I found a translation of the final verses of Damien Rice's The Professor & La Fille Danse, written and performed in French.  I find this man's abilities incredible; he takes a song that already has profound meanings and hides the most important parts away in a foreign language.  And they're such beautiful lyrics.  I'm convinced he could write a song about anything and it would hit close to home.

"The girl dances
when she plays with me
and I think I sometimes love her.
Well, silence does not dare
when we are together,
put the words
to rest.

The girl dances
when she plays with me in the rain.
I miss her.
Why?
No, no.
It's the song, the night, the wind,
the love, the sound of sleep."

A few memories surfaced within me the past few days.  I'm not particularly sure which memories they were, but they began to affect my dreams  They were visions of Thu, and they had the same affect on me as always.  Particularly, they reminded me how comparatively neutral my emotions are today, compared to back then.

In addition to this, I recently watched an anime called Monster.  It was a psychological anime, exploring the effects one's childhood experiences has on their person growth.  (Minor spoilers ahead for those who haven't seen it.)  There was one character in particular, Wolfgang Grimmer, who appealed to me.  He was a charming, good-hearted man who always carried a warm smile.  However, as the story went on, we discover that Grimmer was a victim of psychological experiments as a child, and he had buried so much of his childhood memories that he'd forgotten how to feel emotion.  After the experiments, he went to a school that taught him what kind of expressions he should display for different scenarios.  "It took me years to learn to keep this smile on my face," he explained to Dr. Tenma, one of the series' main protagonists.  One of the most affecting scenes for me in the anime came when a child, who Grimmer had befriended, was preparing to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge after the main villain of the series persuaded him that death was a better option than life.  Grimmer slowly walked over to child and gently lifted him away from the bridge, before embracing the child and saying, "Don't throw your life away; you were brought into this world for a reason...I know you were."  He then turned to Dr. Tenma and said "Dr. Tenma, I never learned what kind of emotion I should display at a time like this.  We never learned such complex emotions.  Tell me, Dr. Tenma, what expression do I have right now?"  Gently, Dr. Tenma smiled and said, "You're crying."

Okay, so that may have sounded a bit cheesy from my explanation, but the way the author handled it was very profound.  In the last episode of the series (which I watched yesterday), when the aftermath of the anime's events were revealed, one character said to her psychologist: "Eventually all the bad memories faded away, and now only the good ones stuck with me.  People sure are designed conveniently like that."  This got me thinking: what memories do I have of my past?  I barely remember anything from my childhood (earlier than age 8), and I want to learn what experiences in my past affected the way I am today.

In the shower just a few minutes ago, a lot of the memories scattered around my mind began to come back to me.  Particularly, memories surrounding my significant others.  For better or for worse, almost all of them revolve around an MMORPG called Ragnarok Online.  When I think about the gameplay of Ragnarok Online, I don't find myself very impressed.  It's a click-and-watch style of fighting that's heavy on grinding and gets old after a while.  However, when I think of the game in general, I remember all the feelings I experience in the various locations of its world, and I find my recollection of MMO to carry a fond aftertaste.  I'm going to describe all the key memories that came back to me here in free-write style.  I will use a lot of jargon from the game, specifically the names of locations, towns, items, and classes.  I want to give as much detail as I can recall, before I unintentionally bury these memories again.

When someone asks me how many significant other I've had in the past, I instinctively say "three."  These are Thu, Katie, and Elizabeth, my three most affecting relationships.  However, these are not the only relationships I've had.  Regardless of how short-lived or petty they may have been, I've technically had no less than seven significant others.  They started when I began playing Ragnarok near the end of eighth grade.  I will divide the rest of this blog into categories, one for each of them, and describe the memories I have, all in chronological order.

Karen

Karen is from Canada.  My first memory of her is in the south of Izlude.  Before the patch of ragnarok that added an airship dock to the small town, Izlude's southern border was merely a cliff that overlooked the game's ocean.  Karen and I sat there, at the edge of that cliff and talked.  Her character was an acolyte with pink hair that wore blush.  I don't remember the character's name.  I really liked talking to her, and I eventually asked her if she wanted to be my SO.  After some short thought, she agreed.

A short period of time later, I spotted her with a friend whose character name was Kansem.  This man would soon be a very important persona in my life.  His real name was Roberto.  Afterwards, I told Roberto that I was surprised they knew each other, and told him that she'd agreed to be my SO.  Unfortunately, his response was not what I expected; she agreed to be his SO too.  I was immediately enraged.  The only thing I remember was saying to Roberto, "She played me like a fucking guitar."

