Arresto Momento: 2019

Sunday, November 10, 2019

Untitled

I haven't written in a while.

Not in my diary. Not in a blog.

You see, I'm afraid of what will come out when I don't have a 280 character limit. I'm afraid of the torrential outpouring of words and tears and unprocessed hurt. The ache never really left; would it ever? Despite my swinging between overanalyzing and completely ignoring this, I don't think this is something that'd go away.

I don't work that way.

I guess we all have a tendency to keep what's familiar near to ourselves. The ache is familiar, the pain even more so. The unbearable longing. The terrible sensation of your heart falling all the way down to your feet. The growing ball of something hard and unyielding rising from chest to throat and staying there like a reluctant mother leaving her firstborn at the hands of witches.

I want to forget. I want to move on. I want nothing of this ache and pain and want and please say you want me back. I want to forget you and us and all the places you touched and kissed and whispered against. I want to be able to go to movies and not remember how you watched me instead and the closed-lipped kisses you pressed into my hair. I want to go to the sea and watch the waves instead of feeling the weight of your hand on the dip of my waist. To lie in bed and not feel your breath ghosting across my cheek, your stubble against my neck, your teeth against my lips. To watch the morning sun rise behind the curtains and not feel your warmth lining my back.

I want to forget.

But do I really?

You brought me into this world I've only heard of. I chose to love, and I chose the risk of hurt, and now I've got to live with the aches and pains that came with overexerting unused muscles.

I guess I don't really want to forget. I want to look back at this chapter of my life and smile at the sadness and the happiness and the joy of discovering that all the rumours and myths of love was true. I want to know with certainty that I was capable of love despite knowing that you don't love me the way I wanted you to; that I was able to love unconditionally. I want to remember the impossible swell of feelings when you kissed me, that wordless contentment of being at your side, the simple wholesome happiness of watching the rise and fall of your chest in the dark early hours of dawn. I want to remember the novelty of feeling happy just because you are. I want to remember all that, even as they begin to fade now. I want to remember how good it felt to be accepted so completely. I want to remember how it felt to be cherished, and how it felt to give in to lust.

Because if it never happened again, at least I had this. With all the aching dullness that shadows every breath and heartbeat, it was worth it.

Is it, though?

There are days when everything was worth it, and I am okay with how things turned out, and accepts that people leave when they want to, and you can't hold on to someone who wants to leave or doesn't want to stay. When I'm okay with closing the chapter. Days when I look at us and understand that you were there to teach me something, and that you left because there was nothing more you could give me or teach me. Days when I can accept, with an undercurrent of sadness, that we were simply not meant to last. That you were here with me to show me that the kind of love I want is possible and not just me being unrealistic. That you came when you did and left when you did, that maybe you didn't love me that much but that's okay.

But then there are days when I question. If this pain that came hand in hand was worth it. If I'd ever get over this. What if the love I want is truly unrealistic in the long run? That I was being foolish for believing something like this could last. There are dark days when I wonder if I was simply a convenient warm body, willing and easy, when I wonder if the affection I received was a trick to get me where he wanted me. When I feel used and dirty, and lied to and tricked. When I feel like I'll never get out of this deep dark bottomless pit where I keep falling and falling and never hitting the ground. At least if I hit the ground there'd be an end; a painful one, but still an end. Instead, all I get is the lump in the throat waiting forever for something, something, to stop this ache.

And then there are days when all I do is long for you. And these days are the worst, because all I do is pick at the scabbing sore and making it hurt, because pain is better than numb, and because I'm forgetting to hurt. Digging at healing flesh because pain makes it real, reminds me that what I felt was real, and that my pain is warranted because I don't want to forget why I had to hurt. I don't want to forget us. I don't want to forget your silly shimmy and your stupid quips and your ridiculous comebacks and your way with words and the depth you try to hide sometimes but still bubbles out.

each of these days is a shadow of us.

