Tuesday, January 26, 2016

When Two Birds Fell: The colour of tears and heartbreak


This post is a mess. I'm a mess. I can't even form the words properly. I'm mentally choking. My sentences are as garbled as my voice. But I'm alive. I'm surviving. I'll reclaim myself.

This incoherent post is brought to you by the feelings: Sappy, Whiny and Emo. You've been warned.

I've never had my whole world taken away from me before. Nor have I wanted the world so much, when it was you. 

People tell you to stay strong and forget about the past. "Don't think too much," they say. "Time heals everything," they guarantee. "There's better ones out there," the chorus of matter-of-fact tones chant. But how exactly do you do this? How do you get better? Do you cry yourself to sleep every night to release the clogged up tears gagging you? Do you go out and be crazy drunk and dance until you suffocate your memories with numb ecstasy? Do you immerse yourself in work and replace the emotional grief with mental distractions, just until you can say her name without freezing up? Do you go out and talk to people until their ears fall off from your constant self-piteous need to be comforted and expressed? 

How do you not "think too much"? How do you forget someone who gave you all the happiness you had been looking for all your life, then stole it like it was worth nothing? How do you forgive them? Why me? You ask yourself. What was it that I did? When will time take it all away? How do I crop this mistake out of my life? Will I ever be able to look at someone the way I did with you and see something I never thought would be as beautiful?

It's tough saying goodbye forever to something that was the best part of yourself. But it's tougher when you can't summon the bad memories to hate it. It's tougher when the good ones come flooding in one by one, and you break down trying to make peace with them and come to terms with bidding farewell. It's tougher when you can't stop the tears. It's tougher when you feel lonelier in spite of all the people reaching out to you. They don't register. The emptiness builds up. You can't give anymore. The more people you surround yourself with, the more lost you feel, because she'll never hold you again. 

It's tougher when the only one who can mend your heart is the one who broke it. It's tougher when you have to pretend everything's okay because everyone tells you it's an ending to a new beginning and you'll smile again, and you don't want to disappoint them or trouble them any further. It's tougher when everywhere you go, you see her and you hear her and you just can't feel happy because you've already collapsed inside. The feeling of loss makes its home in you and haunts you every waking moment. And you're stifling a whimper every time you breathe. The only peace and salvation you get is in sleep. It's tougher when at your worst, you don't want to be in anyone's arms but hers, the only respite you had from all that shit in life. It's tougher because the only time you need her is the time she's gone for good.

So, as incredibly hard as it is, as much as I have cried and put off remembering the details, this post is about my thought process for the past two months and however long it takes to exhaust itself. This post is about how I found the only person I never had and how I lost her.

"Can I be your boyfriend?" he asked, trusting his instincts over his uncertainty. He had decided to go for broke. He had nothing to lose. He hadn't known then, that he had already fallen in love with her.

"But I have a lot of baggage. Sure you can handle them?" she replied doubtfully, sceptical about how this person in front of her was going to be any different from her imperfect past.

"I don't give a flying fuck. Give me a chance. Give yourself a chance." he said, more determined than he had first felt. He knew he was about to make a choice, and he would stand by it.

"Okay."

Of course, there was much more to it than that. But that's pretty much how we got started. Awkward, shaky and happy-go-lucky. But it was a start to something which would change my life forever.

I met you at my lowest, when I was still on both crutches after having dislocated my leg, hobbling and fumbling like an idiot at a minute per square centimeter, and embarrassed because I could not do half of the things I wanted to do with you. I couldn't carry you in my arms, I couldn't go travelling around with you. You even had to slow down for me when we went on dates. As a result, we seemed to spend most of our time together snuggling on our beds, watching Disney and Studio Ghibli movies, eating snacks, laughing and teasing each other. Being intimate.

The second time we met, you surprised me when we had a moment because I said something, and you looked into my eyes, and you leaned in. My eyes widened, starstruck and dumbfounded, as we had our first kiss.

And you melted your way into me. You put up with me and supported me even though I was half a man. It was us against the world. There were days when, out of the blue, you'd make me go on an adventure 'quest' around your home based on the choices and 'scenarios' I'd decided to play out along with your surprise narrative. It was a brilliant fantasy trial filled with dragons, ropes and princesses and princes, and burnt red velvet, cream cheese pancakes, which you absolutely ruined. I loved it.

But I was wrong. If I found you when I was half a person, why did I have to lose you after I became whole? Was it because I needed you to be the other half of me? The first thing I literally did after realising I could start walking again was to carry you in my arms and hold you excitedly against the wall, gently meeting your lips with mine, hearing you giggle into my ears. We had wanted to do that for so long.

