the zoning game
People I know who have broken up with their loved ones tend to play the zoning game. They would avoid certain places that hold special meaning, or places that they used to go to regularly, or areas where the “other party” hangs out, or for any other number of reasons. I know someone who avoids TGiF in Section 14, someone who stays clear of Great Eastern Mall, someone who at one time freaked out about hanging around KLCC and someone who refuses to go bowling in Bangsar Shopping Centre.
While I understand their arguments and would bear with their quirky “rules”, I’ve always personally thought such behaviour ridiculous and untenable in the long run. I still do. It’s not that I don’t understand how it can feel when you go to a certain place and a certain unwelcome, melancholic, deja-vu feeling suddenly pops up. It’s just that somehow life has to go on and this zoning game doesn’t really help. More importantly for me, when you’ve been in a relationship for eight years, you’ve gone to just about everywhere together. It’s quite impossible to zone out no-go areas. If I were to play this game, it would mean:
- not having breakfast in about half a dozen places in Petaling Jaya
- not having beef noodles in Petaling Street and longan drink at a different stall after
- avoiding just about every Japanese restaurant in the Klang Valley
- not going to the Sunday night markets in Bangsar and Taman Tun
- avoiding 1Utama, Centrepoint, Atria, Bangsar Shopping Centre and a whole swath of Petaling Jaya
- never counting down the New Year in KL
- never staying at the Legend or the Regent hotels in Kuala Lumpur
- never going to the Andaman in Langkawi or any of the resorts in Penang
- never visiting the Netherlands, Bruges, Rome, Florence or Venice again
- never spending Christmas in Leiden or New Year’s eve in Brussels
- not returning to Egypt
- never stepping into New York city ever again
- never arguing in KLCC
And above all, I’ll need to avoid the place formerly known as home.
Posted on October 3rd, 2004 by jl
Filed under: The other half
guilty. even worse, can’t even enter supermarkets these days because they remind me of the times i cooked for… i need a 12 step programme real soon before my mum goes mental. she can’t figure out the phobia.
It IS impossible, because life will go on, whether we want it to or not, and because there will often be no choice but to acknowledge these places exist.
I see afterimages sometimes, in the places I used to go, they’re like ghostly replays of a time when I was actually happy. Sometimes I just stare into space, looking at a “recording”.
And then I remember that there’s a whole lot of something else out there, too.
The distinction has to be made as part of the healing process. You know, make new memories to supercede the old ones?
There will be a time though, when you “go back” and realise that you can’t remember what was so scary abt it in the first place.