Numbness

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Yes, I've not really written much of note these days. Nothing really inspires me, nothing really touches or affects me. It's as if I'm going about my life, moving from day to day, with a haze hanging over my brains and mind. It's as if I'm sleep walking, seemingly keeping busy but doing nothing.

Yesterday I went to pick up more things from the cargo shipment that arrived last week at the storage space. I opened all the boxes, dug through them all, as if digging in time and through layers and layers of memories. The brown blanket mum used at the hospital (and long before that...)... the blanket mum bought two of on the same day, one for me, one for my ex... clothes I wore and left behind at her place thinking I'd be back there soon to wear them again... Photo albums, stamp collections, books in English and Chinese she must have flipped through at some point in time... I was numb. Just numb...

Did I expect to cry? Did I want to cry? Perhaps in a way I did. Crying is so therapeutic, and it's been ages since I last "healed myself" by shedding tears. It's been ages, frustratingly long, since anyone or anything made me feel comfortable enough to cry and let my emotions out.

I dug and dug through the boxes. Found the lamps to the Buddha shrine I was looking for to complete the shrine I have placed in my living room... Found the bike helmet, front light and speedometer I was looking for... Found few items of clothing I have missed and would want to wear again... Found incense coils that mum used to lit as a ritual every morning, when she was still alive, before bowing respectfully at the feet of the Buddha... Found the mood lighting I bought mum last year in the hope she would sleep better. I do need some good sleep these days, even though I always feel like sleeping, always feel like I want to close my eyes and escape into a world where there are no thoughts, no feelings of numbness, where I feel no frustrations at the inability to cry...

I pulled down the metal gate of the 5x5 storage space, locked it and picked up the stuff strewn on the floor. I biked home, back to the mess of an apartment I left behind earlier in the morning.

And I went to lie down, to sleep and drown in the world where I do not feel, do not think, do not feel frustrated or sad...

Sleeping and dreaming

I dreamed of mum, and the dream filled me with such a profound, profound sense of loneliness. I cried from longing and pain...

It is sickening how lonely I feel, how somehow (strange as it may seem and sound...) I go to the office everyday and go about my daily business as if pretending all is well and dandy...

Sure, there are plenty of lonely people out there. Just go on Craigslist and you'll see all these men (and mostly men...) looking for company or a quick release. As exciting as those ads sound, reading them make me feel even more depressed.

The loneliness is eating me... It is affecting me deeply, preventing me from doing anything, preventing me from achieving anything. I sleep, sleep and sleep to escape. But I must wake up at some point, and these days it's close to noon before I can ply my body out of bed. I just wish there were a reason to wake up, a reason to stand and breathe and work.

Maybe I'm too comfortable. I don't really need to work for the sake of survival, I don't really need to do the exams I'm about to take. Nothing scares me, nothing pressures me, nothing really affects or interests me. Is this what death feels like..?

Another day, another day to face and get by...

Maiden voyage

I called her "Formosa One". A beautiful Giant road bike that's made in Taiwan, which I bought for my twenty-eighth birthday.

I intended to bike with her around the island. But my knee broke, and I was forced to stop at 140km... That was over 9 months ago.

The bike arrived in Canada and I picked it up a few days ago. Today I assembled her and rode her.

There's a strange sense of nostalgia I cannot describe. I feel so free sitting here on the riverside...

This is the bike I plan to use on a charity bike ride in three months time... It'll be a challenge, a challenge and a promise to mum.