How...?

How do I keep from crying?  How do I pry myself out of bed and force myself to work and study?
I feel so drained, so empty, so depressed, so very tired even though I sleep and sleep and sleep some more. And for several days now, there is a sharp pain in my chest that is making me feel even worse.
I've returned home, but still unable to muster the energy to see friends or do anything constructive. The suitcases are still unpacked, the washing undone, clothes and things strewn all over the floor...

I need some kind of hope, something, someone, to grab me by the hand and pull me out of this terrible low I've suddenly descended into. It is at times like this that my mother's kind, kind face, and the face of the dearest friend and soulmate I thought I had, appear before me, making me cry even more...

Gone, gone, sadness, Be gone!
 Leave me alone, do not torture me any longer. Gone, gone, pain! Let  me smile, for once smile and remind me what it feels like not to feel pain, not to feel loss... what it feels like not to feel at all...

Only love

 I heard this song in my head when I was drifting in and out of consciousness... The last time I played the song was the day before mum's funeral. I never played it since. The memories of those days, preparing for mum's funeral and the visit of my ex, I seem to have left behind me...

Until this afternoon, when my own mind conjured up the tune and the lyrics...
Then, listening to the words again on the internet, I realised the "other" meaning of the song. It reflects not just the loss of a dear one, but the also a loss of a lover.

Here, I am, sitting here , longing and thinking of two people who have been in my life... Where are they now...? Where are they now?


"Only love can make a memory
Only love can make a moment last.
You were there
And all the world was young
And all its songs unsung,
And I remember you then,
When love was all,
All you were living for,
And how you gave that love to me.

Only then I felt my heart was free,
I was part of you and you were all of me.
Warm were the days and the nights of those years,
Painted in colors to outshine the sun.
All of the words and the dreams and the tears
Live in my remembrance. "

No hiding forever

I dread going home... I dread having to face all these things at home and face all these friends. I'm sure they'll ask, out of concern, perhaps out of an attraction for gossip and entertainment, where I have been and what happened. I dread getting that "I-told-you-so" look and the same old speech of "things will pass"...

But I can't just hide, I can't cut off communication with the outside world and have my phone switched off forever. I can't just hide and sleep, and sleep some more, to rid myself of the dread and the pain of being awake. Even sleep isn't helping, not when I am beset my nightmares of death, fear and abandonment (in the latest, I was standing dangerously close to a leaking gas cannister trying to turn it off... in another last night, I was walking down the street and saw some friends. I tried to get close to hug them, they ran away...)

My god, just as I thought I have finally come to terms with mum's passing after my trip to India/Nepal, images and thoughts seem to be returning with a vengeance. Makes me feel like such a failure, especially after telling my parents, telling myself, I'd begin to let go now and start my life afresh.

I can't hide forever. But I feel so vulnerable going out there in the bitter, bitter cold, and feel like any little thing can make me break down and rcry .

Fear of home

A few days away, and now dragging my feet home. There's such reluctance and hesitation, fear of what awaits me... The possible presence of my ex, questions and jeers of mutual friends (who find all this continuing drama as a source of ridicule and amusement...), items and momentoes lying around that remind me of happy times long ago and seemingly long since forgotten...

It is ridiculous. Why am I so scared to return to my own home? My own home! My only home in the world now, which I opened up to my ex whole heartedly because he did not have a place to stay. I let him into my most personal space, and with this sense of betrayal and deception that are being revealed to me, I feel my home has become violated, become tainted and no longer a place of my only refuge and sanctuary. Perhaps in my absence, he was even there with his partner. Imagine that...

Why do I have to put up with this in the first days of a new year? I gave everything, but now I'm even afraid to step into my own home and sleep in the bed where just days ago he slept next to me in...

My has been chest physically aching terribly since that day, and it seems to be getting worse. Perhaps this is a manifestation of an emotional heartbreak. I'm so weak and so wracked by pain and disturbing thoughts an fears...

Peace

媽媽, 謝謝妳陪伴我走到我人生的開始...
謝謝妳陪伴我走完這趟朝聖之旅...

媽媽, 我會多多保重... 我一定會更好,更堅強面對一生的一切...

http://alternativeformosa.blogspot.ca/2012_06_24_archive.html

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(Farewell, mum and dad... I dropped their pictures onto the earth around the sacred Bodhi Tree at Bodh Gaya, the very tree under which the Buddha became enlightened... I do hope they are at peace now... ultimate peace, free from all worry, from from all suffering...)

Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa,
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa,
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa,
   

Call

030113.0921

I didn't tell her what happened over the past few days or where I was. What's the point? Why should she worry unnecessarily? What could she do being so far away?

My cousin (mum's youngest sister's daughter...) called on Line to wish my happy new year. We talked a bit, and I tried hard to suppress my feelings. She said the other day, on 27 December, she felt so sad because she was remembered how it all began last year. The emergency call she made to me from the hospital. Trying to calm me on the phone while at the same time relaying news of mum's failing health and imminent surgery. She remembered how shocked I was, she remembered the pictures she sent to me of mum. She still has this one minute video I made for mum just before I boarded the plane, in which I told mum to hang on there, in which I told mum out loud for the first time perhaps, that I love her. I wasn't sure if after I land, mum would still be there. And sometimes if you don't say something from the bottom of your heart, and if you keep on being afraid of feeling ashamed or too touchy-feely, you might lose the opportunity to do so forever.

The fear and anxiety were overwhelming, and my cousin, who was the first to greet me as I rushed into the hospital, who was there throughout the final six months of mum's life, knew perhaps best what happened and what I went. She was there, she saw the suffering of mum, she saw my suffering and desperation. My cousin saw mum's death approaching, she cried and felt sorry that she cried because I never once shed a tear in front of her. It deeply affected her, but she felt so sorry for me. She also saw how tortured I was trying to grapple with the reality that my ex moved on, she saw how tortures I was trying to resist any temptations to reach out to him so he could have his time and new found happiness.

I thanked my cousin, again and again with such gratitude and such humbleness I could have cried if I weren't trying to suppress my emotions by biting hard on my lower lips. I feel indebted to her, to so many people who have been there and carried me through (yes, even to, or especially to, my ex, who has been there for so long...)

"Be strong, and take good care of yourself..." She said at the end.

This morning, I woke up and saw a message she sent me that made me cry as soon as I read it.

"I feel you are so lonely!"

I tried to hide it, to hide in the world, but the loneliness and hurt still shines through.

Wretched guilt...

020113.0543

I woke up crying and disoriented, felt like I was thrown into a nightmare in a strange room in a foreign place. The dream was too real, the pain too intense it hurt my chest and left me gasping terribly for breath... The worse feeling was waking up and that realisation I was alone and that there was no one to turn to...

In the dream I was howling. Terrible sounds escaping my mouth as I cried and cried in public. I was beyond consolation.

I had just received news mum died. But I was not by her side. I was in school, working, in fact talking to my boss. Then the news suddenly came. I ran out of the office, dropped to the ground and frantically with shaking hands and from trembling fingers searches for a flight home. (...how could I still be thinking of collecting air mileage and upgrades at a moment of intense despair...?

My ex appeared, hugged me so intensely, tried to calm me down and searched for a ticket home for me. I began to break down even more by his touch, began to sob uncontrollably. Images of mum in her final moments appeared before my eyes and haunted me so... Mum and her body writhing in pain and discomfort. Images of her opening and closing her mouth trying to cry out for help, but then only her mouth moved and no sound came...
In the dream, I was not there! Not there by her side! I could not comfort her, could not take away her fears with my touch and with my presence...

As my ex held me, I let out a long howl. It was beast-like that sound. So loud and so intense with emotions of pain, remorse and guilt... I realised (in my dream) I could not go home to even give mum a proper funeral. I realised (in the dream) the government had penalized me for overstaying my previous visa and that I could not go back for a year for any reason...

I howled and howled. The pain rocked through my body. "Mum... Mum... I've failed you so...." I cried out, and the tears just streamed like a river down my face. My hands reached out to touch her imaginary body as images of her dying moments flooded my mind and senses... How I longed for her touch, how I longed for the warmth of her body and soft sound of her motherly voice, the same voice that shows me so love and compassion, showed me the unconditional and boundless true love no one else  has shown me, and no one else could ever possibly match... My ex was trying to calm me, I saw him crying and hurting too. But I myself was hurting and howling beyond consolation... "Mum, I'm so sorry I'm not there for you..." I cried out loud.

The tears were so real, so intense for several moments after the dream shook me awake, I lay in the bed and felt my heart ache and felt the tears down my face. Then reality took over. It was all a dream. But far too real, with emotions far too close to those I feel and felt in the real world.

As consciousness and awareness slowly came to me, I realised I was in the dark room alone and it was another night of sleep disturbed. I realised again mum is gone, and that the person who gave much of the support and reassurance and love I so needed and that made me so strong is gone too. Did I push him  away? I gave him everything, and now feel now like I have nothing, no one. Was he simply too exhausted by intensity of my life and all that came my way in the past few years?

