Email from the ex

Email from the ex

On my birthday, he wrote to me. Wishing me much peace and happiness, telling me how much he cares and wishes to be there for me.

Later in the afternoon, as I was sitting alone on the beach, he caught me on my phone. We videocammed, he played a birthday song with singing and dancing squirrels. He said happy birthday to me many many times. I was indifferent. This birthday is so meaningless. I said I wished someone were by my side to share it. I wished someone were here to hold my hand and show me how much they care.

My friend seemed to be making so much effort to reach me, to try to make me smile. I was not sure what to think. Here was someone who left me for someone else, who is still with someone else and continues to tell me how much he cares about and loves me.

 Perhaps that is all I will ever receive from him: love in this mysterious way that only he can understand, that is limited seemingly in words and repeated attempts to reach me and make me happy. Nothing more, nothing less, despite my wishes that we can one day be that strong, loving dynamic duo we once were and thought we would be for a long, long time to come...

Three more nights

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Lying down to sleep, the first of three last nights here in mum's home. It's quiet outside, but a few hundred kilometers to the south, Tembin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Tembin_(2012)
Is unleashing chaos and destruction for the second time as it returns to pummel the island hard. I am hugging a large teddy, one my Ex gave me some time ago. The teddy has been with mum for over two years, and accompanied her all the way till the end of her life. Soon, the soft and lovable bear in my embrace, who kept me company and kept the loneliness at bay for so many nights and comforted me to sleep, will make his way out of my life again, and accompany my nephew back to Europe.

It is unusually quiet, and my mind is a haze. A haze. Another crippling spell of fatigue has overcome me, and I feel such heavy dizziness and a strange mixture of emotions I cannot express, I cannot capture...

Can hurt be so painful that you become numb? Can pain be so powerful that you do not feel anything at all? I am out of words, am too tired and too exhausted to properly reflect on all that has happened here over the past few weeks, let alone to write something worth of being written and read or remotely touching to mark the end of a long, long stay...

I will fall asleep, wake up, and a new day will have already begun. Far too quickly, far too quickly.

Visit

My ex called to say he booked his ticket to come visit. This time two days from now, he will be here, most likely lying next to me. That is wonderful, and I feel I need someone close I could talk to.

We had a tense discussion about when is the best time to visit. I preferred him to arrive just before the funeral, which is next Friday, but he says if he does that, he can stay a maximum of four days. He wasn't "comfortable" to fly so long and fly so far to stay that short a time. Best for him is to come now, and leave right after the funeral. And that's what he's doing.

I appreciate him coming all this way for me, and I know with his work schedule he's hemmed in for time. but I have some little reservations about visiting at this time. Aside from the confusion and things unsaid between us, I still feel confused why he would come all this way to see me and be with me. What are we to one another? I guess I just want to know, need to know, before I can fully open myself up to him again, like I used to do so uninhibitedly. And I'm afraid to just open myself up and make myself vulnerable and delude myself there is something there between us more than just friends, when he is still caught in a tangled love affair that has not yet ended.

Other than this, I feel so unprepared for the funeral for a number of reasons. I really have no idea what will be happening next week in the run up to the funeral itself. And I haven't even really mourned or let mum's passing affect me too much. I have difficulty with the fact I've not even cried at all. And when I worship mum and offer her food, I feel I do it so hastily and half-heartfelt. I've not even had the opportunity or time to make her a proper meal, which I did for dad every day, twice a day, back when he passed away... It is as if mum's death doesnt bother me at all. And that's disturbing...

I think need the time to really cry, really mourn, and I feel (fear?) my ex's visit might just delay that expression of emotions (or maybe will do the exact opposite?). I know when he is around I will really want to entertain him, and make him feel welcome, but I'm afraid I won't be able to do that properly if I'm busy attending to arrangements and dealing with things as they happen...

Or maybe as a friend said to me, just let him come to the funeral. The rest can be the rest...

Rough wake up

I slept barely for three hours last night. I was hungry suddenly and got up to eat something. Brother too could not sleep, and we think it's related to the fact that Incense is constantly burning in a small space, making our throats dry and head ache. So we ended up watching part of the eufa finals.

