Closure

You know that phrase, where someone tells you, or maybe you told someone, that all you wanted was to sit down and hash it out, get some closure?

Surely, it's not that easy.There is no way you can get closure simply by sitting down with someone once or twice and 'hashing it out' and magically get closure. If it does work like that then I feel cheated.

Closure is. It's an internal process. It's a fucking long journey, riddled with self-doubt and insecurities and 'was-it-me's and 'I-should've's. It's an rearrangement of mind, a resection of a part of yourself, a negotiation with you and your past and your present and your future.

Closure is endless nights of scrolling through past conversations and messages and wondering if I made the wrong decision, if it was all just a mistake, if it could be rescued; if, if, if.
Closure is a few books worth of diary entries and endless lists of pros and cons of getting back together and apologising and basically begging for time to reverse itself.
Closure is dissecting every moment we were together, every single word I said, every single word you said, every intention unsaid, every look every glance every accidental meeting of skin.
Closure is getting choked up at random things, random places, random words because of the associated memories and yeah, sorry, just a little sand in my eyes.
Closure is cursing my own idiotic ego.
Closure is yearning, longing for every scrap of information, every stolen glance at an unaware back, every pathetic attempt at appearing unaffected while dying bit by bit inside.
Closure is constant vigilance for a familiar silhouette and running away before he sees me because god knows I'm not yet able to handle thinking of him much less seeing him even though my butterflies are flying towards him.
Closure is nights after nights after nights of Adele and Sam Smith and old Taylor Swift and every sad song in the world; and deleting all my old playlists because fucking memories.
Closure is deleting all messages on a whim and regretting it.
Closure is me telling myself again and again that it happened time and time again and history will repeat itself no matter how many times or how many different ways I crash head-first into it again because this is on me and unless I get a personality transplant it's not happening.
Closure is reminding myself every single night why it's not a good idea no matter how I feel because it goes against what I believe and I simply cannot give it chances anymore it'll all head down the same path anyway and my head tells me we're not gonna last even if we get back together and my heart just sits there with its metaphorical ears plugged throwing a tantrum blind to the destruction ahead.
Closure is watching friends and family trade affection while I stand alone with cold empty shoulders and a niggling voice inside my head telling me it's all my fault anyway why do I even complain it's time to live with the consequences of my choices.
Closure is night after night after night after night after night after night after night of being unable to put anything into words and it's all jumbled up and no way I can tell anyone how messed up I am inside for hating you blaming you for my mistakes.
Closure is drowning.
Closure is burying myself in distraction and work and new hobbies and escapism so I don't have to think about it and can let the wound heal instead of picking and picking at it making it bleed over and over again.
Closure is wanting to cry all the time and having to choke it down and starving for physical reassurance and wishing for physical pain because intangible pain simply cannot be soothed and trying to not imagine arms around me or warmth surrounding me because it never happened and it never will.
Closure is promising myself to do better next time to communicate better next time to jump and risk it next time and knocking myself in the head because what next time?


Closure is-




Closure is pain. So much pain. That sometimes I stay in bed at night unable to breathe because I threw away the chance to not feel so alone simply because of the fear of the possibility of failure because I'm a coward and it's all too late now anyway so sit there and enjoy this slow digging feeling in your chest where a heart used to be.

Closure is acceptance. That it didn't work, and it's all in the past, and it's too late, and he's not mine anymore, and maybe he never was anyway.

Closure is time. Time and Distance. Time heals all wounds, they say, but it doesn't get rid of scars, and there are hypertrophic scars and keloid scars and phantom pain and I just have to live with it, but with distance maybe, just maybe, the triggers will stay just far away enough.

Closure is-

It's walking on the street one day and suddenly realising it doesn't hurt that much anymore. That it doesn't take so much effort anymore to not-think.

It's smiling one day and realising that it's actually genuine.

It's bumping into him accidentally one day and feeling vaguely off because oh, I haven't thought of you in a while, and feeling confused on how I should feel about that. 

