Deep void

Friday night, there's a deep, deep void inside. Finished crying now, my eyes are sore, my mind a daze. I'm an outright mess again...

Earlier today, my uncle called me to ask about my plans to commemorate my mother's passing. I have no real plans. I don't even know where I am going to stay. I don't know how I will get through it all. He wants to attend, as does mum's other siblings. There will be many people. I don't know how I will cope with it all.

One more month from now... One more month and mum will have been gone for a year. I have not heard her voice in almost a year. I have not touched her in almost a year. I have not seen her smile in almost a year.

My god... how have I been so troubled, so very burdened with sadness and heaviness for these past eleven months. Her birthday, Mother's Day, then the loss of my dear (soft animal) companion... Things have been dramatically declining. And I cannot seem to get out of it.

Who sees my sadness? Who sees and feels this deep void? With whom can I share these feelings and not feel like I'm burdening that person?

I need help. I cannot just sit and cry and cry...

Long weekend

Woke up today and feel very down. Nervous. Anxious in fact. The ex is coming to town. Why should him being here affect me so? 

It's because of expectations, of fear of rejection and disappointments. It's because he has the ability to make me feel like the worse and most unwanted person in the world, and the ability to make me believe and hold onto hope of something beautiful and sweet. I get so fragile and hurt because of him.

Before, whenever he used to visit he would stay with me, we'd do a lot together. Yesterday I asked him when he's arriving and where he's staying. He sounded  uncomfortable, said he was arriving late and going to another friend's place to stay. He said it would be late to get to my place. Where he said he purportedly is going stay is even further away. 

I'm guessing he doesn't want to see me, will only see me when it's convenient for him. He told me before his visits here are for "fun".

I guess I'm not fun. I'm guessing he's here because of someone else, and I'm no longer that someone. It's like that dream I had a few days ago. It's frightening. It makes me so sad, so broken, as if I need any more hurt, any more confusion. 

It just hurts a lot, and I don't think he realises why. It feels like for him it's all fine and dandy between us, when a year ago he was all over me and telling me how much he loves me and wants to be with me. And now? He calls me every day, gives me the impression as if everything were back to normal again. But no, nothing is ever the same. Not for me...

I wish I did not feel this way... I wish I had clarity, wish I could free myself from feeling and be like my ex and just move on, be merry and pretend nothing ever happened, pretend as if nothing ever was said of felt. 

It's going to be a long, long weekend...

Dream: the ex

A nightmare. It's irrational, I know. But it fills me with dread and fear, insecurity and trembles. 

I saw my ex in the dream. He was shouting at me, making fun, laughing at me. I felt like such a fool. A fool to be hanging on, to be clinging on to hope still, two years now after he suddenly broke up with me, one year now after he told me how much he wants to be with me, and where is he now? 

In the dream he was not laughing at me alone. The boy he is so infatuated with, the reason why he has been unable to let go, why our friendship has suffered and deteriorated so much over the past two years, was there next to him. Both were laughing at me, laughing at this fool who believes in true love, who is too foolish to see that other people can and do move on quickly. 

I woke up gasping for breath, almost on the verge of tears. My phone vibrated. It was him, the ex, telling me he got me even more sponsorship for a charity ride I am doing in early July. 

I think I know what the trigger of the dream may be. He is coming to visit this weekend. Every time he visits it feels "off", feels awkward when he wants to spend time with me. Time and time again, I have been left so hurt while he drops by for a visit and quickly must dash off elsewhere. Of course I don't, I shouldn't, expect him to spend all his time with me, but you know how it feels to be unwanted? To feel like someone is visiting you or hanging around with you just because they feel pity and feel like they should spend time with you? Perhaps to him visiting his old hometown is all fun and great, but for me it just conjures up unpleasant memories of abandonment, of being told one thing and see him do the complete opposite, of being warned time and time again about how I should move on and be wary of him, yet being unable (or perhaps unwilling?) to detach myself from him.

It feels like crap, it debases my value, it makes me feel me wanting, longing deep down inside. 

A foolish, one-sided, desperate desire for love and affection from someone who does not realise, does not see how deeply he affects me still.

PHX-PHL

PHX-PHL

130513.0013

There is a disturbing voice of discontent inside my head. Flying home now after almost a week away. First it began with a stressful exam, then several days on the road. The Grand Canyon was inspiring, majestic and so amazingly beautiful, and I had many hours of bicycling which always does wonders for my body and mind. 

But the chatter, the discontents and frustrations are returning. Back to my life in Montreal, back to the people I do not really wish to see, because seeing them I must make small talk and work so hard to avoid talking about my feelings-- something they rather would not want to hear, something they pretend to act as if is already long buried and over and done with. 

Is it Mother's Day that's causing me to feel so upset and discontented? Is it the message from someone wishing me happy Mother's Day when they fully know I don't have a mother any more? Or is it seeing a daughter take her mother by the hand and walking with her along a trail by the Grand Canyon that made me so emotional and fatigued?