They asked me if I loved you. I don't know. What does it mean to love? How does it feel to love? All I know is I wanted you with a ferocity that scared me, but at the same time worry about the same ferocity driving you away. (It did.) All I know is I held you with a tenderness that surprised me, but at the same time worry that my tender grip wouldn't hold you where I wanted you to be. (It didn't.) All I know is I feared losing you, so much.

(I did.)

And then they asked me if you loved me.

Did you?

Guess I Just Feel Like

I guess I just feel like.
Like climbing an unending hill for no reason that I can see.
What's waiting on top? Is there even a top?
You talk about the climb, but all I can is is deep penetrating darkness. I have no companion, because god knows I love my solitude; god knows how much I fear opening up myself again to non-solitude.

I wish I am not like this, but if wishes were horses, i'd be a billionaire from the horsey selling.

Sometimes I wish I can just shut off that aspect of my brain that asks inappropriate whys whats and ifs. Sometimes I wish I'm not me, and that I don't worry so much about who I am and what I'm doing here, or why I'm doing what I'm doing. Sometimes I wish I could just let things be, and quit thinking up scenarios that are ridiculous.

Sometimes I just wish I could stop feeling.

Thursday, April 11, 2019

So This Is How It Feels Like

So this is how it feels like. To be an enemy of time and circumstances.

So this is how it feels like.

I can't say I like it. I can't even honestly say I hate it. Time has been a friend for so long, a balm for all things, if not a cure, that I know it's doing what it does, and this isn't personal. Time has been a friend for so long, that it's kinda hitting me hard that for almost the first time in my life, just when everything is finally looking up, time isn't on my side.

I want to rage. I want to be angry, and throw things, and be mad at the world, at the circumstances that led us here, but all I can muster up is a deep aching sadness. That, and an inability to stop the leaking pipes that used to be eyes.

Why did I accept this so quickly? Have I always?

After accidentally stumbling upon what I've been looking for so long, in the most unexpected place, why am I accepting this so quickly?

But maybe somewhere deep down I've never really actually believed anything would come out of this. Somewhere deep down I've never really believed that things like this happened to me. And we were doomed from the very start, with the sands of time slowly counting down the fall of reality's guillotine.

So this is how it feels like.

This unrelenting knot at the back of my throat. This precarious perch of moisture upon my lashes. Perpetually wet cheeks. Muffled anguish. Smiling masks.

Vaguely familiar, yet so very different.

I know I'll get through this. I've always gotten through things, usually because there was no other choice. But I've never been good at delayed gratification. I've never been good at the long game. I've never been good at fucking letting go.

So this is how it feels.

To have and to hold. To having to let go.

So this is how it feels.

Strong arms. Soft kisses. That overwhelming scent of safe safe safe.

So this is how it feels.

To want, and to be wanted.

So this is how it feels.

Warm breaths. Sturdy hands. Heartbeats shuddering against my cheek.

So this is how it feels.

The warring mind and heart.

This is how it feels.

I don't know if I'd have wanted to know if this is how it feels.

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Those Moments

Those moments when you realise your heart simply refuses to listen, and your brain actually eggs it on.

Those moments when all your past debates vanish like a swirl of post-coital cigarette smoke, lost in the haze of a different sort.

Those moments when your past rears up to meet you in a tsunami wave swallowing you whole.

Those moments when you are still doggedly refusing to let it go, choosing to hurt instead.

Those moments when you are still daring to hope, daring to hold, daring to want.

Those moments when a skipped beat beats skipped stones across the calm lake spreading ripples.

Those moments when loneliness trumps everything.

Those moments when everything trumps loneliness.

Those moments when lust creeps and seeps through fabric, soaking each cell, trembling, shuddering, leaking.

Those moments when apathy takes hold and pries open your desperate grip for anything that makes you feel alive.

And those moments when sleep finally greets you and welcomes you instead of keeping you an eyelid and a world away.

