Memory Lane

I have been so sick for the last couple of days, to the extent that I couldn’t even get out of bed. Yes, that sick. In the past few years, I managed to work out or at least stretch when I was sick, even when I had COVID, but not this time.

B. called. What was supposed to be a quick catch-up ended up lasting three hours. It had been a while since we last spoke on the phone, so there were many gaps to fill.

Since we parted ways in London, he has moved to Shanghai, Taipei, and now Cape Town. He has grown his business and made a name for himself, just as he said he would when we were together. He shared that in the last couple of years, his dad had once again asked if he wanted to pursue a more “serious” profession, which still hurts him to this day. We reminisced about the challenges we faced when starting our careers in a foreign country, with odds stacked against us, and little to nothing to our names.

Vagabonds are the dreamers who dare to defy convention and embrace the unknown.

“You know, I am really proud of you,” he said with the utmost genuine expression on his face. I knew he meant it because he was the only one who witnessed me crying after absolutely catastrophic days at work, having to gather enough courage to go back the next day. He saw the less than a hundred pounds I had in my bank account with still a long way to go until payday. He knew how far I traveled each weekend just to tutor for a few extra hours and supplement my income. He knew. He saw. He was there.

He also witnessed how sick I was and wished I wasn’t alone. It made me think about the last time I had someone take care of me when I was that sick. I couldn’t recall. For as long as I could remember, I always seemed to be on my own, nursing myself back to health. I vividly remember cuddling Frankie or listening to the sound of my air conditioning, soothing and guiding myself through discomfort and dark days.

I laughed his comment off and told him I was a tough cookie, but he seemed to see through it. “I know, but it doesn’t have to be this way,” he said.

I know, too.

Memory lane

Don’t Look Back

“Don’t look back.”

In the novel, One Bright Moon, after the main character successfully got out of China, his only means of communicating with his mother and the rest of his family was through writing. Knowing how much he longed for the family he had left behind, his mother would write “Don’t look back” in her letters to him, as a way of cutting strings and urging him to pursue the bright future that awaited him.

Coming from an immigrant family that has given up so much to be where we are now, “Don’t look back” weighs so much more to us than the three syllables it carries.

It’s paradoxical, isn’t it? To carry our past with us, yet not look back? I know. I understand this piece of my heritage in the fibre of my being, but I struggle to articulate it to others or even to my younger self when I was grappling with understanding my hybrid identity.

And I guess the context I am trying to portray in this entry is that despite being terrible at goodbyes and at relinquishing the profound emotional ties attached to each person I’ve had to let go, I have mastered the art of Don’t look back.

The first time I voluntarily let someone go was in 2012. My ex and I had traveled the world and moved to a different continent together. We were young, fervently in love, and brimming with dreams, aspirations, and infinite optimism for the future ahead of us. While he wanted to take his company global and travel the world, I wanted to build assets and ultimately start a family.

When you love and respect someone immensely, but are unable to align your futures, you have to let them go so they can soar and find their blue sky. So we did. After many conversations, copious amounts of tears, and too many yet not enough goodbyes, we parted ways.

We remained close friends, seeking each other’s counsel and finding comfort in our familiarity and shared past. After all, we had spent pivotal years of our lives together. We witnessed each other’s struggles as our careers took off in a foreign country, consoled each other during anxious, sleepless nights. We learned each other’s strengths and came to revere each other’s vision and the pursuit of it. He holds an irreplaceable place in my heart, and I in his.

Over the years, we sometimes talked about what would have happened if we had stayed together, particularly when our parents spoke fondly of the other person and inquired about how they were doing. But those conversations were more like thought experiments than reality. The moment our paths diverged, we were destined to end up in different worlds, and that was a good thing. It was part of growing up. We understood that: One can’t be looking forward and looking back at the same time.

The past is a place of reference, not a place of residence.

Roy T. Bennett

Since him, I have fallen in love, but never to the same extent or intensity that I loved him.

“That was it, the love of my life,” I acquiesced. That is, until I fell madly, wildly, unabashedly in love again.

This time, it was with someone like the alchemist in The Alchemist. He belonged to the desert, the wind, the stars, the sun, and every element of the nature, while almost none of the manmade conventions. We made an earnest effort to reconcile our lifestyle differences without betraying who we were.

Eventually, with much anguish and pain, we had to let each other go.