I thought going away would help me clear my mind, I imagined some sun ( maybe a bit too much, as my arm got sunburnt...) would help me heal a little bit, but for some reason I'm feeling much worse... Much worse. To top it off, I seem to have lost a stuffed monkey who has been my traveling companion for the last four, almost five, years, who was there throughout the difficult and happy times with mum. 

I can't describe it. Somehow, my mind just wandered back to a year ago. my mum lay there slowly dying. how painful that was to watch, how painful that was to bear. And in the midst of it all, my ex was there on the side giving me false hopes and expectations, playing with my feelings and my life even, as he wrestled with his own relationship woes and indecisiveness. My mum dying, an yet I had to keep myself together, I  kept myself together by allowing myself to believe someone is waiting for me, is going to help me get through this all. I kept myself from crying because I told mum not to worry, because someone would be there for me. But where is that person? Who is that person? 

A year later, mum is gone. A year later, the person I shared such a solid and trusting friendship and hopes of a lasting relationship with has somehow become a distant acquaintance (it feels like...). And he does not seem to see it, he does not seem to see how things have affected me so and continues to haunt and hurt me still. I have no relationship of significance now, no one I truly feel comfortable talking to, no one I truly feel I can trust and I can really tell everything to... Look at me, sad, sad me lamenting my life and still discontented after so many days out in nature. Ungrateful, unappreciative little sod I am...

Standing there on the edge of the canyon at various instances in the last few days, this urge came to me. To want to jump... To want to plummet to my death, to experience those few moments of flying through the air before everything ends... What has gotten into me? How did I become so wary of life, how did I lose the spark of life and joy I had and took for granted? How have I become or allowed myself to be so dark? 

I am hurting deep down inside... 

I miss mum deeply, sorely... And what a painful week this has been with mum's birthday and Mother's Day so close to one another. I truly am struggling... 

I miss having affection, being hugged and comforted, I miss so much having someone close and intimate whom I could confide in, who would listen, just listen to me and try to understand, and just recognise how deep I have sunk, and how. 

130513.0241

Forty minutes or so till landing. In fact I just felt the plane adjust downward a little. The day is brightening, a day beginning. 

It has been a horrible flight, worse in recent memory. Since I left the arid environment of the Grand Canyon, I've been feeling so parched. It didn't help that on te one and a half hour shuttle bus ride from the canyon to Flagstaff airport, at the behest of an elderly couple, the air con was switched completely off. The air was stuffy and heat unbearable. And my throat feels so dry, so irritated. 

Flying doesn't cure dryness. And I'm so afraid of drinking too much because of the need to go to the washroom. In fact, I've had to go twice writhing four hours, which is bothersome since the cramped, terribly cramped seats means the two people next must get up in order for me to get out (as always I have the window seat). And I don't know what's wrong with me, but the past few days I've been extremely gassy and feeling very bloated for some reason...

Flying seems to have, at least on this flight, lost its novelty. I can't wait to get out of the plane, to get off and stretch. But there's another flight to go, and I'm so exhausted from being unable to sleep. I can't wait to collapse in my bed. And in the emotional state of mind I am in, I may even just cry when I get home and lie down in my own bed...

Yavapai Point

Sunrise, Yavapai Point, Mother's Day. 

Sitting on stone-cold boulders lining the edge of a cliff that drops several hundred meters down into the canyon. The birds are waking up and starting to play with the morning sun. The air is warming up, the whole world is stirring and warming up, the deep canyon is slowly, slowly unveiling its rugged beauty as a curtain of light is slowly lifted from the darkness below. 

An emptiness fills me, filling the corners of my eyes with tears. Before, at moments like this, surrounded by such beauty, such serenity, I would grab my phone and call home all excited and giddy like a child, mother's child, and tell mum all about it... 

Mum is somewhere now, I cannot see her, cannot speak to to, cannot touch her, yet her presence is all around me, inside of me. Mum is in the canyon, in the shadow of tree that shields me from the glaring ray of the sun, in the little bird that is hopping a meter or so in front of me, in the warmth and brightness of the sun that is slowly rising, rising over the hills, over the darkness and abyss. 

Happy Mother's Day...

Mother's Day eve

An ad came on the tv. Kids talking about their mothers. Who gives the biggest hugs? Who snuggles the best? Who loves me most of all? "Mom!" The kids shouted in unison. 

"Happy Mother's Day! Mom's are best!" Announced a voice over.

My heart sank, my throat gasped for breath. I cried there and then. 

Exam end

Exam finished, feeling exhausted and very heavy, verging on crying. I had lunch and quickly lay down for a nap that lasted till evening. 