I had another reason why I could not sleep, and so I got it off my chest and wrote to my ex. My mind has been thinking of him a lot, but I do not at all feel any liberty to call him after how things were suddenly left hanging between us. So I found myself in these past few weeks, perhaps the most emotionally challenging few weeks, restraining myself from calling him. And I found myself questioning the use of him being present at the funeral. Why ask someone to come all the way here, half way around the world, when for all I know he is still attached to someone else and in a relationship? I just don't want to be confused and having to restrain myself when I see him here, because I know I will throw myself at him, perhaps even pour my heart and tears out on him. And I can't do that, am not comfortable doing that, if he himself has unresolved issues.

I know, the situation with my ex seems so trivial to whom I have just lost and what depths of emotions I still need to work through. But I can't explain why: my mum's passing and the uncertainties with my ex are interrelated, and both have been constraining my ability to move on and move forward in life. Both issues, both dealing with my love and care for two diffident and very important people in my life, touch my heart to the core. One issue is resolved, and I feel more liberated after a beautiful farewell to mum. Now I want to resolve the other issue, however way, so I can start my life afresh and free from the past...

Only after writing an email did I manage to fall asleep. But even sleep was broken and not deep. I woke up with a terrible headache, and terrible sores. But a new day begins, and I must get mum ready to wash herself and eat, and get ready for perhaps more mourners who will drop by throughout the day...

Nightwatch

Sitting by mum's bedside. Almost midnight. She's been restless and agitated for over four hours. Even the evening nurse said she's never seen mum like this.

Mum has calmed down a little, but still not calm enough to fall asleep. She'd close her eyes only temporarily, and then open them again as if something is disturbing her sleep and keeping her awake purposely. I ask her what, but she doesn't respond and just looks at me and turns away...

In the background is soft meditation music mixed with the occasional mediation chant (Metta sutra... It's soothing and one of mum's favourite) . On the tv screen hanging on the wall in front of her bed, I've got slideshow of pictures displaying. Pictures of landscapes, train rides we've been on, of people and places in our memories and on our minds.

"Relax, relax..." I whisper to her, "Look at the pictures, the beautiful pictures and try to sleep..." I stroke her arm, rub her legs, gently stroke her forehead (...maybe I should sing to her instead?) But nothing seems to calm her down or put her to sleep.

The nurse just came in to give her a sedative, in addition to the extra dose of morphine that was administered around an hour ago.

Mum is still restless, still fighting something that's bothering her, either her body or mind...

but I don't know what.

Confusion

It is scary... to be told, in different ways, how much I mean to someone's life. Scary, because it may just be a fantasy. Scary, because it may be words being said because the person saying it believes those are things I want to hear.

My ex has been trying hard to reach me, but I do not respond much. He helped a mutual friend fly here to visit me, and I also heard that he is planning to send another friend to see me, this time all the way from Canada. I don't know what my ex is doing, why he is going through so much trouble sending people to check up on me. It's scary, because previously I thought I could talk to these mutual friends, but now I cannot any more. All my friends are also his friends, and now I feel there is no one I can turn to or talk to without news of me reaching my ex. For a while I thought I could contact a few people I could still trust, but now it feels like everything I say is being reported back to my ex...

Why do I not want my ex to hear from me? Because he does not need to be constantly thinking about me or worrying about how I am doing. Because he confuses me, and he confuses other people by his behaviour. As far as I know, he is in a relationship, and yet he continues to write me telling me how much he misses me, how he is counting the weeks without seeing me... and last time he wrote a series of emails professing his deep love for me.

What I simply cannot understand is why he is still thinking of me so much. I asked him that on the phone about two weeks ago. "Let go of me! Forget me!" I told him. That's what he wanted to do, and he has entered into a relationship perhaps with that purpose in mind. Because why else would any one enter a relationship if you have not forgotten the ex? Why else would you even cause all that hurt and give another person false expectations and heart-break if you know deep down inside you cannot let go of some one in the past? Why would any one enter a new relationship with so many unresolved feelings? Why would you even be in a relationship and still try so hard to reach the ex and keep on sending the ex gifts? It's bizzare, and dishonest. I really wonder how much my ex's new boyfriend knows what he is doing...