At first, I had intended for this post to be titled: How Two Birds Met

It was the title meant for our scrapbook together, with a little caption you came up with saying, "Pieces of us".
This is an excerpt of what I had originally wanted to write in this post:

"I don't even know how to put it in words. This is the usual bf-bragging mode. She is a designer of sorts, graphic, art sketches, costumes, accessories, anything. I have seen her drawings and artwork, and if you follow my Instagram, you'd probably have seen the world she drew on my back, Van Gogh style. It was done in only a matter of minutes, and we were drunk.

She's a poet, a linguist, a writer, a narrator. A simmering pot of creativity and fantasies. Simply put, she's like me in a lot of ways, just better. She can be really weird, like me. She sees the world the way I do. She shares my thoughts, my identity, my maturity, my feelings, humour, and God knows even the kinky stuff.

I told her she was a wild flower. Not something domestic or docile. She was full of unhinged lustre and beautiful desires. I told her she was the light shining through a hole in a broken shed. Sometimes it was rainy and cold and windy, and bitter melancholia seeped through the hole. But when it was sunny, and all that light came in, everything made sense again. It was like basking in the warmth of a sanctuary. I could do anything I wanted. Be happy, be sad, cry, be angry, make up, make love. I told her that no matter how treacherous the journey together or how many ups and downs we faced, it was okay. Because at the end of the day, it was us being us, having the same feelings for one another. It was okay because she was my destination no matter where I went. And I was hers.

I plan to buy her her favourite flowers on every anniversary. The first was when I asked her to be my girlfriend officially: I'd bought daisies, which stand for purity, innocence, loyal love, beauty, patience and simplicity. That aptly signalled the start of this passage. The next year, I'll buy her blue bells, which symbolise constancy, gratitude and everlasting love. The year after, a bouquet of baby's breath flowers for everything the previous two gifts meant -- that we could continue like that -- and for a future of pure love that will transcend into the birth of many more to come.

We're writing a blog together, centred around a korean-drama themed story. It has gotten to as much as six chapters, with all her free time. I have to work, go figure. She gets a little impatient, so most of the content is hers, though I do contribute my fair share into her writing!

We've come up with a lot of lists for different purposes: A wishlist each. Things we could do together and overcome our own confines and self-imposed fears -- our human sicknesses. Bucket lists, to-do lists. A Wanna-list -- which should be crammed mindlessly and imprudently with things that you want to do in this very moment, such as sleeping, diving, eating, flying, making love, doing them all at the same time, etc. You don't actually have to do them, but it's a Wanna-list. One time, she wanted to go bungee jumping, so I carried the surprised girl in my arms and tossed her up and down while she squeaked in glee. She was rather heavy, so I ran out of steam fast. Haha.

Other times, she has her issues too, like every other denizen on this planet. I have my own too. That's what a relationship is. We trust each other to carry our baggage and boulders. Compromise. Acceptance. Talk. Love. Fights. Disagreements. Play. Jokes. Movies. Cuddles. Kisses on the lips and forehead. Hugs. Caresses."

Now, right now, he feels so stupid looking at what he'd written. He was living in a fantasy whose end he deeply dreaded. It was a dream he's woken up from, the nightmare the realisation that all he had been grasping at from the start was thin air and all he had loved was a phantom whose love he'd imagined. It was no more than a mirage.

The dream, in which I thought everything was real and everlasting, has left an abrupt void in me.  I don't know what to do with these leftover feelings. Where do I go? Now, I have to resume reality where I paused it, where I paused my life for us.

She told him she was a person who didn't know how to love or receive love, and she desperately needed something new everyday to distract her from her inner demons. He wasn't ready to quit on her. He could have gone on. But they got relentlessly afflicted by problems that affected them on a fundamental level, which either deepened her scars or leaked from them. So she tried to make him hate her. She demolished him with her taunts, yelling that she hated everything he stood for and she never for a second loved him. She couldn't see past who he had become for her. She repeatedly ground the words into him like knife slicing butter, and it tore him apart every time. He could not tell where the lies ended and the truth began. Having gone through too much for her age, she was incredibly smart and crafty, so it worked to a good extent -- until he figured it out. But it was too late. She told him he was too perfect. He doesn't understand. 

Loving someone with broken shards is never easy, and you'll prick yourself and bleed as you try to pick them up. But if you love them, you would bleed as much as it took and your heart would still be full. 