How did I do? I'm not really sure. I was trembling during the exam, my mind blanked on several occasions as I frantically flipped through pages and pages of my notes. It's not that I didn't study. I did study, especially hard over the past two weeks. But my mind blanked, and I felt useless, dumb, felt like an idiot writing an exam for no particular purpose other than because I feel like I should finish what I started. Last time I wrote an exam, back in January, I cried and cried afterward and could not stop crying for a long while...

My friend has been trying to cheer me up, tell me exciting things, talked about the exciting travels he sent his parents on. He even gave me a gift, but how disappointed he was when I seemed to have hit dismissed it callously... I was tired, I am tired, my mind a fog and happiness or even just lightness of feeling difficult to find. 

He told me that he gets worried when his parents are on a plane, and that he regularly checks the flight to see if everything is alright. I used to do that, get very worried and sleep lightly whenever either one of my parents were on board a plane. I'd sleep and be worried when i wake up to the radio there's news of a plane crash... I was always afraid of losing them due to some freak accident. 

Those were the days before mobile phone text message notifications. Those were the days when you had to go online to check the status of a flight. "Now I don't have to worry any more. They're both dead!" I joked. It was a crude joke, very crude, and I think I was the only one bursting out laughing. 

At one point my friend realised and apologised that perhaps talking about his parents' travels maybe hard for me to hear. In a way it is, but I am happy to share and listen to how he's treating his parents to such wonderful things. It's beautiful to hear someone taking care of his parents.  

My friend tried so hard, tries so hard to cheer me up, make me laugh. And i feel guilty because he's had a long day at work and he comes home to see my sad sad face. I wish I could smile, genuinely smile and be merry and joke. But I feel different now. Lost. Heavy. Despondent. Different. And even the dynamic between us I different now. I cannot find comfort or warmth in his touch or hug, at least not in the same way I used to, not in the way I longed to be by his side. Is it me? Or maybe it's him? He's moved on, really moved on. 

I don't dare to ask, as much as I would like to know, but I don't want to be hurt again and again. I just presume that he's well, happy and with somebody and that in just a friend, a simply friend visiting for the day and gone against tomorrow. 

There are outbursts of laughter, yes, but inside there's an emptiness I cannot describe, a loneliness I cannot hide, however I try. At one point, over dinner I cried. I don't think it was noticed... What is it that's bothering me? Mum's dead, so why Would her birthday matter so much? She's gone, I have no mother any more, so why would Mother's Day this Sunday appear to be so daunting and so significant...? Sad. Heavy. Lost. Drowsy. Hurting inside. Verging on tears...

"You know I could use somebody...". That's the song playing in the background. Checked into my airport hotel for the night, ready for bed. In less than six hours ill have to be off. An early flight to a foreign country, where I don't know anyone and where nobody knows me. It's alright. I feels strangely liberating to be unknown, to "disappear", to be a person who comes and goes and leaves no trails or hints. 

Eve of the exam

Half past eleven on the eve of the exam.
Arrived here after a long train ride, during which I tried to cram more studying in.

My ex picked me up and we had a nice dinner. He tried to be cheerful and cheer me up, but I feel tired and my mind is very foggy... From the poor sleep I've been getting, from the disturbed day/night pattern I've been going through? Or is it because today is mum's birthday?

Just sad, verging on crying. My ex tried to cheer me up and give me a hug, asked me what is wrong, but what can I say? I don't know what to say, I don't know how to be comfortable around him.

I just want to get this exam over and done with so I can breathe and get away...

Mum's birthday

It's mums birthday today, the first after she passed away. Soon, coming Sunday, it'll be the first Mother's Day.

I felt a tinge of sadness when these thoughts crossed my mind. The first of anything is always very difficult, very difficult. I remember crying on my birthday... Crying at New Years, crying because there's no real reason (at least not yet...) to celebrate now that both my parents are gone.

Maybe I can honour mum but excelling, make her proud by staying hard and working hard... I am trying, but it is proving to be a terrible terrible struggle... A painful and most trying struggle and test of my will and patience...

Happy birthday mum... Thank you...

3.25am

Two days before my exam, still four long chapters to study, and still have to read all the material again to remind myself of what I've been studying. Can't remember much, feel like its all a blur...

Just got out the paper that lists the number of subjects I need to do before I'm qualified to take the bar. After the exam (provided I pass...), five more exams to do. And then two bar exams to sit. What for, I asked myself. Why am I doing this when I don't even want to practice law? But if not law , then what?

I'm so stressed I've been biting my nails even more than before. There's no more nails to bite, I'm even bleeding in some fingers... Why am I putting myself through this when I'm still so fragile, so very tired and so very very susceptible to swings of emotions and tears?

I've been unable to sleep these days till 4am or so, and wake up feeling exhausted at close to noon, sometimes even after noon. Haven't been to work for a week, have been trying to cram it all in before the exam... Feel so useless, but I'm really trying, really really trying my best, and struggling terribly because of the lack of encouragements from my mother... Do you know how it is to fight sadness and depression and to try to keep myself going by my own sheer will power and discipline? Do you know what it feels like to do something when you have so little motivation and energy to do?