A year after our breakup, on our anniversary, he wrote me a long letter after months of mutually agreed-upon silence:

I still love you. Of course I do. I fell for you so quickly. I don’t fall so easily anymore, and haven’t in almost a decade. But it was so sudden and certain with you, and that part hasn’t changed. It wasn’t a mistake; I was right all along — you will be the closest to marriage I’ve ever been. You’re still the same woman you were when we first met, so my feelings haven’t changed.

But I can’t tell you these things anymore.

It felt like a cruel joke: to be so in love yet we couldn’t be.

“Don’t look back,” was all we could whisper to ourselves on those heartbroken nights as we inched forward in our lives separately.

Letting go means to come to the realization that some people are a part of your history, but not a part of your destiny.

Steve Maraboli

Now, almost six years later, I am glad that we decided to let each other go. I trust that I am exactly where I am supposed to be, and as long as I continue to honour my heart, I will eventually find my personal treasure.

So here I am, soldiering on. Although I don’t know how many goodbyes are yet awaiting me, I do know that I am not looking back. Not now, not ever.

This Blog Turns 1!🎉

Exactly one year ago today, I embarked on this blogging journey to find my voice as a writer and to authentically document my life, as well as some of the new ideas I picked up along the way. Thank you for your loving and encouraging support through this work in progress—I am indescribably grateful.

A lot has happened this year, so I thought I would provide a quick follow-up on some events that I have mentioned but never wrote about again.

Grief

Spring has finally arrived in Vancouver! With the sun’s warmth and the crisp, sweet air infused with a mixture of blossoms, I am slowly emerging from my grief. Instead of aching from not ever being able to interact with my Grandparents, I have healed enough to appreciate the indelible love that will always be with me, now immortalized and transcending space and time.

Lifelong Learnership

I started my master’s degree but decided to take a break when my grandma’s health plummeted. I plan to return to it next fall, once I’ve cleared enough cognitive space for it.

Despite taking a break from school, I haven’t stopped learning altogether. I’ve learned from a myriad of other sources, from books to podcasts, and I would say it has been a fruitful year.

However, my most cherished learning experience this year has been the book club that we formed. It has been an indescribably intimate and invigorating experience, reading books through my friends’ eyes.

Closures and Reconciliations

Over the past year, two of my exes that I hadn’t heard from reached out to me. Although those chapters have long closed for me and I have found closure in my own way, it was still nice to hear their perspective on what had transpired.

Then, there was also this:

Part of me wants to help him get the closure he needs, but another part of me is unsure if there is anything I can offer. I feel that we have had enough conversations about why we didn’t and couldn’t work out, and the rest is up to him to let go?

Happiness can exist only in acceptance.

George Orwell

Where to Next?

Grappling with the deaths of my grandparents, some core aspects of myself were shaken. I assessed and reassessed the axioms that governed me and couldn’t be sure which ones I want to continue to hold onto.

What do I want to accomplish at the end of this journey that is life?
How do I want to contribute to this world?
Who do I want to have by my side?

As I continue to ruminate on these quintessential life questions, I will keep documenting them here.

Thank You💙

Thank you for being here: for your compassion in the past, and for your support in the future. I feel so fortunate to have this space to dock my thoughts—and on those days that were too heavy to soldier on—to have your warm comments to cheer me on.💙

Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)

Have you ever heard of a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) before? No, it is not a term I made up; it is an actual medical term!

What is a Highly Sensitive Person?

A “highly sensitive person” (HSP) is someone who has a heightened sensitivity to the world around them, including emotions, sensory experiences, and external stimuli. HSPs may be more affected by things like loud noises, strong smells, or bright lights than other people, and may also be more prone to feeling overwhelmed or overstimulated in busy or chaotic environments.

HSPs often have a rich inner life and a deep capacity for empathy, and may be highly attuned to the emotions and needs of others. They may also be more reflective and introspective than others, and may have a strong creative or artistic side.

Are you a HSP?

Do you know of any HSPs?

My Journey as a HSP

Before I knew I had a sensory-processing sensitivity, I couldn’t quite figure out why life often felt so overwhelming. I couldn’t figure out why I was easily flustered, overly stimulated in busy environments, constantly affected by other people’s feelings and emotions. I also had no tools to self-regulate. For the longest time, I hated myself for being so “weak”, so “sensitive”.