#midnightramblings

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Only Us

I have been stuck on the positive vibes of this song for so long, and the hope and contentedness of the song has gone full circle and turned into doubt, loneliness and that sort-of-tentative-hope-but-not-really kind of melancholy. I have replayed this song until my car door knows the lyrics, and my earphones vibrate in anticipation at the start of the second verse, and my phone sighs and replays the song instead of me having to hit the replay button. The song has made me laugh, and smile, and then cry, and ugly sob, and shouting and yelling at the fates above and cursing everything that had brought me to this point in life where I still don't understand why I so desperately want what I want.

Ugh. Rambling.

Ah sorry. I realise I haven't mentioned which song.

This is Only Us, from the musical Dear Evan Hansen. It was originally sung by the main male and female leads, as Zoe found out that Evan likes her, and the song is basically just two very sad people holding onto what seems like salvation. (okay I actually don't know I just assumed 'cause I haven't really watched the thing I just scanned through the backstory with my incredibly out of practice speed reading skills)

But!

For Valentine's Day, they released a special version of the song sung by the two men who have both played the role of Evan Hansen. Ben Levi Ross and TaylorTrensch.

The catch?

They are a real life couple.

I just...

The song itself, with heartwrenchingly painful lyrics like 'I don't need you to sell me on reasons to want you' and 'I gave you ten thousand reasons to not let me go' is bad enough. Add into the mixture these two boys so in love they can't stop grinning even as they sing, and that catch for each other's hands...?

I'm giving up on love and life, but I also don't want to give up on love and life. UGH thanks a bunch Pasek and Paul.

This is my cue to insert lyrics.

I don't need you to sell me on reasons to want you

I don't need you to search for the proof that I should

You don't have to convince me

You don't have to be scared you're not enough

'Cause what we've got going is good

I don't need more reminders of all that's been broken

I don't need you to fix what I'd rather forget

Clear the slate and start over

Try to quiet the noises in your head

We can't compete with all that

So what if it's us?

What if it's us

And only us

And what came before won't count anymore or matter?

Can we try that?

What if it's you

And what if it's me

And what if that's all that we need it to be

And the rest of the world falls away?

What do you say?

I never thought there'd be someone like you who would want me

So I give you ten thousand reasons to not let me go

But if you really see me

If you like me for me and nothing else

Well, that's all that I've wanted for longer that you could possibly know

So it can be us

It can be us

And only us

And what came before won't count anymore or matter

We can try that

It's not so impossible

Nobody else but the two of us here

'Cause you're saying it's possible

We can just watch the whole world disappear

'Til you're the only one

I still know how to see

It's just you and me

It'll be us, It'll be us

And only us

And what came before won't count anymore

We can try that

You and me

That's all that we need it to be

And the rest of the world falls away

The world falls away

And it's only us

I have no favourite parts, because the entire song -- the verses, the chorus, the bridge -- they are all my favourite.

I guess it's the acceptance that got me. The idea that someone will look at you and think, this is what I want. The good and the bad. The scars and the baggage. That your past don't matter; or maybe it does, but it's made you you and that's the only thing that should matter. The idea that someone will want you as you are, and you don't need to put on masks or disguises or anything to convince them that you are worthy and that you're enough. The pure hope that you, as you are, is reason enough, and no other extra reasons are required. That nothing else matters, not the world, not anybody but you and your willingness to try to make this work.

The idea of acceptance just... appeals to me. I don't know why, but perhaps 26 years of singledom have low-key made me feel that maybe I'm just not meant for this. Having bungled up most matters to do with the heart, and the fact that there weren't really that many matters to do with the heart, it makes one wonder if maybe I'm just... not good enough to be wanted. That somewhere there is a something that I can't see nor fathom that just tells people -- not this one.

I'm a slob. I'm lazy and unmotivated. I'm too lazy to do anything but fangirl over various fictional characters. I ooze jealousy over others. I resent other people for their motivation and their successes and their happiness. I make promises I don't keep. I binge eat, and bitch about it but do nothing about it. I never watch any shows I said I'd watch. I never show up in full attention, I never remember your birthdays (or sometimes i do but i just can't muster up enough celebration cells to do something for you). I'm attached to my phone. I'm mediocre at everything because excellence is too much effort. I brag, and I'm insecure and basically I'm terrified at what the future holds and so I stagnate and hide in my room even as the future draws nearer and more concrete.