Closure is accepting the pain, accepting the mistakes, accepting the what-ifs. Accepting that it happened, accepting that it wasn't to be.

Closure is a journey. It's an extended, super prolonged conversation with your self. It helps to sit down with each other and figure out what went wrong, and come to an agreement about what happens next. It helps. But true closure? That happens within. Nobody can give you closure if you aren't ready for it. I learnt this the hard way. I learnt this the unethical way.

But I got my closure, almost two years later.

...

That's my answer. That's what I wasn't able to say.

I've shed blood (or less dramatically, ink), sweat and tears coming to this closure. I've convinced my entire being to close this chapter up. I've let it scab over.

I'm sorry I cannot. I really am. For you, for me. I'm sorry I led you on. I'm sorry for all the thoughtless things I've done. I'm sorry for my dishonesty, I'm sorry for my evasion, I'm sorry for my indecisiveness. I am sorry for all the pain I caused. I truly am; I cannot tell you how much, and you should hate me for that, and I'll accept it because it's the truth it's something I have to live with, I know. And I know 'I'm sorry' will never be enough because it wasn't enough for me, but I'm still sorry. I'm sorry I didn't give us a chance to work things out.

But I...

I just can't go through that again. 

Why Am I Lovable?

Recently, I had a sort of breakdown. Recently is an understatement; breakdown is an overstatement.

Allow me to rephrase; I'm having bad days. Days when I can't remember what each breath is for, when I can't remember why getting out of bed out of the door out into the world is something people do. Days when I burst into tears spontaneously for no obvious reasons, and days where I'm so numb I keep pinching myself to remember what feeling feels like.

Even now, it is a struggle to get these words out; it seems that my tendency for verbosity has finally got tired of me and took a leave. My one pride and joy, my words, have decided to leave me.

So, in my multiple failures to leave my sanctuary, I began to scroll Tumblr with a passion. Tumblr is my one safe place, where nobody knows me, and I can say whatever I want, like whatever I want, reblog whatever I want without subconsciously fretting about what people would think of me if I did this or that. I could have my petty worries aired out, I could rant with vigour, I could admit that the things I like are sometimes unacceptable. Tumblr was the one place who understands me, and allowed me the space I needed to find who I am. Instead of happy moments of my acquaintances' colourful, inspired, energetic lives, Tumblr was filled with people like myself, and many others with different issues, some also unaccepted by the world. Tumblr became a solace.

But, I digress.

In my apathetic scrolling through Tumblr (because that's usually the state I'm in while on Tumblr), 'love yourself' began to jump out repeatedly at me. This might bring to mind Justin Bieber, but I swear, Bieber doesn't feature on my Tumblr at all. I see him enough on Instagram. But 'love yourself'? 'How can you let others love you if you can't love yourself?' they said. 'You need to love yourself before others can,' they preached. But how does one go about loving oneself?

I've realised that loving myself had become somewhat of an issue with me, some time around the end of 2016. 2017 was an entire year dedicated to myself, giving myself space, letting myself go, allowing myself freedom to express. I wouldn't say I was phenomenally successful at that, but let's just stop at 'improvement'. I'd definitely become much more of a hermit, because oft times I simply am not up for socialising. I found out that I have multiple personalities at different times, switching with no prior warning, with an undetectable pattern to them. I can be the very definition of a social butterfly, and suddenly close up like a clam the next minute, for no obvious reasons. I could put on masks and be the mask when the situation calls for it, the very definition of 'fake it till you make it', but when it all ends, when it's time for the mask to come down, there's a prolonged period of identity confusion--who am I actually? Is the mask I wear my actual identity, or has the mask become me?

There were good times in 2017, but in the freedom I allowed myself, I found parts of myself that I didn't want to face.

I didn't know who I am. I still don't. I would like to say that I've understood myself more compared to when I was 17, but that would be both truth and lies at the same time. For the more I found out about myself, the more I was befuddled by it.

