Disappointment

There's nothing worse than being excited about something, looking forward to something, only to be disappointed at the last moment.

I invited two friends over for dinner, and they were so happy and saying it would be a great time.
I shopped, cleaned, spent over an hour cooking tonnes of food. When the agreed time came, nobody showed up. I checked my phone. They're not coming anymore.

The circumstances are quite sad, and I can't blame them.

But still, it's so disappointing. I can't go and invite my neighbour friends, as it would look so bad I didn't invite them in the first place. And now? Tonnes of food just for me... Another night alone at  home

Alarm

I stood on the platform on my way home. I leaned against the wall and felt so tired. The heat, the humidity is eroding my energy levels, even when I feel like I do so little. 

The work I do, reading and researching for others, doesn't really mean I get a chance to talk to anyone. So to go home at the end of the day and be silent for the whole night is daunting. I stood on the platform and wondered what I could do or watch later to keep me away from thinking and feeling that I'm the only person left. Since mum died, this feeling has been haunting me occasionally. There's always my cat, but these days she keeps to herself and hides trying to keep cool...

A quarter past eight in the evening. I detoured to the hardware store in the hope of getting some kind of alarm to a attach to my front door. A friend of mine has one. It rings when you open the door. More noise than anything else. But it's a deterrent. I was also hoping to buy some "alarm stickers" to place on my window. Again, more to scare than anything else. anything helps, anything helps when you're paranoid and scared of being alone. 

Standing on the platform, I again have this overwhelming and nauseating feeling of not wanting to go home. A few times I just go bike at night. But that's kind of dangerous and creepy to be biking alone in the dark.  

Ha... Before it was just the loneliness, the unpleasantness of being alone. Now it's being alone at home and the paranoia of someone showing up at my door or trying to break in... 

Never ending. Never any real peace or rest...

Realisation

Every tear shed alone,

I grow stronger. Stronger. Stronger.

Every moment spent by myself, 

Makes me realise the real meaning of life and its illusions and false promises.

When I am speeding on my bike at night,

Nothing, nothing, and no one can touch me.

(Almost) theft

I was shaking, was really shaken by what had happened when I realised how much danger I could have been in.  For the next six hours or so, I stayed home and dared  not leave the house, but also partly to wait for the police to show up (which they never did...)

I was just about to leave the house for work when I saw a guy stand at my front door. Shorter than me, blond short hair and blue eyes, black T-shirt with a Microsoft Windows logo on the front. I'd say around 25-30 years old. I live on the second floor of a duplex, so it is unusual for anyone (other than the postman or someone delivering advertising flyers...) to come up to my door. And I didn't even hear any one walking on the exterior staircase leading to my front door, which I normally would hear for it is quite loud and the stairs creak...

The guy just stood there, and quickly asked me how long I've lived here. I found it bizarre, some stranger at the door early in the morning. Then he said he was thirsty and hoping for a glass of water. I found that even more bizarre, and was actually a bit frightened... I felt suspicious, and should have just ignored him. But I turned and went into the kitchen to get water. By the time I got back to the front door, the guy was gone.  It was then I noticed my bike lock, one I bought recently with a steel cable wire that I used to wrap around the wheel and the railing of my front balcony, had been cut through.

My front door became the scene of a crime (attempt to steal...).  I stood there for like five minutes, shocked and scared before I reached for the phone and dialed 911. I gave the description to the emergency response personnel, and was told to stay home till the police arrive. I waited and waited for almost six hours before I called again, only to be told that I better just head down to the police station myself to file a report. (so much for "emergency"... )

When I told a friend later, my shock was met with a flippant joke. Pretty distasteful really, especially given the fact I  was shaking and felt so insecure and unsafe in my own home! Though nothing happened, my own home, the very place of my security and shelter, felt like it had just been violated...

Sure, I didn't have anything stolen, so I guess it's at the bottom of priorities. When I got to the police station, I was told there was little that could be done. All I could do is file a report and maybe, just maybe they will be able to match the description with another crime committed in the area...

Shaken...

I'm so shaken right now... Shaking and feeling so physically ill from what I just experienced...
I feel so violated in my own home. I feel sick and feel like crying.

Someone just tried to steal m bike. Someone cut the chain of my lock in front of my own door.  The guy was staring at my face, and I was talking to him. He could have broken in had I not been home...
What have I just experienced?

Just when you think things are going alright, being part of  a potential crime just kicks me to rock bottom.

I cannot be alone right now... I need company. Desparately need company...

4.24am

Another dream of mum, the third time in as many days...

We were just riding the metro in Montreal. Not sure where we were going, but she was next to me. It must have been a trip I did with her, because it felt and seemed all so familiar, like it happened before and I was reliving it. 

I think we got to a station called Atwater, where there's a mall. I looked to find her, but mum was gone... Gone... 

I broke down, and began crying. I was inconsolable....

Lonely process

Again I realise how loss is such a lonely, lonely process, one that cannot be shared, one that cannot easily be described or felt by another. And again, like so many times over the past year, I feel like I am bothering another by trying to express how I feel.

And what makes it harder is that people do not understand. Mourning and any show of emotions seems like the great "abnormal". I've experienced this first hand, and have felt like I'm being chastised because I lost someone and am feeling the effects of that loss. People do not want to talk about death. People are scared and uncomfortable talking about or listening to you talk about crying and coping. This is not just my experience, but the experience of everyone I know from my group therapy. Mourners are shunned like outcasts, pariahs. Which hurts more because exactly this is the time we need encouragement and support. Exactly this is the period we need compassion and understanding, and not weird looks and comments as if we have changed so much and become so different. I mean, if you lose someone, you will know. You really will know and understand. 