These are things that baffle me, and also baffle our mutual friends of my ex and me, who are equally confused and stunned by my ex's behaviour. Not that I have been talking behind his back, but just from what I hear, and what little I know of developments since I left Canada three months ago, it seems like once I was gone, he began to introduce his new boyfriend to everyone that I know. As if to replace me, as if to say "the old one is gone, here's the new one"! Very insensitive and selfish behaviour, as friends have said to me.

I cannot judge what my ex is doing or is trying to do. Only he can explain what he is up to, for he is the one who has to live with a divided heart and having to placate the feelings of two people in his life. As far as I am concerned, I am out of his life, I have removed myself and restricted myself from being drawn back into his life so that he can move on, so that he can go and be happy with his new found love. That is the reason why I do not wish to have much contact with him, as much as it pains me, as difficult as it is for me. That is the reason I am scared and baffled by his advances and his continuous attempts to reach me and connect with me.

Because I am only a distraction to him, only someone in the way of him starting a relationship with someone new. He should not be looking back and longing for what he has lost. He cannot have everything, cannot want to have everything, because in the end he will end up with nothing.

Disturbed by the past

Mum and I were both so very tired when we got home late in the afternoon. She went to her bed immediately, and I wanted to lie down too for a few moments.

Then  the phone rang, and I picked up quickly, for it was a number I associate most with my brother calling from skype. It was not my brother. It was my ex.

I was distant on the phone, cold, perhaps even rude. I initially did not want to talk much, and just let the conversation come to an end. I really was in no mood to talk, and in least of a mood to talk about mum's ordeal and my feelings. But for some time I have been meaning to talk to him, to hopefully get to the bottom of this impasse between us, and the confusion and disturbed thoughts I have been having since I read an email he wrote me declaring his love for me.

I am just so very confused what it is he wants... He has a relationship, as far as I can tell. He told me to move on and go see people the day I left. And then suddenly, days after my birthday he tells in a series of emails me about regrets he has, about how he has come to realise what I mean to him in his life. I really don't know what to do with that...

Is he trying to get close to my heart, because I have been distancing myself from him these two (almost three) months I have been away and minimised all contact with him? Is he just trying to be a friend, or is he trying to see if I will be moved to get back together again?  And do I just let him into my life again, after seeing him tell me time and time again, after seeing him time and time again go after someone else?  Do I let him back in, when for the past year and a half I have been struggling so painfully hard trying to balance my emotions and energies between being there for my mum and maintaining something, whatever it is, with an ex who has touched my life like no other before?

I kept on telling him how I have been so torn by the deterioration of my relationship with him and by the deterioration of my mum's condition. Really, in all my life, I have never had to fight on two "fronts", and to fight to try to salvage, or at least soothe two fundamental aspects that are so core to my life and wellbeing. You know what it has done to me? Really torn me and my mind to shreds... really caused me so many disturbed dreams and waking moments...

In my ex's latest message to me, he says he wants to come all the way here to see me. Fly half way around the world to see me. I am touched, but at the same time I am also very wary... What is he trying to prove? That he can be a friend and not feel in any way conflicted by being there for me, and being in a relationship with someone else? Or is he trying to absolve his own feelings of guilt for not being able to be there for me because of the circumstances we find ourselves in? Is he coming to see me to tell me in person "Let's start all over again!"? How I dream and imagine that last possibility being true; how I long for perhaps some ending to the confused and painful breakup we have had to endure!
But that is just a fantasy, just an imagination... The stuff of movies, the stuff of fairytales perhaps!



But I don't know what he wants... I told him in several emails ever since I last saw him to go and be happy. I told him I have no ill feelings toward him, that I do no lament anything we ever had and lost. I told him to live with no regrets and not to dwell over the past, because I thank him dearly for all he has ever done for me and is still trying to do for me... But he just is not able to let go of me. He just does not seem able to "resolve me", as he once told me he wanted to do...

