Eve of exam...

I feel so miserable, really miserable and like I could cry. Less than twelve hours before the exam, and there is still so much I feel I have not covered yet. I feel so distracted, so unfocused, and thoughts and images of one particular person, random events of the past keep on coming to disturb and distract me...

I hate to sound so negative, hate to ramble on and complain about my mental state of mind. But seriously, I really have never felt this way before, never in my whole life. Feeling like I'm such a failure and like I already failed before even taking the exam.  The depression is serious, and with it the stress and anxiety and lack of confidence is overwhelming and disabling.  I feel like breaking down, terribly breaking down.

The phone's been put away much of today so I am not disturbed.  I've tried everything to calm my agitated state of mind, yet still my head is spinning and so disturbed!  What's wrong with me? What's so fundamentally gnawing at my mind, at my calm and at my sanity that I feel like I am about to burst out in tears?

Is this all a test? Test to see how much more I can take after losing all the people who are dear to me, after having to part with all that matters in my life? Is it all a test to see  how much more I can cry, how much more I can stand it before I begin to tear at my hair or cut myself from desperation and feeling like I'm pushed to the limit? More and more, scary thoughts flash across my mind. In the end, what does it matter? Who would cry for me or miss me?

I need some kind of support, some kind of kindness and offer of encouragement. A hug, a kind word, a human touch of reassurance. In the past, I could call mum and though she couldn't do or say much, she could at least with her motherly voice and her encouragements make me feel like I'm doing something, feel like I am capable of something.

But I'm all on my own now. And that's scary. Extremely scary and demotivating, and perhaps a root cause of why I feel like I cannot study, cannot focus...

Struggle

Past eleven at night, alone at the office still, trying to study. But it is such a struggle. I read, and I forget. I lack motivation, lack interest, and most of all, lack the concentration to focus on what I am doing. My mind is such a mess, scattered like leaves at the end of Autumn all over the place, and my heart feels like it is balancing  on the edge of breaking down and crying. Crying because I feel so weak, so vulnerable... (I really should stop listening to the radio and to all these songs that mean so much to me...)

It is such a struggle, such a painful struggle to ground myself, to find joy in anything. Such a struggle alone to find meaning or purpose in what I am doing (what AM I doing...?) and not feel like I am useless and wasting my breath and life.

Something has to change. Dramatically. I cannot go on feeling ugly and negative. I cannot go on like this indefinitely.
For I am killing myself, killing my own soul and every single dream and ambition I have ever held...

And it aches to imagine my parents watching over me and seeing me in this completely depressed and unproductive state of being... I imagine they must weep seeing me like this, and yet being unable to hold me, encourage me or show me love however much they would want to...

Disturbed sleep

Three nights in a row my sleep is so disturbed...

I close my eyes and try to rest my tired body and exhausted mind, and yet i wake up after an hour or two disturbed by dreams and thoughts and images... Random images and thoughts that don't make any sense at all, but that keep me from sleeping, properly sleeping.

So tired, so tormented.

I need to get out of here. I need to free my mind and thoughts.

People problems

I wanted to spend the first weekiversary of mum's passing quietly and reflect on what happened...

But worldly affairs kept me occupied, and that moment, 20.05, came and went, never to return again.  Mum passed away, moved on to a world away from this one that is full of issues and conflicts, full of problems created by people and misunderstandings. I do not know what is in the world beyond, but really often I wonder why if the world is already so full of discontents and imperfections, people must still somehow find a way to create even more problems.

Just spent over ten minutes on the phone with the priest who is supposed to take care of mum's funeral arrangements and make sure her transition from this world to the next takes place as smoothly as possible. This morning he called to say he quit, because of disagreements with my uncle (mum's second brother). "A personality problem," the priest said, and explained everything comes down to respect, mutual respect. I don't know what clash of personality has taken place, all I know is that the priest and my uncle were on the phone for over an hour last night.

Brother is close to tears now that the priest quit. "All I want is to make sure everything goes smoothly, and that mum can go peacefully..." After spending so long on the phone with the priest, I had to comfort him, reassure him that even if he quits, it does not really matter.

"It is all just rituals and  rites. And so if not everything is perfectly followed according to how it should be done?" I told him. In my mind, what matters most is our intentions and our actions. And I believe that my brother and I have done everything we possibly could to be with mum and to give her a beautiful end to a life well lived. Just because there are certain rites and rituals that are not followed properly and conducted under the guidance of a priest trained in the 'invisible arts', does that mean that mum's spirit will suffer and that she will forever be condemned to a life of pain and suffering in the hereafter?

