just give me a reason...

Why does almost every song they play at this event speak to me and make me cry...?

It's depressing...

A new day?

The music touched my heart and I cried. I cried in the middle of a joyous, fun festival as part of the city's gay pride. I could not contain my tears.

Let the rain come down
And wash away my tears
Let it fill my soul
And drown my fears
Let it shatter the walls

The songs that played spoke to my heart. Maybe I am too sensitive, maybe my feelings are too raw. I look around and see all these couples holding hands, kissing, swooning in love. All these couples together. And just made me feel all the more alone.

Earlier, we had a pre-event party, and we all gathered at someone's house and all brought food to share. I went for a little while, and at the earliest opportunity left. 

Why did I have to leave a social gathering quickly and early? I Cannot play into the hypocrisy of everything in life being fine and dandy because of the smile on my face. I simply cannot stand how behind the person, when the person is away, people make fun of him, and yet at a party pretend as if they're all best buddies. How shallow, how pretentious... It's so sad...

A friend asked me where I was last year, exactly a year ago, during the biggest pride event of the year. I hesitated a moment, didn't know what or how to answer. Of course other people may have forgotten. And I am trying to forget. But the question threw me off track and made me remember again.

I was waiting for so long
For a miracle to come
Everyone told me to be strong
Hold on and don't shed a tear

I was home. In Taiwan. Two weeks after mum was cremated. Three weeks after the terrible rupture with my Ex, who not so long ago told me all the things I wanted to hear, needed to hear, to keep the faith, to keep on dreaming and hoping. I was in a terribly numb state of mind. I still am. 

And who is suffering most? The one who remembers. The one who cannot forget, the one who cannot let go. The one who cannot pretend or hide tears, pain or sadness, and as a result is sidelined in a world circling around fun and thrills and forgetting all that bothers and disturbs us. 

Where it was dark now there's is light
Where there was pain, now there's joy
Where there was weakness, i found my strength
All in the eyes of a boy

"A new day has come..."

I long for that day. I so do.

Handyman

For a week or so, I have been helping  friend move and settle down in his new home. Some days, we start early in the day, sevenish he comes to pick me up to work a few hours before heading to work. Then after work, we would drive to furniture stores in search of bargains and exploring Ikea for value and quality pieces of furniture to fill up his space. I don't think I've assembled as many pieces of furniture in as short amount of time, not even for myself.

It's really been exhausting, and at night I collapse into bed, relieved to be able to sleep (sometimes to be woken up by my phone vibrating...) But in some ways, I'm happy to be helping a friend, even if it means completely taking away valuable study time for my impending exams... It's nice to build something, to look around furniture stores and dream of my dream home, dream of my dream kitchen and a lovely, cosy bedroom where I would fall asleep with my partner (still MIA, or rather, to be located...)  The entire experience of helping my friend really has driven me to want to settle down and buy a house on my own....


I so wish to be able to build a home, to design minute details of my own little places in the world and to find a sense of belonging. The last time I did that was back in 2009, with the help of my ex and best friend. What joy we had, what beautiful memories of painting and scrubbing, of building furniture and building a "home" together... Something to cherish for ever. Something to look forward to always...

 

Dream

I saw myself in a car. I heard myself howl and sob. Where was I going? The car seemed to be going very fast. 

I howled some more, whimpered like a wounded dog. I could just make out the sound I was making "Mum... Mum..." 

In front of the car, in the driver seat was dad...

Breakdown...

How did I just spend over an hour on the phone to my ex? How did my confidence become so shattered and how did I feel so low about myself? I want to feel good about myself, feel like I am capable of doing something, like I am worthy of life and living...

But I feel so weak and worthless, so painfully worthless.
Why? Shaking like a leaf...
It's the past again, isn't it? It's the terrible things compounded with all that death and loss in the past year coming to haunt me and causing me to struggle again?

And just when I thought I was better... Just when I thought I was getting better.

Death of grandma...

 Grandma (dad's mum...) was probably the kindness and most selfless person I knew for the longest time growing up. I spent so many summers with her, sitting by her side while she looked out the front door and welcomed passerby into her home for a drink on a hot day... I spent so many hours with her, sitting by her side at the hospital while she underwent dialysis...

I saw her in my dream just now, at her deathbed. Though I wasn't actually there (my mum was... She rushed back to Taiwan the very next morning after receiving a phone call late at night... I remember it was on a Swiss Air Asia flight, at the time an MD-11... 

In the dream we (my mum and auntie) clambered up the stairs at my auntie's place to get to the third floor bedroom (where dad and I used to stay whenever we visited his side of the family in his hometown...) to see her, for one last look. She's looked so thin, and was in great discomfort and pain (she died of liver disease...)

I cried and shed so many tears as I rushed up the stairs... I tried hard not to howl, not to many any noises while crying... So vivid the dream... So real, too real...

I woke up crying.

Parentless

"They left already..." I said. My colleague, with whom I had a work lunch today,did not really understand. 