Those are my only memories of Karen.

Bernette

Every time I remember Bernette, I ask myself how I could forget her so easily.  After all, she was my first relationship that lasted longer than a month.  I don't remember how we met.  Her main character was an assassin with long blue hair whose name was a variation on Neko, the Japanese word for cat.  My most predominant memory of her is when we were in the last level of Payon's dungeon leveling on Sohees.  She said she lived in a large city, that her family didn't have much money, and that her computer was slow.  I imagined she was a brunette because of her name, which in retrospect was a pretty silly assumption.  I also thought, for some reason, that she was black, and since I'm not usually physically attracted to black women, this made me a bit apprehensive.  These are really the only characteristics surrounding Bernette that I remember.

Bernette was also the person with whom our characters married in Ragnarok.  I remember the day of the wedding clearly.  We had both invited our friends in-game and had planned to have the wedding at a specific time.  By this time, I had already met Thu and we had become very close friends.  I had invited Thu to the wedding and she said she would attend.  The time when the wedding was scheduled came around, and Thu still wasn't on.  I remember Bernette wanted me to hurry to the church where the wedding NPC was, because I was late.  However, I stayed glued to the respawn point in Izlude, stalling Bernette for as much time as I could.  I refused to let this wedding happened unless Thu attended; her being there meant that much to me.  Thu did eventually come online, and the wedding proceeded.

I don't remember anything about Bernette after that, including the separation details.

Sarah

I met Sarah while collecting blue herbs under the giant tree west of the capital city Prontera.  Her character was a rogue whose name I do not remember.  She was very flirty, and quickly said she thought I was interesting and wanted me to be with her.  A bit taken aback, but seeing no reason to decline, I agreed.  Within the day, I met another fellow gathering blue herbs.  He brought up Sarah in conversation, and quickly sensed a similar scenario to what happened with Karen.  I was correct.  I contacted Roberto about it saying basically "Yeah...it happened again."  While I was talking to Roberto, I accidentally sent a message to Sarah instead of him, and my immediate reaction was "FUCK."  She reacted very aggressively to my message, which contained an accusation of her cheating.  That relationship ended very quickly, and I don't think I ever saw her again.

Thu

Yep, here it is; my first true love.  I met Thu before Sarah or Bernette (but after Karen, I think), under the same tree west of Prontera.  She was collecting blue herbs with Kevin, her first boyfriend.  Her main character was a rogue with medium-length white hair, who wore a romantic leaf and blush.  Her name was Hikaru, if I recall correctly.  Eventually her and Kevin separated; I don't remember very much about him.

My memories of Thu are probably some of the most climactic and crucial of my lifetime, but they're so scattered about that I had to count out the number of distinct memories I could gather.  I think I counted nine; let's see how many I can jot down.

My first memory is her giving me a pirate bandana.  It was a simple headgear that was cheap to acquire.  Nonetheless, it was her first gift to me (I think it was my first gift period in Ragnarok), and it was precious to me.  I wore it on my rogue QuickStrife at all times.

Next, I remember she said she wanted a Panda Hat.  This was a fairly simple headgear to buy, although a tad bit expensive.  I wanted get it for her, but I wanted it to be more special than a simple buy, so I hunted for it myself, killing the Sasquatches in the Christmas town of Lutie that dropped it.  The drop rate was abysmal (0.01%), and I spent about 10 hours total killing Sasquatches before it finally dropped.  When I finally gave it to her, she was really excited, and her character kissed mine.  She wore it on Hikaru, and whenever I was with her, she always had it on.

Prior to meeting Thu, I had thoughts of suicide because I was the target of bullying in school.  I was ready to kill myself if I had to go through four more years of hell in public high school.  Luckily I got into ARGS, and those urges were soothed.  When I told this to Thu, she persuaded me that there's always a reason to live, and she had me swear on our friendship that I would never think of resorting to something like that again.  To this day, I still largely attribute my life to that promise, and I'm certain this was the moment my heart latched to her so strongly.

Thu and I talked frequently about the most intricate feelings and experiences we'd had in our short lifetimes (at the time, I was 14 and she was 11.)  We both had a sense of romanticism that pervaded our conversations.  I always considered myself her confidant.  She had mentioned once that she considered talking to me akin to writing in a diary.  Every night, I would ask her, "Do you want to write in your diary tonight?"  I was always excited when she did.

I remember having to leave for a week to go to summer camp in Boy Scouts, and I asked her if she would wait for me; she told me should would.  At this point, Bernette and I were separated, and Thu had left Kevin (or vice versa; I don't remember) and I thought about Thu every day in summer camp.  She had, in effect, become my reason to look forward to the next day.