While he was draining himself of all strength and time from his friends, work and family, convincing himself that this could still work, she was slowly mustering the courage to quit on him, to stop hurting him, because she didn't want to hurt or saddle him with even more than she already had. She had to strike him one last time to severe their relationship. That's how she broke up with me on her birthday, through all the tension and the screaming and the pleading. In retrospect, leaving was probably the best present I could have given her.

She was my one of my best friends, my angel in solace, and the only girl I'd ever loved more than anything else. She was a rush and a thrill. The unwritten connections. She was my drug. We might have been bad for each other, but I miss her. Yes, I regret some things. Maybe I regret ever meeting her, but if I could turn back time, I would do it all over again and push harder. Be her happy distraction, not be everything that was too much in the wrong places. I won't lie: they were the happiest days of my life, yet the most disconcerting. I survived National Service and the months of cramming during university when I'd gone for days without sleep, yet I've never felt this depressed and helpless in my entire life. I've always had answers for myself,  but I don't know anything now; the scars are contagious. Still, they're my strongest memories of love and life, and I'm proud of what we went through.

But how do you get okay from something like this?

I've spent days trying to distract myself, trying to distance myself from thinking, at all. Blasting music to drown out the voices in my head. It does not stop the grief from always seeping out. You start to look for love and attention elsewhere, desperate to find a source of renewal. Social media. Your friends. Your pets. Brainlessly surfing the Internet. The cool night wind against your face.

Making yourself laugh.

Playing games.

Watching movies.

Social work.

The more I try, the emptier I always seem to feel after. The more frustrated. The distractions are false. Everything I love doing reminds me of you. You are so much like me on such an intuitive level that I don't know if there's anyone else like us. We just automatically understood each other. Our interests, our culinary tastes, everything. Trying to reclaim myself and be myself is impossible, because virtually whatever I do ties me to You. It seems too forced. It's easy enough to walk away from you; it's the world you created that stretches too far and too ubiquitously. I feel the grief catching up, voiding my efforts. I can't breathe and I'm quivering, muffling the noises escaping my mouth, lest my family hears me. Wondering when I'll run out of tears and when I'll stop feeling so fucking unwanted and discarded. When your feelings become your own prison, the sunlight pouring through your windows might as well be darkness.

I can't help it. 

What if she was just testing me? What if she's hurting like I am? What if there's still hope? What if I'm just short of doing one more thing to get her back? What if she's waiting for me?


Every time I close my eyes, I hear her laughing so freely. Every time I open them, everything I see reminds me of her. Loathing work, I have to force myself to wake up everyday to do something I hate without anything to look forward to. If I'm lucky, it's just a timetable I try to get through without breaking down. Just living reminds me of her. I had learned to associate her with the best in life. 




Sometimes, I wish I had died before we broke up; I'd have died happy. But I know that's stupid. Dying in blindness, selfishly leaving everyone behind, lost forever. Sometimes, I catch myself convincing myself that the person I once loved is dead or doesn't want to hurt me anymore, not because we fell out of love. Sometimes, I still daydream about random patches of us, but when I realise how everything had been a dream from top to bottom, what used to be a nightmare makes me feel a little better. The moments, if only for a while, live forever in me. The only way I can let it all out and break away from this shattered devotion is hold on tight to anything I can find in the most private space to crumble in -- so I won't be a burden to anyone else -- and pretend it's you hugging me and saying goodbye for one last time again. Then I imagine it's someone I could possibly love somewhere in the distant future who's holding me with all their hearts, telling me, "It's okay, I'm here now." 

These thoughts come to him every single second of the day and hang in the back of his mind, where a timer ticks deafeningly in the silence of a wasteland that he has barricaded off, its trigger threatening to explode anytime. Emotions need to be let out and translated into words. But when he comes home and sits in front of his computer, he comes to a blank and his eyes water. He does not know what to say or how to say it. He's afraid of remembering the whirling sadness and withdrawing into dark places. He can't wield it into an expression if he can't control it. 


Each day, you discover memories long forgotten or tucked away. You spend every second you don't use being distracted to brood over what happened, what could have happened, what should have happened. 

Get out. Get out of my head. Get out, please. Get the fuck out. Get out of my head. Why does it feel like my memories are haunting me and holding me at gunpoint? Get out. Get out. Get out. Get out. Get out.


Until you become so desensitised, you stop crying inside thinking about them and you feel the grief ebbing away.

The first day we met, we dared each other to do so many stupid things as forfeits for our silly rock-paper-scissors game. I was still on crutches then. But we were already crazy. We knew we were crazy for each other. I stalked another couple, lingering behind them for a minute to spook them, then acted like they were just in my way. We almost lined up the public dustbins in a row and pulled out the community flags planted in the nearby park. We came up with games and challenges and decided the loser had to be subjected to a torment of tickles or a dare of some sort.