For a girl that had routinely feels that other people do it better, and routinely evaluates and reevaluates many points of her self, finding herself wanting but incapable of change (for various reasons but mostly just giving up on finding that ideal target to aim for) ; I suppose, for a girl like that, unconditional acceptance is invaluable.

Or maybe I'm just a narcissist who just wants concrete validation.

It's just a song. A song to listen to, and watch other people celebrate their love and connection and acceptance. A song to listen to, and feel like these are things that happen to other people but never me.

I guess I will always want, even when I know I love my solitude, and that I'm perfectly fine being alone.

Thursday, January 3, 2019

My Phone Addiction

I have a phone addiction.

It might have just hit me, that this addiction may have stemmed from my pathological need to avoid people.

Reading old blog posts about those dark times in the middle of the night might not have been the greatest idea. But amidst all the tears and the phantom pain, I remembered. I remembered why a book lover who had once denounced the digital worlds turned to her once sworn enemy. I remembered why, I remembered how.

God, I remembered how.

Those days of fearing rejection to the point of avoiding even the slightest chance of rejection. Of preferring to be alone because nobody can say no if you're alone. Nobody can say no if you don't give them the chance to. I was so pathologically lonely that my logic went the whole cycle round and turned back on itself.

After all, if you're alone, nobody can make you feel lonely.

That was two years ago. Two years ago when I painstakingly learnt to be alone. Forced myself into solitude. Pushed people away. Locked myself in my warped logic. I remember hating every moment of it, of the enforced bubble of solitude, but still forcing myself into it. Feeling out of place in the cinema alone. Enduring stares, imagined or not, of the crowds at famous roadside stalls while eating. Sipping hot chocolate in cafes staring blankly at the passing stream of people too busy to pause for a while in life.

My phone was my only companion. Loaded with fluffy unrealistic fiction of want and longing and hurt and comfort and fairytale endings. Filled to the brim with what I didn't have, never had. I was drowning myself, because that was the only way I could breathe.

My phone became my constant companion. I wrote diary entries in it instead of talking to another person. I read instead of listen to people telling me stories. I hid behind a screen because I was slowly losing all that made me human. I forgot how to converse with another human being. I lost interest in other people's stories; I was completely uninterested in making human connections.

And it didn't help that I didn't want to. After all, no human connection = no hurt.

2016 was... Crazy is an adequate word, I suppose. I hated being alone, but I made myself like it. 2016 was when I was forced into solitude, and having no other choice, learned to love it. Love isn't quite the right word; love is too gentle for what I had. Perhaps, obssessed is a better one. Addicted. I was obssessed with being alone. Addicted to solitude, and terrified of the loss of my solitude. Terrified of what lies outside my bubble of solitude. I was a complete lunatic.

And my phone was the victim, and my partner in crime.

But 2017 came, and despite my resolution to be alone, and to be contented alone, there was--quite contrarily--more people that insisted on barging into my life. People who I felt comfortable with, surprisingly. Once I'd resolved myself to be happy alone, and finally feeling contented alone, people started coming back into my life and I, to my surprise, was slowly letting them in without even noticing.

In hindsight, perhaps I wasn't meant for solitude after all.

But still, my phone was a shield. The very moment I felt threatened, or awkward, or afraid, the phone comes out and puts a shield and a world between me and the rest of humanity. It was already second nature. I'd associated my phone with safety and comfort, and by that point I had serious trouble keeping away from my phone. Every few seconds my eyes flit to my phone, like a heroin addict taking a hit every few seconds, missing the comfort it brings. You cannot be on your phone and not be alone, you know? It's not physically possible. Research have shown that multitasking is basically your brain focusing on each task for a few seconds before switching to the next, like a man on drugs flipping channels. It's physically impossible to be on two things at once, much less when it involves one as complicated as navigating a conversation.