I don't know what I want. I hate people who are passionate sometimes, who have dreams and places they want to be. Who knows their future, who knows who they are, who knows their dreams and destinations, whatever they may be. I watched The Greatest Showman recently, and while 'A Million Dreams' is incredible, it is also a lie for me. For no such passion and dreams exist for me. While I may lie in bed at night, kept awake, it is not by 'the brightest colours' nor is it the 'million dreams' that haunts me. I am kept awake by uncertainty. Doubts. Fear. Anxious thoughts about not being to be clear-minded the next day simply because I'm not able to sleep.

And these things are so minor, I believe everybody has them. So why are they bugging me so much? To the point where I cease to function, and has to rely on masks to keep pushing through. I love long drives, with only me behind the wheel, no one else in the car, with no destination in mind. Because it is only then that I can be unencumbered by the need to find an answer, and the need for masks. I don't have to answer to anybody, and I can keep on lying to myself.

Gah I keep digressing.

Everybody has these issues. But I don't see them being burdened by them. I don't see them blowing it way out of proportion and having it consume their lives. My friends are cheerful, good-hearted people that I can never be. Instead of being petty, short-tempered, insecure, and oft times irresponsible to the point of shutting the world out, my friends are generous, good hearted, cheerful people who welcome the world with open arms. Some of them don't see it, but they are. And they keep going with smiles on their faces.

I understand that nobody airs out their troubles on their faces all the time. I understand that. I know that they must have times of doubt and fear and insecurity, just like I do. I am not special in that sense, no. But where are they drawing strength from? To keep on going like that? I am crumbling more often, requiring more space to myself so that I can let myself go, and keeping a smile on my face is drawing much more strength than I can handle.

GAH. THE POINT OF THIS POST IS NOW SO FAR AWAY THAT I HAVE TO TAKE A SPACESHIP AND SEND IT THROUGH A BLACKHOLE TO RETRIEVE IT.

No. The point of this post is not to whine and cry about my issues. It is about my discovery that I can't find a reason why I'm lovable.

Perhaps that's the reason I keep gravitating back to the few people I know for sure who likes me (even though they'd probably gotten tired of me, and wish I would stop being so clingy). Instead of making new acquaintances and having to worry about impressing them enough to like me.

Because what's there about me to like? Why would anybody like me?

I'm not particularly pretty, no. I'm not tall enough, or slim enough, or even proportioned correctly. I have troubles buying clothes because while everybody's bodies are different, mine is just different enough to give me shopping troubles. I'm not like some of my friends who attracts people the way the sun attracts everything, cheerful, optimistic, all genuine smiles and encouragement and witty retorts. I'm not confident at all in my abilities, or in myself as a person, to be good and encouraging and competent (although I fake it all the time, to the point where sometimes I forget that it's all fake--but that's a good thing no? It is, until some innocent comment tears it all down without warning and you're suddenly awakened to the fact that it is all pretend)

I could go on and on about my stupid insecurities. But that's not why I'm here.

One of the Tumblr posts said, with infinite wisdom, to write down just one thing, every day, one thing that you like about yourself. One thing that you think could be lovable about yourself.

I tried.

I did.

But I couldn't find one thing to love.

Wait, that's not entirely true. I love my ability to spin illusions out of words, and see worlds from words. It is my only solace so far, the ability to escape reality into worlds spun from words. And I love that about myself, but only because it lets me hide. I really don't see why others might like that ability on me, though.

Gaah. I don't know why I'm writing this anyway. So what there's nothing I could find about myself to love? So what if I can't write down a single thing that's lovable about me?

I couldn't even write down reasons to live beyond my family. It seems that life doesn't hold much for me right now. Even fanfiction is slowly losing its appeal. I miss those days when I picked up new interests like monkeys pick up bananas. Nothing can hold my genuine attention for long now. I spend most of my time alternating between trying to find new fanfiction to read, and lying in bed either falling asleep at inopportune moments, or trying to fall asleep when I should be asleep.