I remember our second date when we wanted to go to 49 Seats for waffles. You misdirected the taxi driver, so we settled for an incredibly expensive but sumptuous Japanese dinner instead, since I still had trouble walking. Our third date, you came over the night before. I blurted out my plans because you were being so pushy. We spent the night reassuring each other that we'd never betray ourselves and you eased my fears that I wasn't good enough for you. The next day, I sprung my plans on you. We went to the Esplanade Library to watch Studio Ghibli movies and an obscure French film we both didn't quite get even though we were both self-proclaimed literary enthusiasts. We laughed and we cuddled in our own little world in that screening room. You were so warm in my arms and I knew I was holding something precious against my body. Then we went to another Japanese eatery and had the time of our lives. That was when we realised we both felt uncomfortable sitting opposite each other, so I went to sit right beside you instead. And we played with our luxury food and got drunk on soju (or sake, whatever). We tried grossing each other out by kissing with our mouths full and had really good mentaiko. Walked home unsteadily, caught a cab, spent the night at your house.


There was another time we went to Ikea and we were already planning the type of house we would live in. We even planned the layout of our house and how we were going to have secret rooms and everything, and how we'd connect the library to them so it'd be the least suspicious. We had meatballs and we both loved them like hell. We made so many racist jokes and we kept laughing as we mimicked accents and kept a lookout for anyone who might have overheard us. You always spammed my phone with selfies and this time was no exception. You were adorable. I still see that picture on your Instagram in which my hand was ruffling your hair as you took a selfie. And you were smiling that toothy, goofy, happy grin. 

One weekday after work, I was running on spontaneity. I called you and asked you out without a second thought. You were so happy you even posted my whole initiation on Facebook. We went for karaoke. We sang and danced till our throats were sore and our hearts gushed. And then we had my birthday. It was awesome although you almost blinded me with wasabi by smashing a coffee-wasabi pizza in my face. You made me belly dance and ballet dance and chicken dance and shampooed my hair with whipped cream. It was the best.

There was that one time when we were watching Mulan on my phone because we're both fans of Disney classics. My phone happened to stop working at such a sad, awkward place in the movie -- where Mulan's horse was startled by something. And its face looked like it was having an orgasm. We kept teasing each other because it looked like us. We laughed for an eternity. For 10-20 minutes, we couldn't stop. We just couldn't. It was the most hilarious day of my life.

I had never ever been woken up by a hug in my life, mostly because I never give anyone the chance. You were the first person who surprised me in my own room while I was pretending to be asleep. Prepared to tease you by ignoring you, I'd thought I would have to endure a melodramatic series of tickling and uncanny seduction. When your warm arms wrapped around my body and your soft weight plopped beside me, I opened my eyes in surprise to notice you had taken it upon yourself to fall asleep hugging me. I smiled and felt your mouth curling sneakily on my back.

You told me my dumbness and quirkiness were your favourite things about me. Then one day, you wanted the favour returned. You asked me what I really loved most about you, and you wanted to tell your mum, or brag to her rather. I hadn't actually given it much thought. I freaked out. Parents. Couldn't screw up. I decided to spit out the first thing that came to my head. 

"So, what do you like best about me?" she demanded, almost too solemnly.

"Your smile," I said, without hesitation.

And you grinned, you smiled that goofy, toothy grin that was all too beautiful. You were gorgeous when you dolled yourself up, with buxom curves in all the right places and your features heavily accented with blazing femininity. But my favourite type of smile was the bubbly fluffiness that swelled right out of you -- the one without make-up, the genuine show of happiness that was truly yours. And it hit me that whatever I said was so true that a tear tickled my cheek. I tried hiding it, but I think you knew that I was welling up and trying to conceal it, so you pretended not to notice. That night, for the first time, and by complete accident, I fell asleep on your bosom. When I woke up in the middle of the night, I found your hand caressing my hair. I heard you whispering you loved me as you touched my head. I felt safe and I fell asleep again.

On another of the adventure quests you had mischievously conceived, you showed up at my workplace with packaged dinner. It was a little crushed because you had sat on it by accident... I think. Haha. You shovelled me onto a bus persistently, telling me you had taken an entire day to plan this out. You said you had a destination in mind, but wouldn't tell me where to alight. I could choose to stop at any one point, though if it was the wrong stop, we'd have to spend extra time taking romantic walks and eating desserts. You gave me 8 clues, one after the other. I couldn't guess your master plan the whole trip and we ended up gallivanting about aimlessly. Throughout the bus ride, you kept pointing out iconic places the bus passed by -- places we had our previous dates at. You had actually ensured the bus would go by these places to our destination. How amazing is that? Of course, most of my attention was spent begging you to divulge the clues. It went from what I was wearing to what was in my bag, etc. But for the life of me, I couldn't guess it. 

