I always dreaded a chance meeting with my imaginary lover. When this happened in the past, I used to get a terrible adrenaline rush, my heart raced uncontrollably and my leg muscles twitched and trembled in a fight-or-flight reflex. I felt close to passing out, and most of the time I needed to sit down. Later I would cry and suffer for days, like an addict with a relapse.

As late as last week, I wrote how his imagined form, that my subconscious mind summoned in a dream, was sufficient to break me, and put me out of kilter for a day or two. In time, that sadness passed too. My trials, however are not over.

Today I was supposed to be already on vacation, if it weren’t for my misunderstanding of my son’s holiday calendar. But fate has other plans. I had to extend my stay for one more week, and one unintended consequence was meeting him by chance, after over five months, and not once but twice.

My colleague and I have recently established the refreshing habit of going for a walk, around mid-morning. We talk about work, about our kids and a little bit about heartache. She has experienced a recent break-up herself, and I told her my own sorry story. I have stopped being ashamed of it some time ago, because it looms so large in my consciousness. And even if it had all the hallmarks of an illusory affair, it was real to me. In fact it is still real, because I am mostly still living it.

Ironically, I had little thought of my heartache today. We leisurely circled our block, cleared the parking lots near the modern blocks of his agency, the areas I usually ask her to avoid, and climbed up the circular path that skirts the compound. And all of a sudden a boxy 4×4 parks on the grassy shoulder right ahead of us. Out of the corner of my eye I see his tall figure climbing out. I think he lifted his arm in robotic salute and half-smiled but I looked straight ahead and did not acknowledge. My friend must have noticed that I chocked in mid-conversation. I muttered under my breath, explaining in shock that it was him. She was sweet, and tried to distract me with other subjects. I stumbled on, both in step and conversation, but deep down I was grateful for two things, the presence of my friend and the reflector glasses I was hiding behind.

We were still halfway through the path, when my friend said she was feeling tired and it was too hot. So we circled back towards the main hallway that returns us to our office. This time I had my sunglasses off and again in the distance I saw the tall, thin, bald figure I know so well walking towards the lobby in our direction. He was deep in attentive conversation with a much shorter Asian-looking woman, I am really not sure, as I only managed a short look at a great distance. As I took all this in within a fraction of a second, I said to my friend “please don’t tell me it is him again”. In another millisecond I know for sure, and I dive for my phone feigning intense interest in its screen, even though I cannot see a thing there without reading glasses. It is a well-worn, and obvious, device for avoiding eye contact. But I make it clear, I refuse to acknowledge.

At the office I feel a bit stunned. I have to admit that I still had the tiniest hope that he would perhaps acknowledge this rare meeting with a text, but my rational mind knew that it was not going to happen. I sigh now and realize that I survived this dreaded encounter, and it was not as bad as I imagined it to be. I remember that I also survived a surprise encounter with his wife about a month ago. My son and I were at the supermarket and I saw a tanned lady wearing an understated elegant white shirt over tan trousers and comfortable sandals. She carried a big leather bag with the shoulder strap across her body. I pointed her out in the distance to my son and said this how I imagined my friend’s wife looked like. I turned a corner in the shop, and next thing I knew, she was facing me in a supermarket aisle. The woman I only ever saw in the rare photos I stalked on public Facebook and Instagram pages looked at me gave me the warmest and kindest smile, as if she recognized and knew me. She also broke me that day to a thousand pieces. It was perhaps a message from the universe to let go.

The universe should know by now that I am listening. I received the message and I am doing all I can to let go. Even though he visits me in my dreams. Even though I spend most of my time these days translating the documents of his ineffectual and broken agency. I try to live from day to day and survive one month to the next. The tears will come either now or later, but I will still survive this day, as I survived the ones before it.

This was an important step forward for me. A chance encounter was bound to happen, and it is no use going out of my way to avoid it. Today the chance meeting hurt me less than it did a year ago, and I now have reason to believe that the next one, if it happens, when it happens, will hurt less than it did today. I also have to believe that the man I love exists only in my head, and still, to a certain extent, in my heart. The man I met by chance today is a stranger I do not need to acknowledge.