Struggling to study due to poor concentration and a mind that feels like "soft cheese" (as someone in my therapy group described it...) It's such a battle to focus, to sit down and work on something, work toward something...

But one day, one day I will look back and see: I've come so far. One day I hope to look back and amaze myself that despite all odds, despite being alone, despite having no more parents around, I manage to scramble onto my two feet and stand up...

Making someone happy

"I love to take care of somebody.." My friend said, excited about this promotion that he found which could allow him to send his parents around the world in first class for a ridiculous amount of money. It really is an unbelievable deal, in a way too good to be true.

I've often said to my friend that he's lucky to have parents who care about him, and thy he should treasure that relationship. He does do that, and he has on occasion said that's partly because he saw the lengths I went to for my parents. My friend has been sending his parents on trips in business class by using airlines miles he accumulated. He talked excitedly about the trip he has all planned out for them, but I think in his excitement he did not realise I'd gone quiet...

Am I envious? Or just sad? They truly are lucky parents, and he is being a good son by giving them so much pleasure in their retirement.

What got me sad was myself... There he was talking about his parents, who are still alive and well, and here I am with no one I can call, no one I can make happy by giving them trips around the world... The problem is me, being envious that I have lost the dearest people in my life, and my friend's remark "I love to take care of somebody..." made me feel even sadder...

I too love to take care of somebody... I too loved to surprise my mum, take her to luxurious hotels and book her on expensive packages, take her to fancy restaurants just to make her feel spoiled and happy, make her feel like life is worth living and that her life has been worth it all. We had those moments, we had our time...

But I can't do little surprises and come up elaborate plans to make someone happy.. Not any more for my parents, and not any more for someone I feel I can do that for...

I can make little surprises for myself and reward myself day by day for how far I have come and how strong I've held up without breaking down...

In perspective

Two nail bombs exploded at the end of the Boston marathon, killing three and maiming hundreds... A building in a garment factory in Bangladesh collapsed, killing almost three hundred, with hundreds more still hurried after four days... A split moment of chaos, and lives are changed forever. Some lose their limbs, other body parts, loved ones, others lose their lives.

And what am I doing beating myself up with my feelings? What am I doing wasting my life and youthful energies constantly searching for meaning and purpose without, constantly trying to fill a void that so many have told me only time will heal and fill?

Just be... Just let live and be.
And be grateful that I am alive and breathing, that I have my body and limbs, and that I can still hope and dream...

Crying

I told him what would happen when I hang up the phone.
 And it happened. I cried almost immediately, am crying now, and cannot stop....

For the second (or third?) day in a row, my ex called to check up on me. I was just getting home, didn't even have the time to put down my bag when the music in my earphones (these days I always have earphones on, to drown out the thoughts and frightening emptiness...) suddenly stopped and the ringingtone of my phone sounded. We chatted, but as always, most of the conversation was about me... (how selfish I have become indeed...)

The whole day again, I felt oppressive inside, a feeling that has not subsided even after outbursts of tears over the past few days. Oppressive and also having stomach cramps again, a sign that I am feeling very agitated and stressed... Being at the office and having to hide how I am feeling, having to put on a smile and pretend all is well is sickening, is exhausting...

After half an hour or so on the phone, my ex said he was falling asleep and wanted to go sleep. He needed to get up early in the morning, but I felt unease hanging up the phone. How selfish I was wanting to hear his voice on the phone just that little bit longer so that I can  feel lonely that little bit less? What a mess I have become to be trembling on the phone and biting my nails till they are bleeding...

Who am I to take his time? He is doing me a favour, out of good will and concern for my wellbeing in calling me, so how could I hog his time and say crazy, incomprehensible things that will sure cause him worry and probably sleeplessness?

He tried to get me to see the lighter side of things. Today in the mail I got the result of an exam I took back in January  (looking back, I went through similar pangs of anxiety, self-doubt and emotional outbursts...). I passed. I read the letter, and then put it away. My ex told me to smile, to be proud of myself and to congratulate myself that through all adversity, I still passed.

But I felt empty. What did that exam mean? What does anything mean anything anymore?
An exam won't change the world... a pass will not change my world or how I feel inside.
How I feel so empty, lonely, so very lacking in love and warmth inside...

Should I have told him? Told someone who was my everything, told someone who broke my heart and shattered my dreams how lonely I am? Should I have told him that what I most long for these days is to be loved and to love? Perhaps it is completely unfair, completely selfish of me to tell him my innermost emotions.Why him of all people? So he could understand? So I can get to feel some semblance of the care and love he gave me so long ago to make myself feel a little better? I must remind myself again and again to hold back, to resist falling back into his care again, however well intentioned he is... Because I am vulnerable, I cannot stand to be hurt and disappointed again. I have a tendency to trust too easily and to make-believe that someone cares and loves me in the same way that I do him.