Needless to say, I was stunned when we finally cabbed into your condo. You'd always talked about it, but I was there for the first time. You immediately took me down the paths leading to the pool and declared there was a secret clearing, a shadowy spot at the far end of the pool. And then I remembered. Our bucket list. Skinny dipping. Well, we didn't exactly skinny dipped, but it was fun, lying in the shallows with our clothes more or less off, enjoying the night breeze biting into our skin. It was like a game of who could spring the best impromptu date. You won hands down, knowing I was stressed at work and needed this. The night was chilly, but the ambiance, the mellow glow of the spotlights, piggybacking you across the pool, hearing you laugh, having the whole place exclusively to ourselves. I never felt warmer. 

Possibly, the best movie we watched together was The Notebook. You'd asked me on more than one occasion what I'd do if, like the female lead in the movie, you forgot about me entirely. About our lives together, our words exchanged, our happiness, our love. I always reassured you that, just like the hero in the movie, I'd bring you all our text messages, voice recordings (even that of your snoring), photos, videos, and books we had written in together. I'd visit you everyday and recite our stories to you if you didn't give up. I don't think I can keep that promise anymore.

I only started understanding what it meant to live when you came into my life. Because you made me feel so alive, I never felt so dead without you. All the little silly things we did together -- it didn't matter because you were with me. They leave the biggest holes in my heart. Now that you've vanished just as soon as you'd come, only the little and silly stuff remains. Which makes me feel slightly idiotic when I know that all the times we did it, I had been doing them alone. 

With loners, the problem is that they know what they want and will continue to pursue it without being bounded, to the point that nothing satisfies them until they meet their own expectations. This stops when we give our hearts to someone who matters more than all that. They become the only thing that matters. Only when it happens to us, do we know it, that all of us simply need someone special in our lives.

The following is a prose I wrote to her when I'd upset her really badly once:

Evermore So,
So you could let me love you again
All these things I wish I could say
Things I wish I could take back
Things I wish I could change
Without killing ourselves
They’re words I could never get out right
The words “I love you” and “I need you”
Will be detached from each negative excuse
Our hearts and souls will be mended and
I will never hurt you again
I’ve never been more consumed by the thought of losing you
I have never felt more empty and scared
I know I said I’d fight for a future
But that’s bullshit
You wear me down and thin me out
With your inconsistencies and broken sentience
Because my world revolves around your conscience
It’s painful being with you
I never know when I could lose you
Or how I might hurt you in my pursuit of you
Every time it seems I can’t do anything right
No matter how hard I try
Or how much we fall when we’re flying high
And how we live in constant Fight or Flight
I’ve had enough of us tearing each other apart
I love you.
I’m sorry it took me this long
To stop ruining your life and suffocating you
So I want to stop it now
Because for our story, less is more.
Read this backwards

After our break-up, we both did so many things to upset each other that it pretty much sealed the deal and confirmed we were only destroying each other. We couldn't stop arguing and shouting at each other the moment we were together. It was a complete overturn from when we had first met. We hated each other. It wasn't a normal relationship by far. I'm well aware that what I have written here is all solely my dreams on my part, without any of the gruesome incidents that culminated in the break-up. If I had lost someone I truly loved before, then maybe I'd know how to cope better. Maybe if this romance did not veer into the extremities, it would be more natural to get over.

It was the type of relationship that escalated faster than we could keep up and accelerated 3 months to 3 years of experience. I miss her so much. I went into the 5 stages of loss: Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. By making me hate her, I thought I'd flown straight and happily into acceptance. I was amazed at how fast I was bouncing back. But reality is tangible and it did not take long for me to hit a wall in my delusion. I was fighting against bargaining and depression. I saw how I had tried to use her birthday party as denial to compensate for the rift between us, and promises of the future to dress our wounds after how we'd hurt each other, thinking it might somehow bring us back together. But it was denial. She saw through it.


For a week, he was unstable. He had lost control of his own emotions. And then he was fine for a while. Then empty again. It was vexing. The more he tried, the more he surrounded himself with distractions, the more useless and irritable he felt. And the more they reminded him of her. He has been typing this with a tear-crusted face, as if a component of the words are tears. He misses her more than he wants to. Her laughter and her presence and her spirit. 