That realisation hurt and made me shake more than in the dream.

Fear of my own home

My own home, my only real home in the world, and yet I am hesitant and reluctant to return to it. Why must I go into hiding? What shame and guilt do I feel? Why do I feel shame at all? Why must I wander the world feeling so empty and so tormented by images and thoughts and memories of a friendship/relationship I poured my heart into? Does the other person know how I am feeling or why I am aching? I harbour no hatred, just disbelief and disappointment. And my own home feels like it's saturated with memories of our four years together, and for such a long time seemed to forecast the kind of home (with a cat and all these soft animals!) we could establish together! But did he share those dreams? Does he share those dreams still?
My mind aches so .l\l and long for my own home... I am tired of wandering the streets. So tired of feeling los]

I had a dream

"There was a time when men were kind,
And their voices were soft,
And their words inviting.
There was a time when love was blind,
And the world was a song,
And the song was exciting.
There was a time when it all went wrong...

I dreamed a dream in time gone by,
When hope was high and life, worth living.
I dreamed that love would never die,
I dreamed that God would be forgiving.
Then I was young and unafraid,
And dreams were made and used and wasted.
There was no ransom to be paid,
No song unsung, no wine, untasted.

But the tigers come at night,
With their voices soft as thunder,
As they tear your hope apart,
And they turn your dream to shame."

Happy new year

New Year's Eve. Alone at this very moment in some foreign room in the middle of nowhere. Hiding. Hiding from what? Hurt? The past? Confrontation? Hiding so I don't have to hurt anymore than I have been over the course of this year? I can't hide forever. Why do I have to hide while someone else seems to be oblivious to the pain I feel inside?

It's been a tough year. Tough doesn't quite describe it. After seemingly endless days and nights of watching mum suffer, she left this world, left this void in me. I struggle to cope, and am slowly recovering, but it'll take time and support. Brother has his family and his life. I called them at a time I knew my nephew would still be awake. It was so touching to see them, to see my nephew sitting on the sofa and waiting for his nightly ice cream... I almost cried seeing how happy they are. Almost cried because I could not tell them how I suddenly ran out of my own home and am now in hiding...

 I should count my blessings for I have my health, I have means, an education, a job, a future. But I have tears too.

Loss. Pain. Sorrow. Images. Memories. Angry exchanges with my ex. Mum's last words to me as she gasped for breath. Moments of intimacy and longings that feel so surreal and distant now. Holding mum's hand and smiling at her to soothe her pain, but crying deep down inside. My mind is tortured, restless and so emotional. On top of it all, I feel this Terrible fatigue from having slept so poorly and so little ever since I ran away from home two days earlier. My heart aches with loneliness and longing. Where is the calm and peace I found during my travels barely a month ago?

I should not wallow in self pity. This is the lot of my life. Perhaps this is the karma I must experience and reap from what evil deeds I have done. But I really have given myself to those I love dearly, those I love dearer than myself... In the end, nothing is mine, nothing I really own. Everything falls apart, everyone leaves and fades away.

New Year's Eve. A year is ending, another about to begin.

May I have a happy new year? Dare I even wish that? All I want is calm, some peace, a dear one who is truthful to me, who can give me the affection and love I have so longed for.
Maybe this is all too much to ask for.

Mum, I'm sorry that you must see me in such sorry state. I promised you I'd be strong and make you proud. But I seem to have failed my promises to you, seem to have been propelled to the depths of despair and to some foreign place...

Happy new year.
May I be happy, may I have some semblance of peace. For once, I wish for something for myself, for once I need to be selfish and ask for some semblance of happiness and peace too...

Happy new year.
May the world be at peace, may all beings be at ease.
May my family, my friends, and most of all my ex, be  truly happy and free... 

Last year

I closed my eyes and tried to rest my tired body and mind. And out of nowhere appeared the memory... One year ago, mum lying next to me, days after her spinal surgery.
http://alternativeformosa.blogspot.com/2012_01_01_archive.html?m=1
The rush home. The anxiety and agony and fear of losing her. Hearing her groan at night from the wound around her neck. Helping her with a bedpan. Holding her hand and telling her to be strong, pretending myself I was strong for her. Sleeping rough at the hospital all those nights... That was a year ago, but the memory made it so real again, made me cry uncontrollably.

Mum, I miss you so...
I hope I have taken care of you and eased your pain then at the hospital last year....
I hope you are watching me and still proud of me, still loving me from afar...

Please protect  me me from sorrows of the past, and from the emptiness of being alone.