Parents

I saw my parents together again...

They came to visit me together, just the way they would visit me when I was living in Europe by myself through much of my teenage years. 

It was so exciting to see them after such a long time, so happy to be reunited with family again. But of course they were exhausted from the jetlag, so they napped...

I walked around cautiously around the house, afraid to wake them. I watched them sleep, and it was such a beautiful sight seeing them lie there peacefully... 

Before, every Saturday I went to study mandarin, and whenever my parents were around they would want to go with me. In the dream, I woke them up in time to go. I went to wake mum first, then dad...

I watched them slowly stir from their sleep. 

I cried.

I miss them both so terribly. 

So terribly.

The only people in life who ever really understood me, who cared for me and loved me unconditionally... They only appear in my dreams at night now, and though they are unable to say anything to me, they somehow are perhaps trying to remind me that I am loved, and that I am cared about from afar...

I don't know how long I can go on hurting and plagued by dreams and longing like this. I don't know...

I saw mum again, for the n-th time in the past month or so. It drains me so to see her every time, it drains me to see her so often... 

It was a darkened room, she was there in one corner watching tv. (In another corner , strangely was my ex.) 

I could see she was in great discomfort. So I offered to massage her. She leaned against the bed, and I massaged her back. She sighed and groaned in greatly relief. So much pain she seemed to be in, pain that melted away under my touch and massage... 

Another scene... Crowded corridor at the hospital (the hospital where she (and dad...) stayed in and died in. We were waiting for something. There were so many, many people all waiting. I was restless and impatient, especially as there was no place to sit for mum and I could see standing so long caused her great pain... I stroked her back and massaged her. I placed my hands against her, hoping, as I used to do, that the pain would somehow miraculously pass from her body into mine... There was a lot of commotion and noise, someone was wheeled out of the operating room, surrounded by doctors, nurses and so many veiled women. Brother appeared with two three female friends of his and he stood by mum and my side...

12 September

Already half of September almost gone. Over three quarters of the year already gone by. Early autumn storms and heavy rains are settling in. Te humidity is unbearable and oppressive. 

I don't know why my sleep has been so disturbed, why my mind has been so agitated and uneasy. It's been going on for weeks now. I forget when I managed to sleep well, when I didn't feel tired or this gnawing sense of insecurity and unhappiness deep down. There's a great discontent brewing inside, a great deal of struggle trying to find purpose and sense of belonging in the place I am now and the people I am surrounded by. 

Again I find myself going into "splendid isolation" mode, in which I do not wish to talk to anyone and have so little desire to be around anyone. That triggered a compliant from someone (actually the ex...) who wondered out loud whether we would ever speak if he didn't call me every night. We probably wouldn't. If only he understood why. If only he knew and understood how deeply I am still affected by the fact I have no one I can trust, no one I can lean on, no one I can confide in in life. This comes only when you lose everyone and everything of significance in your life. And who among the people I know has really gone through that? Who? Who??

I am not bitter or jealous of others. I just now am so tired of trying to make people understand or see. If they cannot understand or see, or perhaps do not care to understand and see, after so long how or why I am still so tired and so "shell shocked", then frankly I do not need such people in my life. Is it a harsh attitude? Is it digging my own early grave filled with loneliness and isolation? No. At least I don't think so. I am just tired. Tired of trying to make the world and people understand, tired of trying to fit in and smile and play the happy fool. Tired of role playing, tired of the petty  gossip and  hypocrisy people play at the office and in the circle of friends I have. 

 I am world-wary, life-wary... in a way that is shocking and scary because it seems to me to matter so little whether I am alive. It shows in the willful self neglect I am subjecting myself to. It shows in the mess my house is in, and how after almost two weeks since my last trip, I still have not unpacked my bags. It shows in the bad food I eat to sustain my body and life. I shows in the way I choose to stay out of the way and quiet. 

All I know how to react is to remain silent. All I know how to interact with others is to say nothing, to pretend as if nothing is wrong, as if all if fine. The less I say, the less I am exposed and vulnerable, the less I need to explain myself or justify why I behave the way I do. 

I want to be left alone. 

Yet at the same time I am so lonely and yearn for human contact, company and understanding it aches inside so much. 

Loss and changed me so. 

Losing my parents have left me so torn and bitter, has thrown me into a depths of depression and pain I cannot climb out of. 

I once had hope, I once dreamed of better days ahead, I once was promised better days ahead. 

But now I am just tired. Tired and wary of the world and it's people. Tired and so empty of love and joy and appreciation. 

It scares me. It scares me greatly I have become this way. It scares me greatly I can be walking in the street and feel like a ghost, and feel so detached I have on several occasions had close brushes with accidents or even death. 

So tired and so low on energy and will...

The dizziness of my head is driving me insane, the restlessness is frustratingly me greatly.

Just want to curl up and sleep, sleep, sleep. Might as well be dead feeling and being like this.

What's gotten into me...? 

No no energy to talk and no will to talk at all about anything to anyone

Butlering through history

It's easy to dismiss (Lee Daniels') The Butler as just another movie about the plight and oppression of blacks in US history. I certainly did so and hesitated to watch it for a while. But the movie really does go beyond that to weave in the greatest identity struggle the US faced within itself with the story of the son of a cotton picker turned "housenigger", whose life eventually leads him to serve a succession of presidents at the White House.

The mix of seasoned actors really brought alive the story. What is a butler but a servant with no voice, who hears nothing, who sees nothing and who is invisible? Yet, in the movie, the butler is a potent metaphor of subservience and generations of those who have gone before him. The black butler's skin colour is a constant reminder of the inequality of status and hierarchy he as a servant is born into and subject to from birth to (almost) when he grows grey and infirm.

There were several scenes that moved me to tears. Scenes depicting the cruelty of southern whites who so violently and viciously discriminated, attacked and even killed blacks because they were blacks. Scenes of a father's struggle to accept his rebellious son and eventual recognition that the son's rebellion is standing up for the cause of racial equality that he himself have deliberately been deaf and blind to, just as he must be deaf and blind to the politicking and discussions at the White House. It is a movie that reconciles, connects and weaves through the history of a black man and the the history of black people in modern day US, with enlightening and at times light anecdotes of events, characters and going-ons of various presidential administrations.
 
It's ironic to watch this movie, which ended with images of the first black president, Obama, and his famous "HOPE" posters. In the real world, right now, he and his merry men are beating the drums of war vis-a-vis Syria (why only after 100,000 civilian deaths in the unfolding tragedy in Syria did the US president suddenly threaten military action is beyond credibility...).

Monday Blues

I kept hearing voices, seeing images, and my sleep was so disturbed and cut short. 

Mum's voice. The Ex's voice. Mum's face. Images of familair places.

Waking up, I felt so tired, so drained and dragged myself to work.

Once I reached the office, I closed the door and tried to focus. I could not. The dizziness and fatigue made me so unproductive. I kept seeing images, and memories came back to me out of the blue. I could not shut them out...

It was no the way home, on the metro that I struggled hard to contain myself... Again, this gnawing sense of loneliness, this terribly draining sense of abandonment and detachment from the world and everyone... 

No, it is not over...

No, I am not over things as people like to presume and imagine. Even today, someone at work said I look "better" nowadays. If only they know how I feel inside, if only they knew how terribly lonely I feel, and how much I long for real human contact and intimacy...

 A mother and  her child sat close by. She put her arms around her child, smiled and kissed the child's forehead. In her eyes, the pride of seeing such a beautiful being, in her eyes love and affection and joy...

In my eyes, when I turned away and stayed out the window of the moving metro, were tears.