What is it about me that he cares about so much? What is it about me that he loves so much? I have hurt him in the past, I stood in his way of love. He came out of a long term relationship hoping to be with me. He interrupted a potential relationship to be with me (though that was shortlived, and he is now back with that guy again...).  What is it that he sees in me or needs so badly from me that he cannot get from anyone else? Why me of all people? Why can't he forget me and let go of me?

I simply do not understand, and am frankly very scared... I am afraid of being drawn into his declaration of his love, afraid that it may just be "sweet talk" to woo me, and that some time down the line, he will grow tired of me and tell me he wants someone else.

I am so afraid of his feelings, such strong feelings of care and love it seems, because how true are they, how true can they be when he was the one who seemed for several months so eager to jump into a relationship with someone else? How true can feelings be for someone when you can seemingly easily move onto another relationship? Am I, have I, just an option for him?

Or did my ex realise come to a realisation, a deep, deep realisation after much time alone (or at least away from me) that I am "the one" (if there is such a thing...) in his life?

I don't know. I simply do not know what he is thinking or "playing at", for frankly after the long drawn out breakup between us, after he told me things like how much he cares and loves me, and yet goes and spend more and more time with another, I have difficulty in trusting him...

However much I am moved by his declaration of love for me, however much I am in some ways tempted to perhaps see what future we may still have together, I am so afraid of getting hurt again and again by him. Afraid that he is now trying to get close to me so that he can have his relationship, and have whatever benefits he can get from me...

Is it too self-focused to feel this way, to even think this way? I am in such a vulnerable, vulnerable state of mind right now, I just cannot think clearly. And my ex's attempt to reach me, to be there for me scares me, and I don't know how to accept or receive it. How do I accept his care and get close to him and not feel hurt? How do I accept his care and not perpetually feel belittled and reduced to being someone "on the side", as I have been feeling for a long time now as my ex and his romance matured?

I really don't know what he wants, what he is trying to do to me. I just hope he is not playing games with me or my heart... I know, it's terrible to even think this way, or to think he can do that. But really, at this stage in my life, I am just so desperate to get love and assurance, desperate to find comfort and familiarity again that I am afraid my judgment and feelings may be confused and clouded...

Really, I am now more confused and more conflicted than before when I was not taking his calls and avoiding direct contact with him...

Decision, decision

What to do? I came home from an empty run to the consular affairs bureau, disheartened having done nothing to change my length of (legal) stay in the country. Of course I could always just overstay, and pay a fine upon leaving, but that may leave a mark on my records and complicate thing if whenever I come back to taiwan in the future.

What to do? Should I go or should I stay? Can I just leave in two weeks' time and leave with a mind at ease? I have options, and I must choose.

I can leave the country and come back in so I have three more months. I can go back to Canada and come back within a week or two, and stay here for as long as it takes. Or I can return to Canada and return to "pick up" my mum towards the end of May and take her home with me to attend my graduation. These are the options.

I'm just indecisive and scared of making a "wrong" decision, especially with mum's condition still being so unstable at the moment. I really can't decide and rest well, and feel really agitated by the uncertainties of the days ahead... Am I over-complicating and over-thinking things?

Again I hear voices telling me "Stay with your mum, do your duty as a child! Come back here and find a job here!" They mean well, I know, but to the outside it seems like it's the easiest thing to do to just return here and find a job. Doing what? Working with whom? What about working here without a visa? And my whole life, everything I've ever built up in Canada? Abandon that all, put everything on hold and come back to be with mother?

I can do that. Sure I can do that. It has crossed my mind before, for realistically there is nothing in Canada that is keeping me there. Nothing, no one, at all. I really have no attachment whatsoever to that place right now, and my major concern in life is my mum's ailing health.

But am I ready to put everything on hold and be with my mum? I am afraid that one day, I will grow so bitter and angry after everything is over. Old and bitter that I have given my youth and precious years in return for what? Sure, in the culture of my roots, it is a great honour to be able to take care of your parent when they are sick and old, and that is what I have been doing, or trying to do over the past few years by flying back and forth to be with mum during crucial periods of her treatment. But at what point do you say to yourself that you have to live your own life, make plans for your own future, even if in the process you are not fully able to be there for your parent?

