A harmless question — Tiny heartbreak story

There are times when the right thing to do isn’t the rational one.

On my birthday, I received a friendly ping from her. “Happy birthday to you!”, she said. For a moment, I felt it was just like old times. Instead of long messages with a countless number of hearts, it’s a couple of letters arranged in a non-poetic, monotonous manner. Of course, someone has tried to play cool.

Naively speaking, the choice in front of me was pretty simple. Just say “thank you” or say what I wanted.

It was clear the rational thing to do was to just drop thank you like I had done to countless other messages from friends and strangers and move on with life. The later choice, on the other hand, had the potential to cause immense pain.

But did I really have a choice? It wasn’t long back when she was the life. I used to wake up with her text or message, chat or call multiple times within a day, and then sleep with her good night message.

But it was one of the moments when hands just knew what to write. You don’t have to bother instructing them what to say.

“Thank you. How are you?”, I typed. Sent. No answer for a while. None.

A couple of hours went by still no answer.

Not even marked “Seen”.

All of a sudden, all those feelings of being neglected and shut off for months came rushing back. It was pretty clear that I shouldn’t have put something with a question mark. That gives her an opportunity to hurt by not even saying anything. That’s the problem with questions. They warrant an answer. Why couldn't I just write “Thank you. Hope you are safe!”. Yes, with just an exclamation mark. It would have been much better at preserving my self-worth.

Or why couldn’t have I just said, “Thank you. I am doing good.” That statement doesn’t show as a needy guy who needs a freaking answer! It just subtly signals that I revealed a piece of personal information, and if you are a polite, courteous human you would reciprocate with a line about how you are doing.

With every passing moment, I was feeling worse about my choice. I didn’t receive any answer by even evening.

It was weird. It was my birthday. I had so many wishes from friends and family to respond to, and there I was debating whether I framed my response to one simple happy birthday message right.

“Has she completely given up on me?”, I whispered to myself. Of course, she has. That was clear way before, and I was at peace. I wasn’t waiting for a miracle or her words to make attempts at getting back my life. But turns out even after all this time, just a few casual words from her can create storms in my heart. Not in a romantic kind of way but in the way it happens out there. Memories start traveling at a breakneck speed and in the moment all the good, bad, and ugly start flashing in front of eyes. The how-to-move-on sticky notes and what-not-to-think rules get uprooted in a jiffy. Things get blurry, and you’re stranded in swirls of memories and flashbacks.

In the evening with a few glasses of wine with friends, I tried distilling my thoughts a bit. What had I done?! Seriously. I just message a casual sentence, and I wanted to know how she was doing.

Yes, it still matters to me how she is doing. We can’t take people out of our world. Relationships aren’t momentary, and breakups aren’t trivial setbacks. Why is it perfectly acceptable for someone who was in a relationship recognized by society such as marriage to grieve for a long time and care? But somehow it’s an exaggeration in the case of relationship heartbreak.

I was convinced that what I did wasn’t a terrible thing. Then why did she not reply? Perhaps, there is so much baggage associated with this question, and she feels that too.

That’s when it hit what I had to do. The next morning, I wrote “It’s a harmless question. I just wanted to know in troubling times we live, how are you doing?”

With a simple line, I removed the baggage associated with that question and made it a harmless question. You see during a breakup every statement has an immense potential to harm and hurt, and intentionally or unintentionally we end up hurting each other a lot. In the process, we forget we could make, if not kind, harmless gestures towards each other.

After a couple of minutes, she replied “Trouble and unsettling times indeed!”

That was a harmless reply. No extra piece of information. Not even a hint that statement required a reply or even a nod. A truly harmless reply to a harmless question.

Life doesn’t come with a time machine. Neither do we have the luxury of a second chance at times. I had wished for both countless times in the past couple of months, but right there, at that very moment, I didn’t wish for them anymore. What I wanted was that we’re at peace. Incapable of violence. Just harmless.