Reality of loss

I wish someone could understand... really understand.

“You don’t know the first thing about loss, do you? … It isn’t something you can get over in a week’s time. It lives with you for the rest of your life. Just when you think you’ve got everything exactly where you dreamt it would be, it’s gone. Maybe a few memories can bring back the odd warm smile, but the reality is really very different. Loss is always hungry … it’s always looking to eat away at you.”

Crying

He's crying...

I'm crying...

Why?

Why does it have to be so complicated? 

Why can I not let go and just move on? 

Why do I feel so much bitterness and anger, towards myself, towards everything? 

He's crying. He hung up the phone. Who am I to call back and ask "how are you?" When I was the one to make him cry? 

And who is to know, who cares, if I'm crying again or why I cry? Death, loss, love, hope, personal sense of insecurity... Why does it matter? Why do I make such big deals out of every bring?

And what is the most ridiculous thing? Nothing matters. Nothing will matter in a month. Nothing will matter at the end of my life. Nothing matters and nobody will ever remember why two people separated by so much distance in two cities were crying on this very night...

Cruel. Painfully cruel. 

Sleepless

When you close your eyes, you do not feel, do not think, do not hurt.

When you close your eyes, you do not feel loneliness, do not long for another person's touch, do not hurt from imagining the impossible and drowning in fantasies.

When you close your eyes, you do not need to fear, you do not need to succeed, you do not  feel failure or remorse or anger or jealousy or abandonment or such tiredness that weighs so heavily on you. You do not wait and wait and wait and hold on to the dreams and promises of the past.

When you close your eyes and believe no more, the world is all quiet. All so quiet. 

Abandonment

YVR-YYC-YUL

On board the flight, one of two heading back to Montreal. It's been over three weeks away from home, and I'm looking forward to going home. It's been a long month, filled with travels to nostalgic and new places, days on end of cramming for an exam, the topic of which touched many raw nerves, and lots of soul searching...

As I leave Vancouver, I reflect on the first time this city left its charm on me. Almost five years ago, in the middle of winter in 2009. I loved the city at first visit, even though it was merely a three hour (or so) stopover. The city, the mountains, ocean... Later visits (and there have been close to eight...) introduced me to more of the city's charm and friendliness, including some of the locals. 

I cannot describe why I feel this sense of attraction toward this city ( despite the large presence of  Asians in the population which often strikes me as surreal and at times (as strange as it may sound...) annoying). Here, I feel I could begin a life away from the people back east, away from the shadows of a painful (and ever lingering...) break up with an estranged partner and away from ever distant friendships in the very small circle of friends. I cannot describe why I feel so uncomfortable, so fake among the people who for so long I felt were so close and like family to me. I cannot describe why I feel this sense of betrayal knowing that in front of you people seem so nice, but behind it they grovel and criticize you... It's toxic. It makes me feel so unwanted, and Makes me wonder why go through life with people you don't want to pretend to like spending time with. 

In Vancouver, I feel I can get away from the shadows of loss and tears, get away from jealousies and misunderstandings, and begin life anew tabula rasa. I need that, I want that. I need a new beginning, a fresh start after all that I have gone through, even if people may not understand why or how. I need a change, want a change now more am than ever, and how pertinent today is fifth anniversary of my arrival in Canada. 

Is it a case of romance syndrome, whereby you tend to think (or imagine...) everything away from where you normally live  as being better and grander? I don't know, but I would like to think my attraction to Vancouver and BC goes deeper than that... At least I hope so.  I really hope so. Is it me trying to run away, run away from things and people I would rather not face? 

I cannot wait to begin the process of finding my footing and moving and getting away. 

Disturbance...

Alone

I was petrified. There were sounds coming from behind my closed bedroom door. I got up and sat in my bed. In the dark, I felt around my bed. It was as if I was looking for someone, but there was no one to be found. 

I cried out. Quietly at first. Then, louder, I  called out someone's name. There was no reply. I started to scream, shrieking from fear. It was so petrifying and I longed for someone to come protect me from harm. But there was no one. No one... 

Loss

 "where's that year gone?"

"Slowly..."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Nothing, that's what makes it so hard..."

Kingdom

“How would I know?”

“When you realise you couldn’t live without him. When you know that they're the other half of you that’s always been missing. And the moment you’re not with them, your whole life empties…”

 

He struck my face I was stunned by move. For too long, nobody has ever hit me or abused me. The only exception was my brother. And here he was again, slapping me across the face..