I came back from summer camp to find something shocking, almost horrid.  In the week I was gone, Thu had become close to someone else.  She said she wanted to introduce me to him, and imagine my expression when I saw none other than Kansem standing there.  Memories of Karen flashed to my mind, and although Roberto and I were close friends, I immediately felt a looming sense of doom and betrayal rise forth.  Roberto and I talked alone for a little bit, and he revealed that he and Thu had been talking for a while now, around the same amount of time I had known her.  We both knew the other had feelings for her, and all three of us went to Kunlun, land of the clouds, to talk it out.  Thu said right now we were both great friends to her, and she didn't want to have to decide between us.  She wanted things to stay how they were.

Things continued as normal, but both Roberto and I felt uneasy about the situation.  Eventually, we decided the conditions we were in weren't very stable, so we brought Thu back to Kunlun and asked her to decide between us.  She knew this moment was coming, but she obviously wasn't prepared for it.  She said she couldn't deal with it at that moment, abruptly went offline, leaving both of us there to brood over what we had done.  At that instance, it was as if both of us lost our senses of object permanence.  It felt like we had committed an unforgivable sin by placing this burden upon her, and that she would never come back to us.  Both of us ended up crying that night as we talked to one another.  I cried myself to sleep soon, while he diligently waited all night for her.  All the while, the theme song of Kunlun played in the background, and it soon became the most emotionally affecting song in my library.  It still is.

When she came back on the next day, she promised to make the decision eventually, but she said it was too emotionally stressing to decide at the time.  From that moment on, whether intentionally or not, she had us both wrapped around her finger.  Both Roberto and I knew what we had to do.  It became a competition to see who could win her over in the crucial weeks that followed.  We respected each other, and we did not want the other person to get hurt, but we also had to look out for ourselves.  We talked about how things were going along with way, and we constantly squabbled about how who we thought Thu would pick at a given time.  Roberto became the Gary to my Ash.  We rivalled each other neck-and-neck over the next few weeks, and in that time, we formed a bond the likes of which I've never experienced with any other person.  He brought out the best in me, and I would argue that he and I became even closer during that period than either of us did with Thu.

During that period, my most prominent memory of Thu took place.  I remember we were alone in Louyang.  Louyang was a small island town that was a popular levelling spot, so it was very well-populated.  In the center of the area, there stood a tall tower which you could scale.  At the top of the tower, there was an NPC that let you "shout to the world", where you input a message and it was broadcast to everyone on the map.  "Come on," Thu said, "I have a surprise for you."  I sat at the base of the map waiting for her, when suddenly from the top of the tower the message came, "Hikaru shouts to the world, 'I love you, John!

I don't know what ever happened to Roberto.  He quit playing Ragnarok and deleted his Yahoo account, which were my only two ways of contacting him.  I truly hope he's doing well today.

It's really hard to believe all the above events happened over a course of about three months.  It felt like much, much longer than that.

Alex

In a similar situation to Bernette, I find it hard to believe I could forget Alex so easily.  We "dated" for about two months.  She also played Ragnarok but after we met there we talked mostly through instant messengers.  She was a slightly depressed person who had issues with cutting herself.  I felt that she was like me when Thu got to me, and I was eager to be someone she could latch onto.  I don't recall very much about this relationship.  My most prominent memory was talking to her occasionally while playing Musashi: Samurai Legend on the PS2.  She had very long gaps where she couldn't get online to talk.

I remember one time, she wanted to send me a picture of herself, but I couldn't risk my mom seeing it, as she was already hysterically paranoid of me being in online relationships.  I had Alex send it to my friend Jacob instead.  I remember when I went over to his house to see it, he brother J.P. said, "Jake, who's the hot chick in the dryer?"  Strangely, I don't remember what the actual picture looked like.

Like Bernette, I don't remember how it ended.

Zoey

Ah, Zoey.  The only "relationship" to last shorter than the one with Sarah.  She was a very outgoing noob on Ragnarok, and asked my help to learn the mechanics.  I tanked her for a little while and helped her learn the ropes.  My most prominent memory is when one of the monsters dropped a simple flower (a very common drop).  She picked it up and said "Here, this is for you ~.^".

Soon, she expressed an interest in me, but I responded to her with "Look, I barely even know who you are."  She responded, "Oh, I'm just a girl with a webcam."  Eventually she asked again if I wanted to be her SO, and, reluctantly, I agreed.  I can't remember my reasoning, maybe she seemed sweet, but as soon as I  gave my response, I thought, "Oh shit, I made a mistake," and immediately called it off before it was too late.  I just got this awful feeling about it.  She was my SO for a total of about three minutes.