Growing up, I devised various strategies to not appear weak. From not crying in front of anyone to never asking for help, I tried to mask and condition my reaction to all the stimuli around me.

Most nights I went to bed exhausted. It was a lot to navigate: to feel like something is wrong with you, and to always be fronting a facade.

For years I wished my sensitivity away and tried to desensitize myself but I guess I just am not neurologically wired that way.

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.”

Albert Camus

Life as a HSP Right Now

While I still experience more highs and lows than I’d like, and sometimes struggle to be understood even by those closest to me, I’ve learned to appreciate my sensitivity. It allows me to understand my students’ emotional landscape and foster a safe space where they can be themselves. I feel grateful and privileged to harbor such a space for them.

Life is a continuous journey of learning and finding balance between asking for too much and conceding too much, and this applies to everyone. Though I may have more stimuli to navigate and more feelings to process, in the grand scheme of things—life is good.

My Scattered Brain

“You can’t see the future coming — not the terrors, for sure, but you also can’t see the wonders that are coming, the moments of light-soaked joy that await each of us.”

John Green

Sunday, Feb 12, 2023

Today I felt a strong urge to write. It’s been a while since I’ve wanted to write, partly because work has been insanely busy, partly because I haven’t read or thought of an idea I felt compelled to share.

To be honest, I don’t have an intriguing idea to share this time either, just some half baked thoughts I wanted to park here, until further development. I am also an external processor, so perhaps by the end of this entry, some progress could have been made. Without further ado, I present to you: My Scattered Brain.

Chapter 1
Reconnecting With the “Love of My Life”

A couple months ago I started talking to my ex again, the one with whom I had pined to share the rest of my life’s adventures; the one who, when our relationship didn’t work out, I had to travel around the world so as to collect the remnants of my heart for nearly two years before I was ready to love again. Yeah, him. He, who, when I was finally no longer in love with, still felt envious of his new girlfriend who got to bask in his undivided attention, his warm, unfathomably grand, love.

I remember I used to rehearse our re-connection in my mind.
What would I say?
How would I feel?
Would he still be my kryptonite?
Did he still remember much about us?

You see, it had been a while since I last thought about our reunion, and so when he messaged, my heart naturally skipped a beat. A lot of feelings came flooding. I viscerally remembered the butterflies I felt each and every time I saw his name appearing on my notification. However, this time, after I searched in the depth of my heart, I realized it was nothing more than just a shadow reaction from the past. There was no part of me that want to be with him—ever—again.

We carried on a casual conversation, catching up on the last few years we had lost. We updated each other on our new adventures, shared some of our triumphs and failures in relationships, discussed our new investment strategies, and ways in which we have grown as people. The conversation flowed seamlessly, for, he is a great conversationalist. He was still the witty, well-read, and humorous; and while I could see how that could be so dangerously alluring and charming, I no longer felt any romantic spark. In fact, I felt relieved that I was no longer in that dynamic, in which I was regularly waiting for our reunion, since he was constantly traveling, constantly coming and going. I spent so much of my life yearning to be in his arms that I had missed so much of the life I was living.

Shortly after we started talking I knew, without resounding certainty that—he was not the love of my life.

Chapter 2
The Impermanence of Love

I often say, “the only constant in my life is change.” This paradox simultaneously bemuses me and terrifies me.

Perhaps, romantic love, too, is impermanent and fleeting.

Perhaps, there is no such thing as “the love of my life.” There is only, “the love of my life right now.”

It pains my heart to even remotely ruminate on the possibility of it being true.

“What do you mean there is no such thing as the love of my life? I see it in the people around me, what do you mean I can’t have it, too?” my heart earnestly protested.

But maybe this adaptability is the double-edge sword of my life. While I can adequately pivot and let go of what no longer serves me, I also don’t get to savour the comforting reward of permanence.

Chapter 3
Karmic Cycles of Life, or the Lack Thereof

Friday, March 03, 2023

Clearly, I lost my train of thought from the last time I wrote, so I figured I’d start a new one.