I believe in karma, not mysticism and rituals thought up by people. If we do good, we put good energy into the universe, and we will receive good energy in return. And I believe mum has been a good person, and that she has done a lot of good in her life. Even the monk in the mountains said so, for why else would she be surrounded by so many loved ones and have so much good fortune throughout her life, and especially at the end of it?

 Problems are created, and are never there in the physical sense. They are mental states, just like emotions and feelings are. And they are created by people.

If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it's not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.
Dalai Lama

Sleeplessness

I was just about to fall asleep after a long struggle to fall asleep. Somehow my body feels so tired and sore and so much longs to sleep, but my mind is agitated, disrupted and not at ease.

I was just about to drift away and fall asleep when suddenly I felt something shake me awake. My body shivered and I felt my muscles twitch, and a sudden rise of goosebumps.

Something, or someone, shook me awake, and I'm awake again.

Leaving

We can have fun, we can enjoy each others company, we can lie next to one another, and yet there is always one thing between us. My ex is torn and conflicted.

The fragility of our 'relationship' was again unveiled last night, on the eve of my departure, when after a nice evening out, we came home and he said he needed to make a phone call. I went to take a shower. When I came out of the shower, he sat there and had this anxious look on his face.

I can imagine how he must be feeling. Having to pretend, having to perhaps lie and hide on the phone to his boyfriend, and having to face me. The awkwardness was not just felt by me. He felt it too.

He asked me what I was thinking. And i told him it's not nice to have a good few days and suddenly he has to go off and call. It just feels all too much like three years ago, when he was interested in me, interested in starting something with me, and yet still cannot get the courage to break it off with his ex.

He turned around and told me to take some responsibility. I should have foreseen this, I should have known how difficult it is for him to be spending time with me while he is still officially with someone else.

I take responsibility for visiting him, for lying next to him, for sleeping with him. But I will not take responsibility for the situation he is in. He knew already back at the end of February how he feels, truly feels, about me. He declared his feelings for me, he said he did not have want he wanted or needed. I distanced myself from him purposely to give him time and space to deal with whatever he needs to deal with, but it was not enough apparently. He said it was unfair of me to just suddenly drop a postcard and "summon" him to meet at a place and at a time (I thought otherwise... I thought it was romantic and so very special...) He said it's unfair of me to ignore him for so long and not to say explicitly what I want. But is it not clear what i want when the last two weekends I have taken the effort to drop everything and just go and see him?

He wants me to take responsibility, to talk to him and somehow be involved with his breakup (if that is truly what he wants). His reasoning is because he's doing this to be with me.

But truly, I fail to see what role I can play in a relationship he started on his own, a relationship I've tried so hard not to intervene in or get in the way of. He just does not want to feel guilty or take the full responsibility for having to break someone's heart. He just does not have the guts to open his mouth and break up, and he asks me to be there to support him.

In what capacity I don't know. How can I be there and talk to him about what he should do, when he could one day turn back and say to me "I did this all for you! You forced me into breaking up! You were telling me all these things!"?

This entire episode is very telling o what kind of a person my ex is, and it does nothing to quell my doubts and fears about getting back together with him. I sometimes really get the feeling he just does not want to face things, avoids them and wants people to be there to hold and comfort him, when really a lot of things are his own doing. He chose to breakup with me. He chose to start a relationship. He knew fully well a few months into the relationship, and perhaps even before the relationship, things would not work out in the long run. And yet he's not strong enough to let it go, to put an end to things. He's still making the other person believe there is something there, when at the same time making me believe there is a possible future.

There can be no future if he cannot deal with this very issue on his own. There cannot be a future if he cannot have a clean break from the past and really feels ready to move on.

Everything is in his hands now, as I said to him. But he seems to want to take my hand and hold it while he makes up his mind and gathers up his courage...

Disturbance

After a period of relative calm, I became agitated and disturbed again.

Saw a good friend and we chatted for a good long while. I was disjointed and lost when he asked about my mum, but he was understanding and compassionate, as always and offered invaluable support and reassurance.

The topic turned to my ex, and slowly bit by bit pieces of information were revealed. True to my suspicions, my ex seems to be still involved with his boyfriend... He still hasn't let go, he still seems to be clinging on and wanting to have two people  at the same time. From nowhere, the irritation and sense of betrayal rose. To think, after his declaration of love for me just after my birthday, after his various attempts to reach me, it seems to be just a show. And I'm beginning to suspect that the reason why he did not manage to meet me in NYC last weekend was not entirely because he was too busy. I suspect he had his hesitations. Of course, I still have to hear from his side of the story... but can I truly trust what he tells me? He can tell me a few months ago that he loves me so and misses me so much, and yet still stay in a relationship with someone. How honest is that? Why would anyone do that at all?