He wants to hold her so tight. Tell himself and her they're fine, that we're okay. Like all those nights he'd rushed over to her place when she cried uncontrollably and made him swore never to leave her. He gave her all he could and loved her with everything he had.  

I had disliked Christmas, seeing romantic couples use such a special occasion in vain to love each other even more so artificially. It was just another day. I had been the Grinch. It was just me, myself, and the freedom to do whatever I wanted. That was all I needed; no one else. 


I was alone, but not lonely. Often, I'd invent a companion, someone to share all the sights I got from climbing my own mountains and to see what was over on the other side of theirs. I could never really put a face to this person, but it was always an adventure. This person, I told myself, would be everything I'd ever wanted. So, of course she'd be non-existent. I could only dream.

Then, you came along. And you made me question my beliefs. You made me believe in you. In a short span of time, you were in all my dreams, day and night. Now, you have turned me inside out again. Those who know me know I hate changing my convictions. Whatever I make a point to believe in, it only grows stronger and I would defend it voraciously and even savagely. To tear me down twice is something only the person I'd let completely and unguardedly into my life could ever do. It was a stupid mistake on my part. It feels like I'm skinning myself alive.


In truth, just once, he wanted someone special he could call his own. He wanted to have a special closure to the end of the year. Just once, he did not want to feel alone, in his shrinking sphere where he shut everyone out. He just wanted you to be there. Every time he thinks he can fall in love again, he thinks of you. He doesn't want to. What he's lost can never be pieced back together. It won't ever be the same again. I miss all those moments we had.

This Christmas, this New Year, this Valentine's -- they're painful. Against the advice of his friends, he gathered his composure to visit her a month later, when he could finally make himself smile again. He had prepared to say goodbye to her home without seeing her. She'd found out and rushed down to see him. As she appeared before him again, his buried heart resurfaced. But she told him she was sorry that she wasn't the one for him. 
He did not come across her mind even once after they had broken up. She told him she was back with her ex. She was happy doing many things with him and other people. 

"If I'd met you first, it might have been different," she muttered, her indifference betraying the difference she painted in her statement.

"It might have been worse. You were a harder person on yourself and everyone else around you in the past. It would be more painful if we had stuck around longer," he replied, wondering if he was undermining what could have been or defending himself from the words she chose. It wouldn't have made a difference. It couldn't. Because if it did... it would mean admitting that this whole thing was a very cruel joke.

"No... It wouldn't have been worse. I think it would have been better. Things would have been different if I met you first. We would be happier."

How was he supposed to respond to that other than just sit and stare at her, as dumbfounded as he had been when she first kissed him?

She said there were so many out there who were far better than her. She said she wasn't worth it, she mused that she was "just a girl". 

What she did not know, when she asked why he was vigorously shaking his head in response, was that to him, a girl like her was impossible to find. Without warning, she suddenly blew into his face as his head was hanging down, trying to absorb his tears back into his eyes,  alarming him. When he raised his head, the only thing in his vision was her face, with her flashing her biggest, most toothy smile, in an effort to display goodwill. It only made it worse. His memories rushed back and he broke down in front of her. Worried, she pinned his slumped body against a wall and made him promise he would be okay. Didn't matter if it took four weeks or four years. He didn't have a choice. As he cried into her shoulders, he gave her his word. That moment, he whispered goodbye to her, his face wet with agony and anguish, to her fading silhouette as he watched her back disappearing into her elevator. It was two hours before Christmas. 

I keep replaying that in my head.

I celebrated the advent of 2016 with three different groups of friends.  It was the most eventful end-of-year countdown I ever had. Yet, it was the loneliest. 

I don't know if I can ever end the day without crying myself to sleep. At least I've stopped crying at work and telling my colleagues I'm having the bathroom runs.


My memories -- I can't delete you. Having them kills me. But pushing them away and visualising them burning away to ashes in my head kills me more.


I have purged my phone and everything. Or at least I thought. I still have your instagram. I have your phone number in my head. I have your email. I have your voice recordings -- of us singing together with your tone-deaf voice. Nothing quite makes us remember like trying to forget.

I can't even look at my graduation pictures, since the best thing about the whole ceremony was you. It's selfish, I know. What about the 2-3 years I'd worked my ass off for? What about my family who had come with me, so proud and focused on my hard-earned achievements? What about my friends and course mates? Were they nothing? Weren't they part of an important slice of my life? You cheered one of the loudest. We took the best pictures and we even wanted me to hoist you up for a photo shoot. We left before the ceremony ended and you eagerly pulled me into a secret labyrinth of stairwells and corridors, and we were locked in an unbridled spiral of kisses, passionately spinning from one corridor to another. 