 How terribly unsettling and unfair on mourners to have to deal with loss and also deal with social ostracisation. While the rest of the world moves on... while people climb up in their careers, while people find partners and get settled down into their cozy little lives, while people fight and argue and get worked up  about petty details and discontents, the mourner's life seems to stand still. The mourner seems to be lost in time, trying to grapple with the past, and so afraid to let go, so afraid to move on. The mourner seems lost in loss, hopelessly longing for some semblance of understanding and human contact.



I don't want to be stuck in the past. I don't want to grow older and more bitter. I don't want to be treated like some irrational fool who is saddened by flashbacks and reminders.

I want to be loved, I need to be loved.
I want to be heard, I want to be understood.

Nephew's hair

Earlier today I sent a picture of my nephew to a close friend, and he commented how peculiar my nephew's hair looked. His hair is indeed quite thin and matted on his head, quite unlike "normal" Asian babies, whose hair often grows "outward".

I hadn't really noticed before. The similarity, the resemblance with dad's hair is uncanny. I tried to describe dad's hair and how it was. But I could not find the words. I just could not find the words. I choked and tears started to fall. I broke and hung up the phone. I could not, simply could not continue the conversation any longer...

My nephew's hair looks and feels like my dad's, like the grandpa he never met.
 Suddenly I have this urge to want to see my nephew... to want to be much closer to him.

Flight 214

The tragic crash landing of Asiana flight 214 at SFO became the source of a racist prank pulled by some intern at the National Transportation Safety Board...

I must admit the made up names of the pilots is a pretty clever pun, but under the circumstances of a traumatic air crash which claimed (amazingly only) three lives is a rather sick joke...

One year on (II)

I spent the day helping a friend and his family move. I was so happy to do it, so happy to be surrounded by people, to be kept busy, to be useful, not to be sad or pensive. I went to his old place around 11. I got home at well past 1 in the morning. 

It was exhausting, but I did not feel tired. There was so much, so much stuff, in boxes, in black bin bags, pieces of furniture, shelves, suitcases and backpacks. So much stuff. But we managed to do it. My friend and his mother kept on thanking me, praising how much I helped them with the move. Deep down, I thanked them for making me feel useful, for keeping me company on a most difficult day.

People may question why I am again, for the third time in a month making things difficult for myself. The first, mum's death according to the lunar calendar, the second, mum's death on the "actual" calendar. The third sad day, her funeral cremation. What a month it was last year. What a painful and traumatic year...

Well, perhaps I never really had the time or right moment to feel sad, to really appreciate or digest what happened a year ago. I lost my dear mother, and soon after sowed the seeds of losing my dearest friend and companion. It was a difficult time. But I just braved it all. Braved it all and didn't think it would break me, didn't think I would be bothered at all.

I don't think I really ever wrote about the day of mum's funeral and cremation. It was too much to write about.  Even today, it is too much to write about. All I can recall are flashbacks. Of people crying... my aunts, uncles, my ex, my brother and his wife... everyone crying. I stayed dry, stoic as ever. I could not, did not, cry, as much as I wanted or needed to. I can recall the slideshow with pictures from different stages of mum's life. How I smiled at those pictures, even though people became emotional seeing mum as the way she was. I want to remember the way she was, long before the cancer ravaged her body, long before hunger, starvation, thinned her to just bone and skin, long before jaundice, bloating and death took over...  I can recall a little speech I made in front of everyone, thanking people for their presence, and then turning to mum to tell her to "go.." Go travel, like she always enjoyed doing, go to Holland, go to Canada, go to the monastery in Puli (Taiwan) where she found such joy and peace... I remember telling her we will be alright...

I can recall accompanying her coffin to the crematorium. I can recall my prayers as I bid my final farewell. I can recall watching her remains being scraped and brushed into the marble urn I had chosen for her. I can recall more tears from relatives, my ex... I can recall sleeping at night and tearing. Did anyone notice? Did anyone care to notice? I can recall shivering and waking up in the middle of the night a few nights later and feeling this deep, deep unfillable void. That would be the first of many nights I would wake up since then till now... sometimes crying, sometimes shuddering like a madman, sometimes sweating from fear...

One year on. I can recall so many images, so many memories, so many things that were said and done... I can recall the tears on people's faces, the smiles and laughter I had when my ex visited and accompanied me through at the end of a tough, tough journey...At the same time, it all feels like ages ago... How many times have I cried since? How many times have I broken down? How many times have people told me to "Get over it!" and move on and hurt me so with their callous words and complete misunderstanding of what it means to lose someone, what it means to grieve loss? How many times  have I swallowed my tears and shed them only when and where nobody sees them? How many times have to told myself I deserve to be loved, I deserve so much more and failed to believe it?

One year on. My friend's mum asked me why I smile so much... why I am so patient and how I can remain so calm after all I have experienced. Because I am trying. Smiling because smiling and joking around and laughing at silly things makes me feel lighter. Smiling because when I am alone by myself, it is harder to smile. I am trying. Trying to be patient and just ride out the rough spell of grief and volatile emotions... Trying to be calm because I know, I have seen, what it really means and is like to lose all control of everything... I am trying.
Trying so very hard to find balance again. Trying so very hard to live up to the promises I made to my parents, to myself, that I will stand up again. I have been trying and struggling to find a "new normal" despite this very deep sense of isolation and loneliness I feel I find myself in ("Nobody likes someone who's unhappy" as I've been very bluntly told by a friend... As if I choose to be unhappy. As if I choose to mourn, because it is so much fun...).

I am trying. Through ceremonies, through commemorations, through two days of charity bike riding, through a three week venture to the Middle Land... All these attempts to be "better", to be alive again after death, to find myself and someone who can see through all that I have had to face, who can see through that hard shell and defensiveness and still see beauty inside. I AM TRYING... One year on. I am trying. And I will be trying even more still.