But it is painful and so very difficult maintaining all these walls, especially before someone with whom you could let it all down and reveal yourself completely, emotionally and physically completely.

And perhaps this is why, after several weeks of pretending of make-believing that I am getting better, when things take a turn for the worse, I am breaking down so easily... I am longing for company and love again like never before... I am clinging onto whatever semblance of care and compassion I used to know, despite the fact that circumstances have dramatically changed and that someone has already moved on and let me go...

I am still stuck in the past, dreaming and clinging onto the dream I dreamed, clinging onto the comfort  and warmth I opened myself to relish in and enjoy, when so much has happened... when pain and death and the trauma of loss and turbulence of bereavement is spinning me around and around and making me lose control of it all...

Mother and baby

A mother is giving her baby a piece orange. The little beauty smiled and laughed at me. The mother bent down to clean the baby's face and stroke her cheeks.

In that scene there is love, motherly love, love that will never ever die. The mother looks smilingly at the baby as she played with the fruit. What is she thinking? "You're so cute... You're the centre of my world... I love you so..."

The baby girl's moves up and down as she munched on the orange. The mother stroked the girl on her head. A beautiful scene, a scene that filled me up with warm inside and caused the tears to begin trickling down my eyes.

Final letter...

I sat there trying to study, and then this morbid and horrible thought came to me...

A letter. A final letter penned by me to the world.

Is it fair or right of me to do something like this? How people who read it will hurt and cry! But with time, will they not forget and move on with their lives? Can I  do such a thing? Can I forsake my dead parents hopes and dreams and cut my life short like that?

Strangely, and perhaps completely irrationally, the image of my ex appeared before me as those morbid thoughts hijacked my mind momentarily. An image of him crying, howling and clambering on his knees toward my lifeless body... I could not cause someone so much pain... Not even if it would take away the emptiness and pain I feel deep down inside...

My mind is morbid, is too destructive and imaginative it is scary...

Breakdown

I don't know what triggered it. I got home, my sweet little cat followed me around so lovingly, I melted touching her soft fur and looking into her soft innocent eyes...

I picked up two letters. Investments I've made recently with money from my parents. I walked around my house, looked at the unwashed dishes, heard the silence, sat down on the floor. The cat came to sit with me. She rolled on her back and made this cute innocent pose... I cried.

I felt like crying almost the whole day. Something was unleashed in me, and I could not control my tears. I cried and cried. Images came back to haunt me... Images of mum at the hospital, images conjured by this meditation music I played in the hope of sitting down to collect my mind. The same music I played every single night during those final few months when mum had much trouble sleeping.

I have not think about those days, did not conjure those images for a long, long time. Somehow they all came back to me... My mind jumped to the future, to one and a half month from now, to my upcoming trip to Taiwan. I cried even more. The loneliness... The pain, the longing...

I tried to collect my mind. But I could not. All I could feel was sadness, pain, and a sense of abandonment... Who could know how I am feeling?

My ex called almost at the same time I sat on the floor and began sobbing. I did not answer. I did not want to bother him anymore than is necessary. I don't want to , don't need to, fall into that cycle of relying on him and being led to believe that there is something special there. When someone is down, when someone is vulnerable, you tend to see more than what there is, you turn to rely on support and place false hopes on the one who can provide you with comfort and with support. I fell pray to that, I cannot allow myself to fall to that again...

As I sat and cried I saw mum's face, saw her sweet and soft face. The cat eyed me and became so quiet, as if she could see how I am hurting, as if she felt it necessary to stay quiet to match the sad and down mood I am in.

I tried to stop crying, I needed to be strong. Who would like or even want to be with someone who is weak and so fragile?
But in all honesty, I do need someone by my side right now, I do pray and hope someone could hold me and calm me down... I saw faces of my friends, friends I have become so distant from, friends who nowadays find it so awkward to talk to me or approach me because they don't know or don't want to know what it feels like to see death, to talk about or deal with death and loss...

I'm sorry, mum, dad... Sorry I'm breaking down again... I must be stronger, must find my own strength within...

Heading home...

Heading home at a quarter past ten. How much did I do? I did what I did, studied till everyone at the office left, bearing the tears, braving possible outbreaks of breakdowns and my mental and physical mind falling apart.

I am somehow again in such a fragile state of mind. Was it the tears that I released yesterday? Was it the empties that were kept so heavily inside (unintentionally, though...). I feel like crying again...

I so long for someone to hold me, to touch me, to kiss me and tell me it'll all be ok.

It is moments like this that I miss mum (and dad) most. Moments when I most need encouragement. Before it was just one phone call and I could hear a reassuring voice. Mum may not fully know what I'm doing here, but at least it was a voice in which I could find solace and love. And that made me stronger, a little bit stronger... Anything, anything to get a semblance of that encouragement and love. I need it now more than ever before... Now to stop the tears from falling again...