It's things like this that make me wonder: 'what if I had not pushed for a breakthrough?', 'what if I had another chance?' What if.


I read this from an article about broken people:
"Maybe she’s afraid to love you because she’s been the person that’s broken someone else’s heart. Being hurt doesn’t always have to mean you were on the receiving end. You can hurt yourself by hurting someone else, to the point where you can’t even breathe and you hate waking up in your own body, knowing what you did and how you made someone else feel. Maybe she loved someone but knew they weren’t the right person for her, so she had to leave them. And now she’s worried that you’re going to do the same thing to her. That, even though you love her and you are kindhearted and you have the purest intentions, you still might have to walk away. She knows there are so many reasons why this might not work, so instead of paying attention to the one reason why it will, she focuses on the ways it won’t. It’s called self-preservation, and it’s all she knows."

At least I can say I genuinely loved the broken pieces of you, and I tried my best to stay. Do you know why broken people are so beautiful and exhilarating to be with? Because they still work without batteries. Because every effort that might seem extraneous to others is a struggle to pretend there's a silver lining buried within the dread. Because for them, it takes a lifetime of courage, strength and choices to be happy and normal. Because they consciously need to be adventurous and crazy to start living at all. Because their smiles and laughter are more precious than any rare gem you can ever find. And it's indescribably amazing when you're the one who's able to polish them into the diamonds they never thought they could be that you knew they were all along.

But on the flip side, there are times when you can only watch them, aghast, fall further down into a quagmire of self-destruction and delirium, as you fall deeper in love with them. And it's as indescribably crushing when your worst fears are confirmed -- that you're the source of it.


While you insisted I was oversensitive, you were the only one whom I ever bared everything to. The whole world could have hailed on my exterior, and I would have shielded you with it, exposing my innermost vulnerabilities to you. You were the only one who mattered, and I was willing to get hurt for you. I've always been sentimental. But when a real loss comes, sentimentality becomes a cold vacuum stuck in your chest.

In hindsight, you were incredibly strong and brave for trying to love someone else. Given your conditions and uncontrollable impulses, you chose to love me all the same. The only thing I should feel is honour. You did so much -- too much for me. I never really understood any of your pain yet your efforts felt all too real to me. The love I thought we had might not have been real to you, but the affection, the thrill, adventure and the connection, the laughter and intimacy we had -- that journey was real. Or we both wouldn't have cried. You wouldn't have begged me to stay and I wouldn't have begged to stay. I wasn't a rebound, I know, because no one who didn't try to fall in love with me would have held me and made me see the best and worst of myself as you did.

Against the advice of my friends, again, I went on a pilgrimage to all the places we had had our sweetest moments in. I went there in order of our most recent escapades and cried, rewinded the memories, and pictured your hands holding mine, and your playful form dancing around me. I had to. I don't know how many times I've tried to say goodbye to you. To memories of you. Because there's always an excuse to come back and clear the air for just a bit more closure than I got. I have to go back and confront these memories and leave them at the places they came from or they'll keep haunting me. But it always shreds me apart all over again. 

I listened to all our phone conversations and audio recordings of our deepest and most heartfelt confessions to each other. I had to rewind them until I could convince myself they never happened. It's like muscles. I have to revisit and tear them before they can be regenerated even stronger than before. This pilgrimage was recently over. With my visit to the first spot I'd asked you to give me a chance at, it has come to a full circle, and I'm more accustomed to this sadness. At some point the tears stop. There's no more. The grief is stuck there, dissolving slowly. But.

I'm still so scared of seeing you. Your pictures. Your videos. Memories of you. Scared not of you, but my own emotions if I should ever meet you somewhere again. All it takes is one look at you for me to crumble inside. One smile from you to paralyse me. Your laughter or your voice to torment me for days. A kiss from you to bring me back. I have to stop.


I had my heart broken last year four times, each worse than the last. The heart, as with everything else, can only endure a certain amount of damage before it becomes irreparable. With this episode, can you imagine how scared I am of getting hurt again? When I fall in love, just like everything I have a passion for, I give my all. But you have taught me that I want to live for myself first. Then whatever comes, comes. I'm the most important person there should be in my life. So I shouldn't care about anything else. I can't open up and let down my guard again, because opening old wounds before they heal would disintegrate whatever self-awareness I have left. I cannot handle anymore false hopes. I have to be my own hero if no one else can. I cannot afford to be someone else's hero and risk getting my heart plucked out from where I least expect. I can't do this again. 

