think we're very self-aware. And we often don't consider ourselves 'the creative type.' But we always find the fancy and ingenuity required to deceive ourselves. We can always imagine something better than what is.
Until, eventually, we're confronted with reality, and our imagination fails. And what we've lost we lose all over again. Only it's worse the second time. The second time, you have nothing to hold onto. There are no new memories and the old ones are shattered, stolen from you. You've lost the little bit you had left. You learn what it means to be left with nothing, nothing to hold onto. You're bereft and grieve once again, but it's a more excruciating loss because this one you've done to yourself. This one didn't have to happen.
Some things, once lost, are lost forever. You expect to get them back, but you only lose them all over again. Some things are just too good to be true
Too Good to Be True | Danny Avila
Photo by Milada Vigerova on Unsplash