In Jay Shetty’s 8 Rules of Love: How to Find It, Keep It, and Let It Go, he talks about this karmic cycle of love. The term “karmic” is not used in a supernatural sense, but rather in how our actions have natural consequences that can affect our relationships with others. He gave the example of lying about going to a party to a spouse, only to run into the spouse’s friend at the party and have their lie exposed. In this example, the “karmic” consequence of deceit would be a fracture in the trust of the relationship. It was an interesting take on “karma” but I am not sure if I fully agree with it.

In any case, that chapter of the book had me thinking about another one of my ex, one who cheated.

For over three and a half years, we were in a serious, committed relationship, and we made a great team. He was steadfast at building the next phase of his career, so while he focused on his work, I took care of the personal aspects of our life together. This included organizing (large) parties, buying gifts, and maintaining relationships with family, friends, and colleagues. Our partnership was solid, and we complemented each other’s strengths. Together, we created a happy life that was filled with love, laughter, and cherished memories. We’d also attend networking events together, in which I’d be his wingwoman—a role I thoroughly loved and was good at.

It always felt like I was helping him build his empire, so after many conversations, we decided to buy a place together as a symbol of building a shared future.

I was naive to think a land deed would be enough to physically bind two people together. After he cheated on me, he suggested marriage as a way to fix things. But it was too late for me. I had already reached a point of no return. I could no longer envision myself sharing a life with someone who’d choose to hurt me so deeply for some short-term excitement. Upset and livid, he gave me two options: either buy out the entire property, which he knew I couldn’t afford, or sell my half to him at the original price, even though the value had increased since our purchase. Ultimately, I chose to sell my half to him.

I’m not sure if there were any karmic consequences for him. The place had nearly doubled in price, and his career still thriving. To be honest, I don’t wish any karmic consequence upon him either. I was just reminded of this past when I read about Jay Shetty’s take on karmic cycles. But as I said, this is just a scattered-brain entry.

Chapter 4
Secrets

Sunday, March 05, 2023

Research finds the experience of keeping a secret is akin to carrying a physical weight.
How heavy are yours?

Some secrets can derail us from the people we aspire to be.
Are yours?

Who do you want to be?
Who do I want to be?

Dazed and Confused

My Andie

In the last month, a couple people have proffered that I be theirs.

“I want you to be mine,” they said, despite not having the slightest clue as to how they’d steward me. We don’t even claim ownership over a pet without knowing how to properly steward them, yet some men seem to think women would require less commitment than a pet?

I think I would have found it more romantic if they were to have first asked me what it’d take for me to remotely consider being theirs. But I guess that would have ended up nowhere either, for I would’ve shared with them this quote from Jane Eyre:

I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will

Jane Eyre

Right. At this point, you probably think I am impossible. But I am not! I was once upon a time someone’s ‘My Andie’; though, it was a long time ago now.

I remembered how he used to call me “My Andie”—more notably, how I allowed him to call me his. I retraced our story back to the beginning, to figure out what was different about him, about that relationship.

He wasn’t the first (or the only) person who tried to call me theirs, but why he was the only one to whom I surrendered my independence?

I remembered the very first time when I landed in LAX, he was already waiting for me, flowers in his hands. He teared up when he saw me—long distance had that effect on lovers. He gave me an American SIM that was already paid for, in case I didn’t have a roaming plan. When I arrived at his, there were snacks and drinks that I had briefly mentioned previously in our conversations, crisp linens and fresh towels, as well as a few other small gifts that he had collected whenever he had thought of me—nothing extravagant but all ever so thoughtful: travel size lotion, a book, resistance bands for working out (because I used to use them every day).

When I come across pictures he’s taken of me, I’d see how profoundly loved I was through his eyes. Although we no longer have the same love for each other, it was the best souvenir he could’ve given me.

At that time he was still consulting for a firm, so every now and then he would have to go into the office for meetings. While he worked, I used to wander the city alone. He gave me his credit card, insistent that he took care of all my Uber and other expenses. I never used the card; it was never about the money. How much could Uber rides have cost? It was his generosity in offering me the best of his resources—time, attention, energy, affection, money—instead of what was leftover of them.

He understood both the hopeless romantic, as well as the pragmatic logistician in me, and meticulously planned our adventures accordingly—remembering all my travel preferences and dietary sensitivities. He took care of me down to every quantum detail.

I think it was in those quantum details that he’d won me over. It was the first, and only time, I felt someone else was invested in taking better care of me than I did myself. So when he called me his Andie, I relaxed into it, without much, or any, protest.

