flashbacks
By: Michael Tayamen Satumba
Tags: Regret, Life, Life Lessons, How To, Live

flashbacks

This article was written in 2017.

I get flashbacks often. I have no idea why. They just come and they go, and they re-appear again. The happy moments, the sad moments, angry, worrisome moments. They all come to me. Even when everything is fine and dandy, they still appear. It’s a problem for me. It makes me sad. Remembering the crazy adventures, the low points detracts me from the present moment.

I was stretching today and while I was stretching an old chance the rapper song popped up. Then I just held my stretch and spaced out. I was back to washing dishes in the little corner of San Francisco, I remembered my hands being wrinkly as fuck caused by water and soap. It was a flashback.

I have a love-hate relationship with flashbacks. Sometimes a flashback reminds you of the great things you did, overcoming obstacles, doing awesome worthy (blog worthy shit) and the other times it reminds you of your shortcomings, your failures, your regrets. And that shit hurts. It hurts even more now than then. Remembering what you didn’t do, asking “what if?”. That shit hurts.

Also, today when I was working out, doing my pull-ups a flashback popped into my head. I remembered not saying the “I like you” line to someone I really liked. That fucked with my workout. My pull-ups were shit after that. The flashback was pretty intense too. I just finished my 3rd set and was resting, then out of the blue I was transported a year prior. I was hanging out with her and it was my last time to hang out with her. I was going back to Oxnard the next day. Let’s call “her” Jessica.

So I met Jessica my first year in college and we clicked when we first met each other. She was in the same major, and in mostly the same classes. We became good friends. I wasn’t attracted to her at first, we just became really good study buddies and we would sometimes eat lunch together, but that was it. The second semester came and we had physics together and that was the hardest class ever. We studied more together and I don’t know what changed but I started liking her. We were hanging out more I guess and anyways to make this long story shorter, I fucked up.

I went on this mini-vacation to New York and when I came back to San Francisco I only had 2 days before I would go back to Oxnard. Jessica wanted to see me and say goodbye personally. She moved back to Fremont already which is like an hour from SF, still, she was willing to drive to see me.

Jessica stole her mom’s car. She didn’t ask for her permission and she went back, she got kicked out of her house (atm I think they are ok). So we hung out that day. I told her stories of my adventures in NY and she talked about her own adventures in Fremont. Then we talked about not seeing each other for a long time. Then she told she wasn’t going to SFSU next semester, I was shocked. “What!” Jessica wanted to stay close to her family. I was going to Hong Kong, so I won’t be in SFSU either. So I realized it would be a while until we would “hang out” again.

Then this instinct came up to me that I should tell her how I felt. Why not right? It seemed perfectly logical to me. I told myself I was going to tell Jessica how I felt. How our relationship has grown and how I’ve grown to like her as more than a friend (and hoping that she had the similar feelings).

There were 5 instances when I was going to tell her.

“Hey, Jessica I like, umm, I like your mom’s car it’s clean.” Fuck.

“Jessica, I have something to say, I like you, you, your shoes.” Shit.

“Hey, Jess, you know what I like your jacket, where did you get it?” Motherfucker.

“Jess, I have something to say to you, I, I, you’ve been a great friend.” This shit is harder than I thought.

“Jessica one more thing before you leave, uh, drive safe ok?” Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I never said it. That day haunts me to this day. It’s in like my top 3 regrets, maybe number 1. That shit sucks. I was a bitch. The next day I wanted to see her, but she told me to not come because she got kicked out of her mom’s house and shit is going down. I asked my friend about what to do. My mom’s friend told me to tell her in person or to not tell her at all. So currently I’m still following what my mom’s friend said, and me and Jessica are still close, somewhat.

Sometimes we message each other on Facebook, but I still feel a little tiny bit of my heart aching. Even though there have been other “Jessica’s” since then, I still look back and say “what if?”. So what’s my plan now? Should I Facetime her tomorrow and tell her or wait until I go back to SF? IDK. I mean I don’t really have feelings for her anymore but what should have been said a year ago is still in my head and I want to get it out.

Flashbacks suck, it distracts you, it reminds you of your blemishes in life that no matter how hard you try, you can’t erase.