We all hurt, we all become disturbed and hung up on different things.
We all cry, for different reasons, at different times.
Can pain be ever be measured and compared? Can the depths of what traumatises someone and the extent of experience with life (and death...) ever be comparable? I don't think so. What shocks me may have little or a numbing effect on someone else. What I see and experience as tough and so very difficult to get through, someone may have gone through it a dozen times already.
I do believe that with every encounter with death (and to some extent illness) and loss, you grow stronger, you grow more immune. You realise everything is only so much in the end, and everything is just the way it is, nothing more, nothing less.
I arrived at the office today, and found my ex sitting there. I was surprised, and at first unsure how to deal with him being there. For much of the day, though our interactions were light and felt like it was "like old times", I was distracted and did so very little work (another day gone by...).
By afternoon, towards the end of the work day (well, more like "sitting-around-doing-very-little-day...), he came in and sat down to chat. My colleagues came to say goodnight one by one, and we continued talking. One thing led to another, and he began telling me what disturbs him so much.
Images, moments real or photographed, scenes and flashbacks... of soft animals attending mum's funeral, of me crouching next to mum's bed and wearing my graduation cap with a forced smile on my face, of me sobbing uncontrollably next to Niagara Falls after speaking to mum... There were just some of the painful, terribly heart-wrenching and painful moments of the past year.
He could not stop crying, could not stop even as I held his hand and leaned in close to embrace him and stroke his head. It was hard to watch him break down like that. Who knows how many times he has woken up at night, or how often he has been kept dazed and feeling downhearted, by those moments and images. As I listened to him sob and recount moments that he has such difficulty processing and getting over, I wanted to choke and cry, but I did not. I swallowed my tears, because he did not have to see me cry. Who would comfort whom then?
But those moments and images he mentioned, those were tough, tough moments. Tough does not really describe it. There were so many moments behind, in front, after, surrounding those moments my friend mentioned when it was just a dying mother and her child who prayed and held her hand ever so tightly... Some moments will be forever just be between mum and I, it would be our beautiful little secrets. "Secret" is not used here in the negative sense, but just used to denote some moments, some experiences that no one else knows about or saw. Moments and experiences that cemented the love between a mother and her child, moments and experiences that will forever transcend death. Beautiful, but also painful, very painful. All of those moments melted and blended in my mind like a terrible haze. I don't know if I consciously do not think of or cannot think of the details, but they feel so distant, so far, far gone away in the past.
He cried, and stopped crying. Then, "like old times", we joked and laughed and our conversation led to a million different topics... his travels, how he has been, the thesis he is trying to finish... It felt natural, strangely natural, even though barely two weeks ago there was so much tension, misunderstanding, and deep, deep sense of disappointment and hurt.
"I hope we have reached rock bottom..." he said (or something along those lines... ), referring to how much our relations have deteriorated over a span of almost two years... arguments, tensions, mistrust, frustrations and anger seem to have dominated our bond and soured what beautiful and precious little moments we used to share. I still question myself how things got so sour so quickly, and how much of a (guilty...) role I play in all this. But can we get any worse than this? Can things not get better?
Where would we be in a few months, in a few years from now? I do not know. Who knows?
But there is genuine care, genuine love and something very special there still. We both know it.
The question is whether we know it enough, and what we are willing to do to (or not...) to allow that special bond and relationship flourish.
"Sometimes the snow falls down in June..." was his response.
Maybe... maybe.
But in the dead and silent loneliness of Winter, snow is falling already.
We all cry, for different reasons, at different times.
Can pain be ever be measured and compared? Can the depths of what traumatises someone and the extent of experience with life (and death...) ever be comparable? I don't think so. What shocks me may have little or a numbing effect on someone else. What I see and experience as tough and so very difficult to get through, someone may have gone through it a dozen times already.
I do believe that with every encounter with death (and to some extent illness) and loss, you grow stronger, you grow more immune. You realise everything is only so much in the end, and everything is just the way it is, nothing more, nothing less.
I arrived at the office today, and found my ex sitting there. I was surprised, and at first unsure how to deal with him being there. For much of the day, though our interactions were light and felt like it was "like old times", I was distracted and did so very little work (another day gone by...).
By afternoon, towards the end of the work day (well, more like "sitting-around-doing-very-little-day...), he came in and sat down to chat. My colleagues came to say goodnight one by one, and we continued talking. One thing led to another, and he began telling me what disturbs him so much.
Images, moments real or photographed, scenes and flashbacks... of soft animals attending mum's funeral, of me crouching next to mum's bed and wearing my graduation cap with a forced smile on my face, of me sobbing uncontrollably next to Niagara Falls after speaking to mum... There were just some of the painful, terribly heart-wrenching and painful moments of the past year.
He could not stop crying, could not stop even as I held his hand and leaned in close to embrace him and stroke his head. It was hard to watch him break down like that. Who knows how many times he has woken up at night, or how often he has been kept dazed and feeling downhearted, by those moments and images. As I listened to him sob and recount moments that he has such difficulty processing and getting over, I wanted to choke and cry, but I did not. I swallowed my tears, because he did not have to see me cry. Who would comfort whom then?
But those moments and images he mentioned, those were tough, tough moments. Tough does not really describe it. There were so many moments behind, in front, after, surrounding those moments my friend mentioned when it was just a dying mother and her child who prayed and held her hand ever so tightly... Some moments will be forever just be between mum and I, it would be our beautiful little secrets. "Secret" is not used here in the negative sense, but just used to denote some moments, some experiences that no one else knows about or saw. Moments and experiences that cemented the love between a mother and her child, moments and experiences that will forever transcend death. Beautiful, but also painful, very painful. All of those moments melted and blended in my mind like a terrible haze. I don't know if I consciously do not think of or cannot think of the details, but they feel so distant, so far, far gone away in the past.
He cried, and stopped crying. Then, "like old times", we joked and laughed and our conversation led to a million different topics... his travels, how he has been, the thesis he is trying to finish... It felt natural, strangely natural, even though barely two weeks ago there was so much tension, misunderstanding, and deep, deep sense of disappointment and hurt.
"I hope we have reached rock bottom..." he said (or something along those lines... ), referring to how much our relations have deteriorated over a span of almost two years... arguments, tensions, mistrust, frustrations and anger seem to have dominated our bond and soured what beautiful and precious little moments we used to share. I still question myself how things got so sour so quickly, and how much of a (guilty...) role I play in all this. But can we get any worse than this? Can things not get better?
Where would we be in a few months, in a few years from now? I do not know. Who knows?
But there is genuine care, genuine love and something very special there still. We both know it.
The question is whether we know it enough, and what we are willing to do to (or not...) to allow that special bond and relationship flourish.
"Sometimes the snow falls down in June..." was his response.
Maybe... maybe.
But in the dead and silent loneliness of Winter, snow is falling already.
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