Despite the influx of people returning to my world, I still close them out from time to time. I make excuses. I lied, cheated and manipulated. So that I could have my alone time with my phone. I was having mind sex with my phone every single night, every single free moment I could squeeze out. My books, physical books that I have once sworn by and loved and cherished and couldn't put down and read so belovedly, they lay forgotten on the shelves. Despite my best attempts to get a start on them, I couldn't. I gravitated back to my phone and the unrealistic fairytales that lay within.

It wasn't until last year that it happened.

See, I do try. Whenever I go out with someone, for a chat, or a meet-up, or a catching up session, I promise myself to not look at my phone. Or at least, try. But like an addict beyond help, my hand rests on my phone as I talk and laugh and giggle and gossip, and with every vibration of my phone, my eyes flit on command to my phone. And my fingers inch towards the phone and my mouth starts to make excuses about having to take this. The excuses eventually stopped; I was shamelessly and unapologetically checking my phone while in company.

But.

But. It stopped. This addiction. This pathological need to check my phone every few seconds. I was making through the whole day without checking my phone. My phone battery was still in the 70th percentile at the end of the night. It was magic.

Every time I meet this person, the conversation enraptures me to the point where I forget about my phone. I felt human connection that could hold my attention again. And it made me shift focus. Yes, there are times where I was tempted to check, but one word, one look, and the urge is batted away as simple as flicking away a stray hair. I do still check my phone though, but only when I am physically alone. But, my need for my phone has reduced so drastically, even when I'm not in this person's company.

It's completely illogical. I cannot reason this out. I simply cannot believe that my addiction could be cured just like that.

But it's happening. And this phenomenon has reduced my need for my phone so drastically, that my addiction to fanfiction and social media scrolling has lowered to near zero. I no longer check my mail religiously for fic updates. I no longer glue myself to the screen. I could hold conversations without my eyes flitting towards my phone (well, unless the conversation is so boring or awkward that my defense mechanism kicks in).

It's kinda bad though; because it feels like I'm relying on this person to make myself a better person. That this change is not from within. Because I do relapse back to my phone-caressing habits whenever I lose that level of connection for an extended time. I glue myself back to my phone and the unrealistic fanfictions when I don't hear from this person in a while, or if I go back to my solitary ways.

But it's progress, I suppose. At least I'm no longer actively avoiding people. At least I'm going out, meeting friends, reconnecting with what makes us all human. And perhaps I needed a catalyst, a human connection on a level so unbelievable that it pulls me back into this world, and remind me that I'm human too. Perhaps this person, with the enrapturing quips and witty remarks, is what I needed to break through this almost-steel bubble of solitude that I've built around me.

It's a good start to 2019, though.

2016 was learning how to be alone. 2017 was learning I don't have to be anyone but myself, and if that means being alone, that's okay. And 2018 was learning that I don't have to be alone to be okay.

So here's to 2019. Open your doors. Let connections form again. Take risks. Jump with your eyes closed. Being alone is fine, it's okay, but ultimately, it's a defense. And you know it.

Have courage, darling. Let them come. Let them hurt you. Let them link you back to the world in all its pain and wounds and suffocating ties. Let them introduce you to something more than just being okay. Let yourself be human again. Have courage, darling. Embrace the pain. Let yourself be hurt. It's okay. It's okay.

It's okay to hurt and be hurt. We all do it. It's what makes you human.

Let 2019 be the year you finally find courage to open up your heart and jump in. Let not your fear hold you back from forming connections. Who knows, this may be the year you finally find someone who you'll fight yourself for. Not just someone who will fight for you, but someone who you'll want to fight for, even if it's yourself you're fighting.

Don't ask 2019 to be good to you. Be good to 2019. Be good to yourself.

- 2.23am, technically third of January, 2019.