It's ironic that often I wish the tears won't stop and I can continuously force them out, so I can either just keep on loving you in misery or flush the dejection out of my system. This isn't me. I'm so tired from wallowing in self-pity and loss. I never knew depression was so exhausting. (On the other hand, I now have an actor's handy ability to tear up anytime. So that's positive.)

I can't control my heart and my mind, from thinking of you to slowly thinking about thinking of you. The more the days go by, the less I think about you. The less I want to touch and hug you. The less tears I shed. The less I love you. And part of me cries because I don't want to stop loving you. But the other part cries because I know I can never again hear you laugh for me, or cheer, or smile, or hold me. I can never even see your name and number ringing on my phone again.  That's the weird chemistry of heartbreak: One fine day, you'll just revert to your old self again, as if we'd never met. The fiery passion and addictive desire we were once drawn to will wither right in front of our eyes. Maybe I'll even forget how to pronounce your name. Maybe that's partially why I'm making this post. At least somewhere, deep down, even if I should forget you, this post will be a testimony of a beautiful time.

Speaking of testimonies, this is what I'd declared at the end of 2014: 

"2015, rather than be afflicted by chronic claustrophobia of small minds, I've decided to grab you by the ass, introduce myself and elope with you. By that, obviously, I mean escapism: travel whores -- pouncing on place after place with voracious lust, bumping into old and new friends alike, and soliciting adventures like souped-up adrenaline turbo junkies.


... 


Outta the way 2014, 2015 is raring to go."


How wrong I was. It was the single, most painful year for me.

It was horrible at the end. Until the end. It's in accepting this that I forgive myself and I forgive you. So, please forgive us as well. If you ever read this, I just want you to know that it's okay. I'm confident that you, in whatever ways you have of your own, will find the happiness you deserve and need. Whenever you have to cry, even if you feel like you're the only one alive, I promise you that you'll always be loved. You're too beautiful and amazing for someone not to love you for you. I promise you that you'll never be alone, however palpable the emptiness feels. I promise you that I'll never forget, and you'll always be someone special to me. I promise you that I won't be the only one to have loved you this much. Don't be guilty and don't be mad. However ugly life gets, I promise you we'll both be all right.

I may be too sentimental for my own good. I may be a mess. But I'm on my own feet. The worst Christmas may have passed me by, along with a New Year drenched in the colour of tears, but my fresh start and my resilvering began the moment I lost you. When I smile from the heart again, it won't be for you, because I'll have moved on -- because you became whatever you said you wouldn't be -- because you didn't care -- because you never loved me like I loved you. And that's okay. I have to tell myself that I have things I want to live for, things I want more than you. Eventually, someday I'll learn to love myself again, more than I loved you. I wish you all the best in your new year and the ones to come, Pupu.

Thanks for letting me discover the person I can be when I'm in love and when I'm loved. Thank you for letting me discover how strong and weak I am in times of loss. Just as you had thanked me for these very experiences before ending it, I, too, am grateful to you for the passion, the love, the intimacy, the laughter, the fun, the company, the friendship, and for having been with me. For giving me that chance. 

One chapter has closed and another has opened. I won't end here. I've fractured my legs twice, maybe more. Each time, I would forget how to walk after I was well enough to try. But life doesn't stop. Living means having to take steps forward, no matter how small. And eventually, I was always able to walk again. Jump. Run. Climb mountains. If the heart is part of the body, it won't be time that heals it. It'll be life, the very act of living and moving. Firsts will happen again.


This is what I'd written for myself before I'd learned to fall in love, before I'd learned to be loved:


I've never really fallen in love before.

I am afraid the recoil will just snap me. 
The sudden standstills repeat in encore. 
You'll promise me, but then you'll flee. 
And the very first moment I start caring
would be the last mistake I'll always make.
'Cuz you'll never fail to leave me hanging,
and say everything's okay for your sake.

I saw it coming, but I still crashed headfirst into it. As I sit here typing out my disquiet, I can't help but wonder -- what happens next? One thing's for sure. This has been an invested and humbling experience which has given me another chance to treasure my friends and family more, as well as myself.


This blog post has been the hardest one I've had to type, taking over a month to complete. From here on out though, I'm going to be steering back to fun, satirical humour and concentrating on my career. Here's to everyone of you who had a fucked up 2015. Don't lie, my Facebook is full of self-pitying shits like me, hahaha. For me and many, 2016 begins now.

So guess what. I'm still alive. I'm surviving. I'll reclaim myself.

This incoherent post has been brought to you by the feelings: Sappy, Whiny and Emo.

No comments: