Precious

I take the things that mean something to me, clutch onto them with these calloused hands, called them mine and never wanted to let them go. I hold onto them, afraid that if I were to show them to you, they would just evaporate.

If I had shown them to someone else besides myself, would they lose their meaning, or do they become less real, less personal?

turning point

dysfunctional

the past few years of hurt and experiences have engraved so much change and ugliness into me. i no longer recognise who i am or who i aspire to be. i had wanted such a different life i don't know how to live this one. i look at myself and wonder who could ever find this beautiful. i keep wanting more more more. i wish i could erase all these traces of hurt and pain and trauma. how do i rid me of myself?

Things I've learned from grief

1. It gets worse as time goes on
2. You just feel sadness and loss and sadness and loss and sadness and loss and it's never ending
3. Things won't actually get better bc what you lost will never come back, but it will get better in the sense that one day you won't be as affected by it anymore
4. Constant emptiness in the space of absence
5. Guilt and grief easily intertwine and you don't know how to tell them apart anymore
6. You're okay but you're also not okay
7. It gets so much worse as time goes on
8. You do everything besides what you're supposed to do, bc subconsciously you know that nothing is the way it's supposed to be
9. You feel uneasy for feeling sad due to the time that it has gone on
10. You start to mess up or forget details about the person but you can't double check with them to get it right anymore
11. You worry one day you'll forget everything or most things about that person
12. This doesn't mean they were insignificant, but you get upset thinking you'd be better at remembering if they really meant that much to you
13. You see them in everything you do
14. It doesn't come a day that you don't miss them
15. You wonder if anyone feels the same as you do, but it's unlikely as everyone experiences grief differently.

I think I'm writing this down so it becomes something tangible, so these thoughts don't become as fleeting as the memories of her

charm bracelet

I think I always liked myself a little rougher around the edges, makes me easier or harder to grasp depending on who is trying to.

after her leaving

So much that has happened over the past few months, and I wonder how the world to me could mean so little to someone else. I think what I have realised is that even as time goes on, no matter what happens the world does not stop for you. People will still continue living life, falling in love, falling apart, falling down from buildings, going in and out of places, buying new things, disposing of things; go to work, climb a mountain, start anew.

We keep growing bit by bit, and despite all, I do still wish people would have cared enough to show a little care to me. I am incredibly blessed in the sense that I would not be here today without them. But still I am stuck and fixated on the parts they were not. I wish I would be able to conjure the end of the crossing of our paths. People in our lives come and go, and it is perhaps selfish of me to think that I could keep them forever. Maybe it's just time to let go of them, instead I feel like I'm forcing them to stay when they themselves do not wish to.

I think a lot about the words 'purpose', 'meaning', 'value'. All the sorts. What the words themselves bring and how to quantitatively measure it. I wonder if anything that I am doing is even of value, of meaning, of purpose? I don't feel passion or enthusiasm for much of what I do anymore, much less life. I'm not giving up on it, but much so pondering if I am where I should be. I always pour myself into the wrong people, the wrong things. I always feel like everything I try and invest in are futile.

Suppose we should still look forward to what we have and have yet to lose. Little blessings harbour itself in the most unexpected and unseen places. But somehow it almost feels absurd to be happy or celebratory over anything since the loss of her. How can people celebrate life when I am still mourning over the loss of one? Life in itself has its way of contradictory and irony. Who knew absence could occupy so much space?

Every year I feel myself being forgotten more and more. I wonder what sorts I'd be up to on my birthday this year to make myself feel less so. Much so, I wonder if I'd even still be around. I ball up those thoughts, the burden of imminence and tuck them away in my dresser drawer, tidy and unheard.

impermanence

 what in this life is permanent?

i look back at moments where there was a gap in pictures and it was almost like i never existed. i look at social media and think how it would be to erase my digital footprint almost completely. i look at memories and wonder how much of it is altered or blurred or forgotten. i look at people and think of how we could experience the same thing but perceive the experience so differently. i look at us and wonder how we are exactly the same person and also a completely different person from who we used to be.

everything on earth is ever-shifting. who's to remember any of this or any of us years from now?

everything is only real only to us. it will be as if we never existed.