For the best of my life, I refuse to belong to anyone, or even to anywhere. I am ardent about being free. Don’t get me wrong, I have been in a few committed relationships, just not one in which I felt that I belonged to them. Even in my readings, I often resonate with characters that are transient in nature:

“Other people were destined to keep leaving, over and over again.” —Alix Ohlin

Or,

“I should have known even then that the sea was written in him, that there would be some sort of leaving.” — Let the Great World Spin

In my heart and mind, I feel unmoored, unanchored. Though, I still am unsure of why.

I wonder if it is because I am never fully willing to relinquish my fierce independence and unfettered freedom? Or, perhaps it is because I struggle to entrust myself to someone else?

And this, is how we have arrived at: Andie Untamed.

How to Reassess Your Stagnant Beliefs and Make Your Life Extraordinary?

“This is how humans are: We question all our beliefs, except for the ones that we truly believe in, and those we never think to question.”

― Orson Scott Card

I recently came across this quote that has left my spirit rather restless.
When it comes to beliefs that I feel unapologetically convicted about, my confirmation bias tends to take over, rendering my judgements unreliable. How does one rectify one’s obstinate—and perhaps what ought to be obsolete—beliefs, to improve oneself?

Exhibit A of a Stagnant Belief of mine: My Romantic Ideologies.

I am a romantic, who pretends not to be. My personalities swing like pendulums between idealism and pragmatism. There are my hopes and dreams for people, for my relationships, for the future, and then there are my crude understanding of the reality. Whenever I hear stories about how relationships fail to work, I am reminded of the obsolescence of romanticism. Since I’ve read the quote above a few weeks ago, I have been seriously considering abandoning my romantic ideologies, I just haven’t quite figured out how yet.

And if I may be a hundred percent transparent, a huge part of me preemptively mourns and weeps for the loss of that romantic part of me. After all, if I am no longer a romantic, would I still be me?

Extraordinary accomplishments come from doing ordinary things for extraordinary periods of time.

– Alex Hormozi

This was another quote I came across recently that has really resonated with me. It has succinctly captured a powerful concept that I couldn’t quite articulate well myself; it is the notion that: both the quality AND quantity we invest into our goals define how successful we will be at it. Alex Hormozi said that doing 100 repetition of anything well, will result in noticeable improvements, however incremental it may be. It is not any one workout that we do is impressive, rather, the culmination of workouts that we day in and day out, devote ourselves to, that make a difference.

Have I devoted enough time and energy into the goals that I vehemently care about? Have you? If not, what we some of the accountability measures we can implement to ensure that we are doing our due diligence to be better, rather than waiting passively, praying and hoping that our desired goals would miraculously manifest themselves?

Showing up for myself💪

Temptations

Friday night—lights dimmed, music loud, slightly inebriated, you saw him walking towards you. “Hey” he leaned in, his voice a rich baritone. “Can I buy you a drink?”

You caught a whiff of his cologne, musky sandalwood. Your favourite. You can feel the tinge of excitement in your chest, the very first telltale sign of a thrilling love adventure. “Sure,” you said, fervently containing your wandering mind.

He put his hand on your waist as he ordered a drink from the bartender. You took a closer look at him: fresh haircut, smooth complexion, understated designer pieces, crisp blazer without so much as a hairline wrinkle. You smiled, attempting to mask how much you appreciated his attention to detail, and taste in the finer things. But most importantly, how he fixed his gaze on you, how attentively he listened, how enamored he seemed—how special he made you feel.

One, then two, then three drinks later, your friends have already gone home. But the conversation was so scintillating, you couldn’t bring yourself to leave. So you stayed. You talked about investment, about travel, about exercise, about books, about all the things that enchant your heart. Before you know it, the bar was about to close.

“Wanna come over to my place for a couple more drinks? I am just a few minutes away.” he asked unassumingly and earnestly.

Your heart skipped a beat, partially at how fondly you have grown of him, partially at the impasse you are now faced with. “Do I go? What will I tell my husband?” What up to then had only been a fleeting flirtatious encounter has suddenly developed into something with potential. “It’s just a couple more drinks. There’s nothing wrong with making new friends as long as I don’t cross the line,” you nonchalantly convinced yourself, muffling out the voice in your head that was screaming, “YOU ARE PLAYING WITH FIRE!”