 He's still confused and conflicted, still unwilling to let go, and still trying to cling onto me. I should know better than fall into that trap again.

I deserve more than this. I deserve someone who will be there for me fully. I know this, and this guy I met when I was out in Vancouver last week also told me this. In fact, everyone tells me this.

I have a feeling now my ex needs me more than I need him. I will give him one last chance to explain himself, to say what he has to say. But if nothing changes, if he is still drowning in that mess of indecisiveness and still caught between feelings for two people, I will just move on. As he told me to move on several months ago.

Sleepless...

Can't sleep. So many thoughts, so much chatter inside my head...

How I wish I could talk to someone, someone I trust, someone I can talk to without feeling or fearing that s/he is going to report back to my ex... How I wish I could turn to someone and have a good laugh, have a good cry, and be told that everything will pass.

Because I truly need that more than anything right now... For every day is a repetitive and testing ordeal of being so tired and having to shuttle between home and hospital...

Tortured

It's so painful... So very painful.

No rest, no relief. Just one thing after another, one damn struggle after another...

More and more I wish I could fall asleep and never wake up, never feel, never have to think again.

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...

angry

I know she is in pain. Just how much I cannot know, just how unbearable I can never feel. But of everything I do for her, of all the time I spend by her side, it hurts to be shouted at.

I know she's unable to control her temper, and she doesn't mean it. I know it's the pain talking, it's the suffering that is driving her to lose her cool. And after the shouting is over, after the moment has passed, after the hurtful words have subsided, there is no more hurt. But it breaks my heart to hear mum be abusive, not just to me, but also to the nurse who is just doing her job...

"I'm going to pull this needle  out myself!" She tugged at the IV in her arm, I watched in horror  and in pain. She was angry, restless, tired, and her hand was very numb. But the nurse was just following instructions, and mum needs the drips for her health to improve. "Just five more minutes," the nurse said, "I'll be back in five minutes." Within two mum stormed out to the nurses station and insisted the  IV be taken out.


I followed her, embarassed by her behaviour, but also worried she might trip and fall. Her walk is still very unstable, her stride wobbly, despite her claims that she does not need anyone by her side. Which puts the pressure on me, for she refuses to have anyone come see her or visit... Twenty-two hours at the hospital today. I am tired...


I only hope she can sleep well tonight, and that by morning, she will feel better, and her temporary anger and frustrations will have subsided...


In the meantime, I tell myself to let go... she is in pain, she is frustrated... It doesn't matter what she said to me, even if it hurts.


 

Disturbed

One phone call on my birthday, and for the next three days I am so disturbed and so agitated. I know, the problem is with me, for if only I let go, then there would be no problems, no thoughts, no sleepless nights or disturbed dreams.

My thoughts keep wandering to my ex, to how we could become like this.... After all we have been through, all that intimacy and sharing over the past three years, how can we become so distant, so estranged? How could he just call me and start crying when I'm already so distraught and so very broken myself?

Is it me? Is it my refusal to let him into my life because he has told me he is happy with someone else? Is it me being selfish? Perhaps I could just make it easier for him, for all of us, and let him in, give him news, be there to support him when he needs my support.

But what about me? Is it vindictive to say: he was the one who told me to move on! He was the one who said he's found happiness! I'm not sure...
Really, I just cannot get over the fact that if he has someone already in his life, if he has someone to replace the position I occupied in his life, why does he need me? Why does he even need me to be there when he cries? Why does he need me to talk to him and listen to him when he is upset?

And who will listen to me? My ex can't even listen for five minutes without breaking down and crying... Who will hold me and give me the sense of security and safety, all that which he gave me and one day with his change of heart I no longer feel comfortable receiving from him. He can be willing to be there, and I do not doubt he will be there for me, but I simply cannot rely on someone who can switch his mind and switch his heart so quickly and who can pretend everything is the same again. I simply cannot turn to a friend, who claims to be my best friend, and yet who cannot even remember the painful and provocative things he said to me on one of the most difficult nights of my life as I was preparing to rush home to see mum...

Thus is the problem with me then? Should I just open up, let him into my life and make myself vulnerable to him, make myself weak? Should I just let it all go, let bygones be bygones, let words just be words spoken out of tiredness and confusion be forgotten and forget? Make myself available to talk to him, and then after or before talking to me he can turn to his special friend for sweet talk and further support? I just don't think that is necessary.

I just don't see how that will benefit anyone at all, and how it will make me recover and move on...

But I don't see how we, two friends, two former lovers, who used to share so much, who used to delight so beautifully in one anothers company, can reconcile or move closer together with this current impasse and divide between us...