"They're no longer around..." His faced turned and immediately there was an outpouring of sympathy from him, which almost triggered an overflow of tears from me. Moments like this make me wish I could just reach for the phone and call someone. Call someone and talk to someone who can understand, who is willing to listen and try to understand. Call someone and talk to someone who can accompany me home and not leave till I fall asleep... Of course, this person only exists in my fantasy. 

It's occasions like this that remind me again and again I am parentless. I am not unique in this sense, but to many, especially those who are parents themselves of children my age the fact that both my parents are gone seems to attract sad empathetic frowns and "You are still so young..." or you have gone through so much..."  You cannot, cannot imagine. 

I don't recall how the conversation turned to this, but again this episode today reminded me again this is the way it's going to be for some time. People are going to ask, and I am going to be reminded of the reality that my parents are no longer around. How do I face it? With a grimace... With an awkward laugh perhaps... With some stoic line like "It's alright. It's been a year..."? All the while deep inside I am crying. Crying all over again...

The warnings signs are all there.

But do you want to see it? Do you want to let it register? Or do you choose to pretend everything is fine and dandy?

Message to...

Break in

Such horribly vivid memories of work and people at work. I saw all these images of documents being edited and written,  of faces and heated discussions, of unanswered emails and frustratingly people who do not reply at all to my repeated calls for help. 

Suddenly there was a noise, the noise of my bedroom door opening. I was waken from my sleep, my heart raced. I opened my eyes. Half last five. Second time I was waken from my sleep this night. I thought someone was in the house. The cat jumped and dashed across the corridor. She looked up and looked into the distance, as if someone is there...

I am getting paranoid. 

Mounting stress

Quarter to ten at night. Just left the office and heading home on the metro. What a long day. Long but unproductive. And for some reason, so exhausted... So tired I feel like I could just faint and collapse...And it just dawned on me again: twenty days till my first upcoming exam, yet I've studied an hour or two only. How many more hours to go till I feel confident and prepared enough to sit the exam? 

I meant to study or at least do some work this past weekend. But a good friend was busy moving to his new apartment and asked me to accompany him while he looked for furniture and appliances. I couldn't decline, so for two whole days drove from place to place looking for quality and affordable furniture. It helped me in a way, as I've dreamed of owning my place for a while and am taking little steps to start looking. Seeing all these appliances and sofas reminded me in a while of how basic my own apartment is, and how little I actually have. But no matter. As my friend told me...) my hospitality and the warmth of my home (including my sweet little cat...) more than makes up for the lack of furnishings.

 Last night, I stayed at his eye place till almost midnight to assemble furniture. I enjoy doing this for friends, and did not feel tired at all. It brings me joy to know I'm helping a friend settle down in his new place, in a way contributing to a new beginning. Even my friend commented i look so happy and engaged when I'm deciphering how to assemble the different pieces together. While I sat there tightening bolts an nuts on the ikea furniture, I was reminded of the last time I did it, for my ex. Sweet memories.

These days, I have suddenly so much work at work, and it's kept me away from studying. And this weekend my ex is coming back to the city, something that always makes me so disturbed and unsettled because in truth it just pains me to know he's so close by yet I cannot touch him or behave the same way around him like we have done for so long. It pains me to think, to know he's in the same city, yet lying with another person. How easy it is for another to do that... How painful and difficult it is for me to accept and just move forward with my own life an let go of all those promises of love and a future tofehr. I doubt I can get much work done again...

I wish I could just get away from here and not face anything. Not have to face mutual friends who see everything as a joke and source of gossip... Not have to face or be exposed to being this sad former lover left alone and still wondering in the dark why or how everything went sour and died... After several weeks of healing and relative calm in my life, I finally have some sense of stability and security. I dread to have it all shattered again having to face the unpleasantries and difficult reminders of the past when the ex visiting...

Hidden feelings

They do not know, behind the smiles, the joking around, the "normalcy" of it all, I am still hurting, still so lonely and reeling from a deep sense of dislluisonment and loss... They do not realise how often at night I cry alone or wake up from a nightmare longing for comfort and consolation...

Shudders

My phone contains over two thousand and six hundred pictures. Sometimes I accidentally see them, all of them, some of which date from the summer of 2011.

Many date from 2012, the extremely tumultuous and painful, painful year of hospital visits, hospital overnights, decline, disappointment and losses. I have not had the courage to delete those pictures... It is as if deleting them were disrespectful of all the pain, the moans, the tears and the suffering I saw mum go through... As if deleting the pictures erased  a chapter of my life that I wish to forget, but am so afraid makes me less human, less loving and erased all the love and affection I gave my mum. 

But seeing the pictures cry... Mum lounging on her bed with a tube stick up her nostril... My hand clutching onto her hand, silently passing positive energy and hope and life into her body (in vain...)... My nephew making us all laugh and forget about the difficulties we were facing... The ex who visited and in that short week gave me such hope and such promising future immediately after mum passed... Painful. Simply painful...

One by one, the pictures will be erased. One by one, they will be forever gone from my phone...