October 6th

October 6th 2013. 

Yesterday was such a long and exhausting day, had to go to the office to help with an event to welcome new students into the class. It was nice seeing  new faces, hearing stories about where people come from and such. They seem like an enthusiastic bunch, fresh and eager (and somewhat nervous too) to start their new studies.

The event lasted over six hours, and I was so drained afterwards. I went home, and as always after long social gatherings felt so beaten, so down...

reflections and memories flooded back. Five years ago, I too was so fresh and excited about starting a new life and studies here. I remember I was so curious about meeting new people, and looked around for a potential someone...

And I saw him. Someone who I'd get to know, grow with, love and cry over. Who would have known what would develop between us? Who would have known what would become of us? And now, after all those beautiful memories, trips together, promises and hurt, arguments and misunderstandings, where are we now? Sometimes I really think I am the only person who still remembers, who still reminisces and cries and longs. Does he still...? I do not know. And with time that question becomes less and less relevant. With time the memories will fade even more, and those feelings that were once so fresh, so real, so able to touch our hearts fade and eventually die.

That was five years ago. I was fresh-faced, new and excited. And now I am just tired, so darned tired and impatient. So disturbed by the fact that within these five years I've lost both my parents and that I am left on this world more or less on my own to figure out things and to fight loneliness and the haunting feeling of loss.

How difficult it is to live the life of someone who has a hard time remembering, who on special dates remembers. I wish often I could just shut it away, shut away all the memories and forget special days. And there's only one way I know I can forever forget. Only one way.

October 6th. The annual Breast Cancer Run. Last year this time, I was with my ex, and we got up early after a long night of talking in the same bed... We took part in the walk together, had all these special animal friends with us as we walked in solidarity with breast cancer heroes, survivors, friends and family. It was such a beautiful day. Memories of mum were still fresh in my head. Memories of the funeral and her death still so fresh and how fragile I was then. I went to visit the ex so full of hope, so full of longing to be with someone whom I could lean on. But despite the beautiful way, I felt so turned away. Things had changed. We have changed. I have changed. I remember leaving my ex that weekend feeling rejected and cryin g on the plane journey home. I know what I have lost, what Has been destroyed, perhaps by me and my impatience and bitter jealousy and fear of loss. I know after all that began five years ago, there is no way we could ever be the same again. And the pain is in the remembering. The pain is in the reminders of all the things I have still lying around, in the places we have been to together, in the hopes and memories we have together once created. 

Now I'm heading to the cancer walk by myself. Why people I know, the friends I have, have no interest in joining, I cannot understand. Battling loneliness and the anxiety of being alone in a big crowd. I want to do this, even though I had to drag myself out of bed and struggled hard to leave the house. 

Why am I running?

 For hope.