I have read about people's lives falling apart once the person they have been taking care of, the person whose illness and eventual demise has overtaken everything in their own lives, has passed away. A friend of mine told me that of her sister, who gave up her studies just to take care of their mother. And in the end, after the mother passed away, the sister was devastated, and her future prospects much delayed, if not ruined. And I am scared of that... so scared that if I should decide to return here to be with my mum, I will grow bitter and angry at her, at the entire situation, at myself for years "lost". What mum needs right now is compassion, kindness and good quality care. Something I know with time, I am unable to provide for her, especially in the long run. 

That whole hopeless episode completely forgetting about the date of my return ticket... It again reminds me how I can easily become absorbed in the life of another and forget my own life and my own plans. I can remember all of mum's hospital appointment dates and times, I can (almost completely) recall by heart her treatments and prescribed meds, but I can't even bother recalling my own important date, and therefore a completely good ticket has gone to waste! I really need to pull my act together, get a grip of my own life and live my life instead of always prioritising the life and happenings of other people! Not that I should be selfish and centre everything on me, but I really need to start planning and living my own life better, instead of constantly orbiting around other people's lives...

Dreaming of the ex

About two weeks ago, just after my ex called me on my birthday, he wrote me a series of emails. As I haven't checked my mail for such a long time, I only realised yesterday that he wrote declaring his true feelings for me, telling me how much he loves me, thinks of me, and how he always thought we are meant to be together...

It was all very touching, and I was moved, even drawn to the idea that perhaps we might have a future together. After all, the two months or so of no/ very little communication made him realise how much I really matter in his life, and he says he lives with a heavy burden of regret now he realises he loves me, has always loved me, and those feelings overshadow everything else...

I was touched, and my over-imaginative mind, which likes to dream and fantasise and paint beautiful pictures of "what may be" started imagining us back together again.. How beautiful that would be! Te chance to reconnect, to really discover what we mean to one another, a chance at a new future free from obstacles and clear of any doubts we have ever had about us being together.

I dreamed last night. My ex came to see me, and I was of course overwhelmed. We laughed and became very intimate very quickly, we connected and had fun like we have always managed to before... The kind of silly fun that only we seem able to have when we are together. At night, I proposed to go to a night market, he said he'd follow soon, and told me to go ahead. I waited and waited and looked out for him in the crowd. But he didn't show up. An hour or two passed, he still didn't show up.

Does he know where I am? I wrote him a text message, but there was no reply. Then my suspicion got the better of me. He is sneaking away to be on the phone, to call his "friend". My suspicion reminded me of what had happened so often in the past... He tells me one thing, says how much he cares about me and loves me, and yet he cannot let go of his friend.

How disappointed I was... What a fool I felt like realising I am perhaps again falling for my ex's sweet-talk, when all he wanted is to keep me as an option while he explored which person was better for his own sake. My intuition and suspicions are like my six sense... Perhaps I am too sensitive, overly sensitive, overly suspicious, but ever since our breakup last year in May, I have just become increasingly distrustful of my ex and do not take for granted what he tells me...

It was just a dream, but it tells me so much! How do I trust him again, if he genuinely feels remorse and regret at letting perhaps the best thing in his life go (or "giving it away" as he put it)? I have been so hurt by his behaviour and his words, especially those on the day of my departure when I last saw him in December, I am not sure what it will take to mend my broken hurt and shattered trust... But then again, the prospect of us getting back together, the possibility of starting fresh, tabula rasa with someone you already feel so much for, know so much about, seems like a beautiful, dream-like fantasy come true! Perhaps the events in our lives since our physical separation did manage to bring us closer together than ever before, did make us realise how much we mean to one another...

I just don't know, and am worried about committing again, because I was so hurt by allowing myself to commit and become so vulnerable, so dependent on one person. That has never happened, and it only happened with him, because he can touch me so, he can really comfort me so... Yet also hurt me so...