An almost: Jessie

I can't remember if I ever told Jacob about this, but I almost dated his sister.  Her and I talked frequently after the Thu incident, and we built up a trust in one another.  Eventually it came to the point where I had the opportunity to be with her, but I ultimately declined.  My reasons include the fact that I didn't want to complicate relationships with her family, especially Jacob, who is one of my best friends, and that I started talking to Katie at the time as well.  Which brings me to...

Katie

My second-longest relationship, lasting two years.  I actually met Katie before I met Thu.  I was making my first character in Ragnarok, a swordsman, and was training on Greatest Generals, which were popular among swordsmen and archers because they couldn't fight back against lances and other ranged attacks.  Katie was there with one of her first characters, an archer named LadyHawk, and we leveled together for a good while.  After that, we split ways and occasionally came across one another over the next few months.  Each time we met, we talked briefly and became a little closer.  Eventually, we met up again in the Toy Factory north of Lutie, and began to talk a lot more.  We soon decided to get together, and so the relationship began.

My memory density for this relationship is decided lower than any other relationship.  I don't remember much at all, but here's what I do recall:

My first memory occurs in Glast Heim, a dismal and haunted dungeon of the Ragnarok world.  We were leveling there, when for the first time, I called her "My Katie".  I asked her, at that time, if she was okay with me calling her "mine."  she said she was, and she thought it was really sweet and respectful that I asked.

Most of my memory fragments occur when we talked with our guildmates in Ragnarok, specifically another couple named Ragnar (indeed, that is a badass name) and Jessie.  We all had jolly good conversations together.  Ragnar was a wiz in Ragnarok, and I constantly elicited him for advice.  Oddly enough, after Katie and I broke up, she and Ragnar got together, and they're now happily engaged in real life.  This was a shocker to me, but I now realize what a good fit they are for one another.

I remember around Christmas one year she wanted a Panda Hat.  I hunted for one for her for a long time, but I never did get one.

I remember a particularly long period when Katie didn't get online for a whole month, and I didn't know what happened to her.  During this period, I tried frantically to contact her with no avail, and I began to grow closer to a friend named Diaira in real life.  When Katie finally came back (she said the reason was that her family couldn't afford internet that month), I tried to explain that I relied a lot on Diaira for support during that period, and began to grow really close to her.  I told her I'd almost given up on our relationship, and she made me feel very guilty about this.

She was very nature-oriented, and highly attached to animals, specifically a horse she rode often.  I liked this about her, as it created a very carefree spirit, but it also worried me because I was severely allergic to the animals she loved most.  I often felt that, given the choice, she would have chosen the animals over me.

At one point, I revealed to her that I talked to my friends about our relationships, specifically to get advice when we were in arguments.  She was very unhappy about that, and asked me to stop doing so, as she felt out relationship was a private matter.  I accepted the terms.

I remember the end of the relationship very clearly.  I was in Einbroch, Ragnarok's dusty industrial city, when she PM'd me stating that she was drunk.  She also admitted to smoking pot and fooling around with another guy.  I was sick to my stomach when I heard that.  She soon said, "Relax, I'm just kidding about the guy, and I haven't smoked in a long time."  At that point, though, I didn't know what to believe.  I lost trust in our relationship, and it quickly crumbled.

A few months after, she wrote me an email apologizing for everything she put me through.  "You really are a wonderful guy," she said.  She also stated in the email that, although she didn't consider it an excuse, she felt she acted that way because I wasn't giving her much attention, which is a mistake I hope I don't repeat with Elizabeth.

Elizabeth

And that's where I am now.  I've been in this relationship for three and a half years now, and I still consider it to be going strongly.  My memory density of this relationship is pretty low, like that of Katie's, but there are a lot more positive memories here than any other relationship I've had, even if the emotion I remember isn't as concentrated.  I do feel it's a bit taboo to discuss memories of my current relationship publicly, as I feel they still rightfully belong between us alone.  Therefore, I'll leave this one be for now.

Well...that's it.  I didn't think this blog would be so long.  Nonetheless, I'm glad I got all this out.  It's helped me gain a more realistic perspective of my past, which is always important to keep in mind to help me understand why I feel the way I do today.  I just hope that I will eventually remember how to feel emotion the way I used to.  In Grimmer's dying words: "My emotions weren't destroyed...they were always there waiting, like a letter addressed to me from some far away place."