—

Chocolate, Vanilla, Choose.

Recently I have learned an acronym “MBA”, which stands for Married But Available, that has unsettled me in unexpected ways. The concept in and of itself is repulsive to me. Being a hopeless romantic myself, raised in a family wherein my parents are engrossed (yes, engrossed, tunnel-visioned, head-over-heels, the whole nine yards) in each other, I am reluctant to imagine marital dynamic in any other fashion.

That said, I am not naive and oblivious to the realities of life. I understand that what my parents have is precious and rare, that in fact, most marriages are not like that. I also understand how easy it is to acquiesce to temptation. How, it is not about choosing to hurt the person you are married to, rather, it is just not choosing them. I’d like to believe that most people are not malicious nor cruel. If they cheat on their spouses, their intention was most likely to follow their heart, to indulge in the heat and to chase thrill of the moment.

What unsettled me was how easy it is to forgo these socially constructed moral guidelines, and how capable we are of unintentionally hurting the people that we care deeply about, just by chasing the desires of our heart.

Do you ever face temptations? Or are you unfazed by them?

What They Don’t Tell You About Death

“He passed peacefully in his sleep,” is what we tell our relatives when we inform them of Grandpa’s passing. It’s not not-true. Grandpa did pass away peacefully. But what was left out was the harrowing process of witnessing his life slowly diminish in front of our eyes. No one really talks about that aspect of death: the laboured breathing, the lips and extremities turning purple, the body cleansing itself of all its bowel contents, the vitals so weak that they cannot be measured by machines and therefore the families having to frequently hold a mirror underneath the nose of our loved one to detect their faint breath—or the lack thereof.

People also don’t talk about the intricate procedures that ensued immediately after the person passes. Who do you call to issue a death certificate? Where does the body go before it gets buried or cremated? What if you want a funeral with open-casket? Where do you find a respectful embalmer? Who will be writing the eulogies? What about religious rituals, if there were any?

How do grief-stricken families navigate all this?

And just when you finally made it through all the ceremonies, grief sets in—prodigiously and mercilessly. You start to notice the stark void that the people whom you loved had left behind.

She understood loss and how it leaves a hole in the soul that can never be filled.

Santa Montefiore

I wrote Grandpa’s eulogy on Saturday. As I recounted all the memories we shared, my brain was stuck in a loop. How can I effectively and succinctly encapsulate such love? How can anyone?

During the process of writing, I also reflected again on my own eulogy; as in, how do I want to be remembered? In teaching, we commonly employ Backward Design when we plan our units. (We take a look at all the curricular goals we want to achieve by the end of the year, and backward engineer our lessons to ensure we cover all necessary grounds.) So perhaps because it is already deeply steeped into my thinking process, I live my life by how I want to be remembered at the end of my life.

I want to be remembered as having love well.

What about you? What governs your behaviour and how you best live your life?

We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.

– Chuck Palahniuk

Choose Someone Who Chooses You

This is another ‘fluff’ post on LOVE, because I unabashedly enjoy capturing the abstract, intangible feelings, and etching them into words.

In a world cloaked in a myriad of temptations, staying in a committed relationship requires relentless and adamant effort on both parties to choose each other. Every text soliciting your attention, every invitation beseeching your presence, every exciting possibility enticing your imagination, every palatable spark wetting your ravenous appetite for adventures—is an occasion in which you will have to decide whether you are going to choose your partner, or not. Since—so often— love is a slippery steep slope (hence the phrase “fall in love” instead of “walk in love”), who knows what a quick rendezvous could lead to?

Fall in love with someone who is both your safe place and biggest adventure.

Bianca Sparacino

Over the years, I have developed special “tunnel vision goggles” that I put on whenever I am in a committed relationship. What I struggled with, was when I wasn’t chosen the same way. Whenever that happened, I’d find myself entertaining an occasional ‘friendly’ dinner, accepting a ‘friendly’ afternoon stroll, or things alike. I have never cheated. But I guess at that juncture of the relationship, cheating was already besides the point. The point would have been: When two people stop choosing each other, the relationship is on its way out.

So, perhaps that’s the first telltale sign of falling out of love, of the demise of a relationship—when two people stop choosing each other all the time. Because, if one’s only faithful 99% of the time, are they still faithful?

What do YOU think the first telltale sign of falling out of love is?