If anybody's reading this, even the future me, please enlighten me.

Why am I lovable?

(It sounds like I'm fishing for compliments, doesn't it? It does. Perhaps this entire post should be deleted anyway. I bounced around so many times around so many points that I'll be surprised if any of it made sense.)

p.s. and the article that brought me here to write is this = https://thoughtcatalog.com/chelsea-fagan/2013/08/for-when-you-think-that-no-one-will-love-you/ . And although I know it doesn't really relate to me as I've never been in a relationship, but certain parts of the read was incredibly close to heart. I'll extract the excerpts and put them here, for I know for sure that I'll come back someday in the future and curse myself for an expired link. 

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" "I love you" will mean nights staying up watching someone sleep next to you, wondering why they haven't left you already, wondering when they will. It means having to be naken with them with the lights all the way up, stinging every dimpled plane of your body with unforgiving clarity. It means having to take the risk that, as has happened so many times before, you will be disappointed. you will be proven wrong. You will live the reality of that fear you always have, the fear where they wake up one day and look in the mirror and say " What was I doing here? I could do so, so much better than this. "

So you have chosen aloneness. You have chosen the security and the relative freedom of solitude, because there is no risk involved. You can stay up every night and watch your TV shows and eat ice cream out of the box and scroll through your Tumblr and never let your brain sit still, not even for a moment. You can fill your days up with books and coffees and trips to the store where you forget what you wanted the second you walk in the automatic sliding door. You can do so many little, pointless things throughout the day that all you can think of is how badly you want to sleep, how heacy your whole body is, how much your feet hurt. You can wear yourself out again and again on the pavement, and you do, and it feels good."

"Sometimes, you think that no one has ever loved you. You have almost flippantly doubted it, even when someone was saying it to you. Even if they are saying it to you today. Because, though you wouldn't like to admit it, you're not terribly sure you love yourself. You reject all of the simpering notions in beauty magazines and you learn to say nice things about yourself when you look in the mirror. If someone asked, you could provide an objective list of your qualities. But you're not sure that 'loving yourself' is something you ever really learned how to do. 

Sometimes you wonder if everyone is faking it, even the people who seem to have it all down to a science."

"Because you've never looked at yourself and felt blown away by the privilege of being in your own body, of having your own mind, of living your life. You've never felt that thrilling infatuation, that deep connection, that shit-eating grin kind of pride. Not about yourself. "

"And maybe that's it, after all, this fear that no one will ever truly feel about you the way you want to be felt about. Maybe what you want is someone to make you love yourself, to put sense into all that positive rhetoric, to make it so the aloneness of TC and blasting music in your ears at all times isn't the most happy place you can think of. Maybe you want someone who makes you so sure of how wonderful things are that you cannot help but to tell them your feelings first, even at the risk of being humiliated. Because you will know that, when you're telling them you love them, what you're really saying is "I love who I become when I am with you." "

___________________________________________________________________________

That's basically the entire article. GAH. 

Alone

There are some moments when all I feel like doing is cry. For no reason at all. 

It comes on suddenly, builds to a crescendo, and wraps around my entire being. And it keeps building. And I don't know why it happens, I don't know how to stop. All I know is, the more I fight it, the more it builds, and the worse the fall. Allowing tears to fall became a necessary weakness.

Every tear brings down a wave and soothes away the ache. 

Some times people try to soothe this ache. But I don't know how to react, I don't know how to show weakness to them. And I became a hurricane to throw them away before the pressure throws me away. And the tears fall when I'm alone. 

I lament about being lonely, when I'm surrounded by people waiting to help. I don't know how to let them in. I've never thought of myself as stubborn. But I'm starting to think I am. Stubborn about looking invulnerable. Insisting that I'm indestructable.

I am lonely, because I don't know how not to be.