Call to the ex

I resisted calling him, even though at times I really want to. For who understand me better than anyone else? Who knows my story and deepest emotions and secrets better than anyone else? For better or for worse, it is my ex.

I started talking about how I've been feeling, how long I've wanted to call and talk to someone, anyone. And then the tears came.

I told him how much of a failure I feel I am. He reminded me of all I have gone through and achieved in the past 18 months. Taken care of mum, accompanied her till the very end, finished my (second) graduate degree, begun a new job, did law exams, traveled to India/Nepal on a pilgrimage... All these challenging things in the most difficult of circumstances. I broke down...

I could not contain my tears and I just sobbed and sobbed. In the corner of the room was a picture of mum. It was an enlarged picture of mum dancing, one morning, the morning after I surprised visited her, when she jumped up in joy (I imagine) seeing me again. I cried even more...

How I long for company, for someone to help kill this loneliness deep inside. How I long for love... how I long to go back to Europe and spend time with my nephew. Perhaps he was the wrong person to talk to because of complications between us, but I described how seeing my brother and his son made me long for family.

I sobbed uncontrollably for a few moments. Yes, this is what I needed. The release, the unleashing of emotions and pain, the breaking down so I can remind myself I can cry and that I can feel again. Because how afraid I was being unable to feel... how afraid I was  to lose the ability to feel pain and to cry.

Surprisingly, my ex's reaction was "softer" than before when we spoke. He listened, actually listened to me instead of telling me what I should do or how I should be doing. To my surprise, he said I should maybe take a break... do something "light", stop putting pressure on myself so much. I asked him whether he has been reading up on how to talk to people who lost someone. He replied all he wants to do is listen to me...

He had to cut the conversation short, or at least it felt like it even though it had almost been an hour. I was reluctant to go, because it felt so comforting, too comforting perhaps, that someone was listening to me cry. It helped immensely, and how I wished someone could be next to me to hold me and to comfort me... how I wished this night someone could be by my side to reassure me that everything will be alright...

Bike ride

I grabbed the bike and just rode and rode. A giant loop around the island, a ride to vent my frustrations...

I rode quickly, and it felt good. The adrenaline felt liberating. I felt free, temporarily distracted and feel like I'm doing something useful.

I rode and rode and came to the place where mum and I once were. Parc Jean Drapeau, the Iron Man monument where we once walked together. I so wanted to cry... So wanted to cry, but I could not.

I don't know what was/is wrong with me... I felt this pain of sadness that I wanted to release, yet I could not. I lay on a bench and closed my eyes, let the sun warm me up...

I am so broken and am lost how long I need to go through this. I must go through this alone... Why alone? Why do I feel so terrified, so very terrified...?

Skype call

My brother called me, it has been three weeks since we last spoke...

I was groggy on the phone, partly because I just woke up, but partly because I was nervous. He asked me how I'm doing... What was I to say?

Been miserable? been and feeling like a failure waking up at noon almost every single day? Feeling so lonely? Unable to study or do anything half productive?

I saw my nephew, how cute he is, how very cute he has become. I chatted with my sister-in-law, who held my nephew in her lap. I could feel the warmth of their family, and felt my home so lacking... My home is so cold, so empty, so quiet. No wonder I always have the radio on in the background...

I felt like crying... I admitted to him, perhaps not in so much detail how horrible I've been feeling, how stressed and demotivated I am these days. He told me to get on with things, to not think about things. But I really don't. I just lack energy, I just lack motivation and drive to do anything at all. I cannot even drag myself to the desk to study, even though I know with each passing day the exams are looming nearer...

My brother told me to get on with things, just to get on with things. I wish I could. I wish I had a push, I wish I had someone to take me by the hand and drag me out of the state of depression I feel like I have fallen into... Last night I spoke to the monk, and he urged me to go see a psychiatrist, to get onto meds. I'm so reluctant... I'm dreading it, even though two people have advised me to do the same. 

I found myself fidgeting with the computer wire as brother and I chatted. Nervous. Afraid. signs of breaking down. Perhaps he could see in the way I avoided looking directly at the camera, in the way I rubbed my face again and again, in the way I pulled at my hair, what sordid state I am in right now...

He looked sadly at me, I can feel he wants to say something or do something for me, but he cannot. I long to be in their midst, long to be playing with my nephew and to be surrounded by family... Family and love. That is what I need most of all now, what I lack and long for day and night...

Dream: nonesense

I dreamed of the guy I have been seeing (well, at least in name after what happened last night...). It was such a bizarre dream, for his mother was there too. As was my late mother.

We were in an apartment, I can't say for sure which one. Perhaps it was where mum used to live in. My friend and his mother were there, happy looking, and it looked like they were getting comfortable to stay the night.

I can't remember the rest of the dream. But it was most bizarre, and in a way also nonsense and disturbing...

Spiralling...

What happens when you lose a focus, when you lose hope, when you lose control of your own life and destiny? What happens when you are afraid of failing? When you feel like you're living a lie and failing miserably to live up to expectations?

You break down... you cry and cannot see the light beyond the all-consuming darkness.

Save me... someone please see my pain and save me from myself and my own destructive thoughts...

Cheating...

Can it be called cheating if you're not officially in a relationship? It still does not take away the shock and surprise, unpleasant surprise.

So eight weeks ago I met this really sweet guy, and we have been seeing each other every single week since. It became a sort of routine, every Thursday after my French class we would meet up and spend almost the whole weekend together. We'd have hours of fun chatting, watching series online, and sleeping next to one another... He liked  me, and I liked him.  A lot. For the first time in such a long time, I felt I found someone I could talk to, especially as he lost a parent recently as well. There was so much passion, and intimacy, and it felt beautiful...

The second week or so, just before he left, I asked him what we are... "We're dating..." he said, "exclusive with one another." and he said he'd be very jealous if I went to see someone else or slept with someone else. I'd pamper him with what he told me are his favourite foods, and treat him ever so dearly, the way I would a partner. He told me a couple of times I'm too nice to him, and that he doesn't deserve me... Last week again he told me how much he likes me, and how he is so attracted to me...

Tonight I found an ad online which sounded so similar to the one I responded to and which led to our meeting (yes, I was looking online because it's a turn on...). Curiously, I answered it (with a fake email and identity... I admit, my bad...) And within an hour or so came a reply, with the same guy's pictures. I was surprised. What made it worse was minutes before he replied to that email, he was still exchanging messages with me. I asked if he wanted to come over, like he'd done over the past few weeks. He said he was too tired, and that he wanted to stay home...

Stay home? More like hooking up online... 

I'm in shock... and very sad. Over the past few weeks I thought we've really bonded and perhaps I was a fool to dream and imagine that it was something really special. Maybe he's just one of those young guys looking for fun, moving from one to the next without commitment or thinking of tomorrow. Who can blame him, especially being younger and having so many years ahead of him still to figure out what he wants...? But I'm deeply disappointed and feel like I've lost a dear friend.
It doesn't help me to heal, but makes me want to withdraw more. Are all guys like this? Dishonest, two-faced and immaturely looking just for instantaneous fun without attachments...? It's scary to think that this is the way the world is...

Uselessness

What did I do today? Woke up at eleven, three hours later than the alarm rang for the first time. Skipped work, and was in no mood to study.

A friend dropped by and we went house hunting. Twelve hours later, after a few drinks in a bar and a few shooters at a club, I'm heading home. Tipsy, my head swaying, music in my ears, typing frantically on the iPhone.

How do I feel? Pensive. Exams due in two weeks. Unprepared. My mind is thinking of flying away, disappearing, hiding. My mind is imagining the bright lights of Las Vegas, the tranquility of the Grand Canyon. I dream of going somewhere to feed and nourish my broken and tired, tired soul. My mind drifts to Taiwan, to a trip I will be making in less than two months. It is as if I want to be anywhere but here... Anywhere but in this moment...

Overwhelmed I feel, by what I am not sure. Exhausted I feel, but I cannot say why or how I have become this way. All the time I think of the law exams I am planning to do that will eventually lead me to qualifying for the bar. All I feel inside is dread, fear, and absolutely can find no motivation or reason for doing them...

Guilt, I feel. I am as good as dead... Squandering away my days and youth, burdened by this heaviness I cannot seem escape from. Many have told me I must go through this before I can heal and before I can rise and soar again. But I am impatient. And it does not help when others look at me so critically and give me the feeling I have become so useless...

I feel this sense of isolation, of detachment. I feel so useless, as if I'm wasting my life away. Why do people look so happy? How can they dance so happily with friends, how can they easily hook up with another? Why do I feel such loneliness deep inside? Why do I have such difficulty finding someone who could recognise my feelings and who could hold my hand and tell me it'll all be alright...?

I so long for someone to sleep with me, to hold me and to show me the meaning of life, the purpose of living and giving once more...

readjustment

Night rider

Frustrated after a day of unproductivity, I grabbed my bike and my iPhone and rushed out the door. I feel like my head could explode, feel the loneliness grab at my heart and feel like I could stop breathing.

Biking helped. The release of adrenaline and sweat helped. I biked along the canal, to a point overlooking the city skyline.


Two summers ago, my ex and I biked here. We sat and chatted, and admired the city in the distance. I felt naughty and sat on a bench became very naughty. It was a warm and wonderful evening...

Tonight, I sit here alone, on a chilly night, watching the same city in the distance across the canal. How much has changed, how the city has changed!

I can barely contain my tears, it feels like. Yet I cannot cry... I cannot cry for my heart is dry, so drained and dry...

Slump

Inability to do anything, to feel motivated, to feel excited or to be productive...

It's not my fault.

And what a slap in my face when someone comes to tell me I have so much and should consider myself fortunate and (just shy of) telling me to get on and stop complaining...