"How can you hit me?! HOW?! HOW CAN YOU HIT ME?!" I screamed, "You hit me and tortured me as a child, and now you hit me again?!" I was distraught and on the verge of breakdown. My body was burning with heat, passion and anger. "Not even my mother hit me!"

I woke up crying, and so extremely tired, even more so than befoe I slept...

Void

I sat some distance away from friends I was with. I needed a few moments alone. Alone with my thoughts, moments to shut away the laughs and smiles and to recollect myself and events of the past five years. 

It's five years to the day since I arrived in Canada. Such a foreign country it was back then, so vast, so unexplored... And now? There's so much more to discover... So much more. So much more to see...

I looked into the horizon , at the sun about to set over the pacific. I looked back at my friends who sat some distance away. They have been two people who enriched my life in the past five years in different ways. I smiled at them and thanked them silently... They looked and appeared to be so far away. 

I looked again at the horizon, at the vast and endless horizon. Despite the feelings of gratitude having been in this country for so long, I felt this sudden pang of loneliness and insecurity. What am I doing now, five years on? What have I done in five years? Did it matter at all? How have I changed the world or the lives of those around me? 

My thoughts could not help it but drift to mum and dad, whose remains now lay across the Pacific... If they could see me now... If they could see their child now, sitting alone on a log on a beach watch ing the sun set, temporarily lost in thought, perpetually lost in life and searching for a sense of direction and belonging... What disgrace!

I closed my eyes and breathed in heavily. I could smell the ocean, hear the gentle waves as they broke on the shoreline. I  could not really fight it. That urge to speak to my parents, that urge to speak my mind, unleash the thoughts that I really cannot tell anyone because nobody can really ever understand or care to understand. I closed my eyes and imagined the feel of the  touch of someone who can show me again what love is, and what it is to love and be loved in return... Feelings i've longed for since a child... Feelings I've longed for since those terrible dark days of abuse and being demeaned and treated like I am not worth anything. The feelings made my skin crawl. Seagulls cried close to me. 

I missed the way mum used to stroke the top of my head, the way dad used to put his hand behind my back when he walked next to me... How comforting those little gestures were.  I miss the way someone could hug me and make me so safe and so very comforted and soothed inside. How I have hardened, it feels like, over the past year, and feel like I have become so misunderstood. How I have stopped sharing, stopped talking, stopped feeling comfortable enough to talk and share. Why talk or share when personal feelings are easily dismissed or unrecognised? 

The sun was fading and losing its warmth. I breathed deep, and clenched the sand I grabbed in my hand. 

felt so aged, and so very, very tired and tested. I missed the care and depth of family ties, longed for a lover's touch, and real passion and intimacy. The setting sun made that feeling of isolation loneliness, that longing for company, for belonging, for family, even stronger. 

Five years in Canada. I have so much, so much. how ungrateful i must sound like, how whiny and so unappreciative of all that I have, for I have it so easy not to have to worry too much about food or shelter or clothing or finances. But I feel so empty inside.  I feel so very empty inside. 

The void hurts and is frustrated and angry, unpredictable and impatient. it is breaking me little by little.  

I look forward to being lifted up and energised again... 

Nephew's birthday...

It was beautiful to Skype with my little nephew on his second birthday. He's grown so much, become such a beautiful  boy with such a clever mischievous air surrounding him. 

He was shy at first, and clung closely to his mother. Occasionally he looked into the screen at this talking stranger who kept on calling him. He looked curious, he seemed to want to stay around and play, but he looked shy. Minutes later, he warmed up a bit, little by little, and he started to place his little wooden cars in front of the screen, as if inviting me to play with him. Sweet... Touching... Made me smile. And I needed a reason to really smile.

In his eyes and features were clear traces of his dad... In his movements, in the way he walked and babbled, I saw memories of his grandma... How this little being brought so much joy and innocence into our lives! How my nephew made the most difficult months and year of mum's life, and perhaps my life to date, so much more bearable by just being around and being the beautiful joy and boy he is... So many times at the hospital, whenever he came to visit, I silently thanked him for giving mum a reason to live just that much longer... How she smiled and pushed herself through physio and to regain her mobility again after her surgery... How she closed her eyes and smiled whenever he came to have lunch with her at the hospice ("death ward"...) even as her breathing and will to live became so laboured... 

Oh, little J., what a blessing you have been, and how much you have given us...