Worthless feeling

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A friend came by last night, I've not seen her for around two weeks.

There were award silences because I did not feel I could tell her much. What I tell her will most likely be passed on elsewhere. This is sadly the nature of the closely knit friendship circle I am in.

And least of all I cannot tell her how I'm feeling, how I'm really feeling. Depression, therapy, tiredness and lethargy... I've tried to talk to her about it before. But the response I get from her makes me feel even worse. Worse, makes me feel worthless and like I'm a whiny sod who enjoys complaining when I have nothin to complain about.

So there was really little I could talk about. The conversations were forced, about very little. At one point I mentioned that I've been unproductive and very tired. I said I feel like I have so little purpose, that I have no motivation and no direction in life. Those were my true and honest feelings I've been wanting to share with someone, hoping someone will be able to understand and sympathize.

Well, that was a mistake on my half... my friend gave me a talk about how fortunate I am, about how I have so much and should really just get on with things. Maybe it was her way of encouraging me, her way of reminding me what I have and a way to push me forward. I imagine she means well, for why would she wish me ill?

But I felt horrible. As she spoke, I closed my eyes and shut out her words. I felt horrible. Horribly useless, as I were some spoiled brat who has it all and yet does nothing but complain. Her words ("People have to work! life goes on!") made me feel like I am a good-for-nothing layabout. Her tone made it sound as if I am making things difficult for myself, make it sound as if I am enjoying being depressed and unproductive.

At one point I really wanted to ask her to leave... But I kept my cool and just changed the topic.

The episode again showed me how and why I feel so distant from my friends. The episode showed again how very little people understand and how they cannot, cannot, cannot know what I feel like or why I feel like this these days. It just adds to salt to emotional injury I am trying to recover from.

And I am supposed to feel better? And I am supposed to be able to just shut away the pain, emptiness and loss inside and get on with things?


If there were a way, I would be dying to find out. If there were a way from this slump, this lethargy and indescribable emptiness I feel inside, I pray I could know.

Numbness

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Yes, I've not really written much of note these days. Nothing really inspires me, nothing really touches or affects me. It's as if I'm going about my life, moving from day to day, with a haze hanging over my brains and mind. It's as if I'm sleep walking, seemingly keeping busy but doing nothing.

Yesterday I went to pick up more things from the cargo shipment that arrived last week at the storage space. I opened all the boxes, dug through them all, as if digging in time and through layers and layers of memories. The brown blanket mum used at the hospital (and long before that...)... the blanket mum bought two of on the same day, one for me, one for my ex... clothes I wore and left behind at her place thinking I'd be back there soon to wear them again... Photo albums, stamp collections, books in English and Chinese she must have flipped through at some point in time... I was numb. Just numb...

Did I expect to cry? Did I want to cry? Perhaps in a way I did. Crying is so therapeutic, and it's been ages since I last "healed myself" by shedding tears. It's been ages, frustratingly long, since anyone or anything made me feel comfortable enough to cry and let my emotions out.

I dug and dug through the boxes. Found the lamps to the Buddha shrine I was looking for to complete the shrine I have placed in my living room... Found the bike helmet, front light and speedometer I was looking for... Found few items of clothing I have missed and would want to wear again... Found incense coils that mum used to lit as a ritual every morning, when she was still alive, before bowing respectfully at the feet of the Buddha... Found the mood lighting I bought mum last year in the hope she would sleep better. I do need some good sleep these days, even though I always feel like sleeping, always feel like I want to close my eyes and escape into a world where there are no thoughts, no feelings of numbness, where I feel no frustrations at the inability to cry...

I pulled down the metal gate of the 5x5 storage space, locked it and picked up the stuff strewn on the floor. I biked home, back to the mess of an apartment I left behind earlier in the morning.

And I went to lie down, to sleep and drown in the world where I do not feel, do not think, do not feel frustrated or sad...

Sleeping and dreaming

I dreamed of mum, and the dream filled me with such a profound, profound sense of loneliness. I cried from longing and pain...

It is sickening how lonely I feel, how somehow (strange as it may seem and sound...) I go to the office everyday and go about my daily business as if pretending all is well and dandy...

Sure, there are plenty of lonely people out there. Just go on Craigslist and you'll see all these men (and mostly men...) looking for company or a quick release. As exciting as those ads sound, reading them make me feel even more depressed.

The loneliness is eating me... It is affecting me deeply, preventing me from doing anything, preventing me from achieving anything. I sleep, sleep and sleep to escape. But I must wake up at some point, and these days it's close to noon before I can ply my body out of bed. I just wish there were a reason to wake up, a reason to stand and breathe and work.

Maybe I'm too comfortable. I don't really need to work for the sake of survival, I don't really need to do the exams I'm about to take. Nothing scares me, nothing pressures me, nothing really affects or interests me. Is this what death feels like..?

Another day, another day to face and get by...