The One I Had to Let Go

It was something she had to do. She could spend the rest of her life regretting the choices that she had made, but also -- it was one of the very few things she did that was right.

She just wishes she could've done it differently.

Lamps

We often feel so deeply of sadness that we overlook our blessings' overlook the people who, when sadness hits, was there for us to help weather the storm. People whose presence often feel so normal, so expected in our lives that they become more of a furniture... or a lamp. We never really recognize that it's there until it isn't.

Sometimes, we forget to appreciate what these lamps do to our lives. To our days--and most importantly, to our nights. To the days when it's too dark for us to see or read the signs. To the nights when we feel lonely, scared, and unlovable while contemplating everything that has passed us by in life. We forget to appreciate how, just by a simple act of turning on the lights, everything will be brighter. The darkness bearable. The loneliness easier.

Without them, we only exist for half of the time that we are awake--that we are in this world. Without them, we're a lost cause. 

These are the people so selfless, with so much love to share and give out to people, that often we don't realize that they are a self too. They can be as vulnerable as we all are. They need to be loved. They give out so much love despite fully aware that nobody is probably able to love them the way they do to everyone else. They radiate joy and happiness despite having their own battles unspoken, unnoticeable to most people--most people who are too selfish, too ignorant of anyone's feelings other than their own.

Love is a very tricky thing. People love and be loved differently. We have been taught that there are so many ways to express love, and just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to doesn't mean they love you any less. But that is not fair for these people. These people who were gifted with the knowledge on how to treat the people they love, even when they are not treated the same way. Love, for them, isn't always reciprocal--but they love anyway. Because they have too much love in them, and, I don't know. Maybe it is their reason to live, too.

My wish, for these people, is that one day they will find their own lamps. Their own piece of furniture. The person who would love them for who they are. The person who would help them weather their storm, fight their demons, and treat them with the kind of respect, love, and grace, that they give out to everyone else for free. The person who would know how to love them. The person who can finally convince them to be a little selfish--to put themselves first instead of anyone else. The person who would love themselves better. The person who, hopefully, is already in their lives--but is working on improving how to appreciate them better. Because just because somebody doesn't love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they love you any less--maybe they are struggling to figure out how.

Unloveable

The last time I read a book with characters and events that were so incessantly relevant to my own, it was Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life. So much so, that I wrote about it while interlinking the instances to what was happening in my own life three fucking times (here, here, and here). Very few people understood why--and that's because it is very personal to me that I don't share it with everyone. Jude St. Francis, in all of his imperfections, is basically me. 

Come 2019, I was introduced to this book that again, everyone I find interesting was talking about:

Now, I would assume that you would have read at least some reviews about this book--self research, everyone!--so let me just get down to business here:

I gave the book a 4/5 star on Goodreads, because DEAR GOD I'M FURIOUS AT THESE CHARACTERS.

My guess is part of the reason why this book is so wildly popular, especially with millennials living in major cities is the fact that it really does resonate with how we live our lives these days. This is a book about being young and messing up our own lives, whether or not it was intentional. Life offers up a series of opportunities, and a lot of the times we were bound to miss them. These missed opportunities, either by choice or circumstance, are most likely due to the bad choices. The bad choices that we would usually regret... sometimes for a moment, or for years.

Marianne and Connell are the main characters who committed the most regrettable bad choices, up to the point that I feel like they were sabotaging themselves. These are two people who chose to be in an unnamed, complex relationship and stubbornly making the conscious decision to remain so (FOR YEARS) even though it was very obvious that they are the ones getting hurt. They were in complete control of their own lives... if we are not to consider that they are most likely fuck up to their brains.

It was obvious to everyone that Connell loves Marianne and vice versa. All that Marianne had been doing is trying to protect herself from getting hurt in case Connell's fucked up mind decides that he will say otherwise. This self-protection, this fear of being rejected, is what makes Marianne sees herself as cold, distant, as if there is something unlovable about her. For someone like Marianne, when someone seems to love her in the way that love is conventionally supposed to be, something is not right. She doesn't know what to do with it. Then she would find ways to fuck things up--her interest in being choked, for example. Her absolute refusal to acknowledge that he and Connell could have the life they both secretly wanted if she wasn't so buttheaded about the state of their relationship. 

Is it all Marianne's fault though? Maybe not. I just happen to be all too familiar with the way that she handles her life and relationships. This is the girl who, even as they lay intermingled in bed post-coitus, told her long-time "friend" that it felt different with you, it wasn't like this with anyone else, and then got back to not fully recognizing what it is that is happening between them. Their chemistry isn't just something that only other people could see from outside, but also something that they can't deny from the inside. So why in the hell is she doing this to herself?

Because for people who deem themselves unlovable, love is a foreign feeling in which they don't feel safe. 

Someone Else's Life

I knew, from the first moment that I saw you, that we will be each other's next mistake.

We were both broken with some shattered pieces so sharp it bleeds the flesh and the pain breaks our voices when we spoke. I spoke about my failure in my usual sarcastic ways--somehow it does not hurt as much when I'm talking about it with someone like you than with a close friend of mine (or myself). You spoke about your failure as if it was just a normal thing--but it wasn't the same. My failure was my own doing. You failure was... my guess is, something unforeseeable. You survived what I barely even had the strength to begin. You fight and fight and struggle, and eventually crash and burn. I was supposed to fight... but somehow the voices inside my head convinced me that the other person stops fighting, so I took a flight and become a ghost.

The truth is,  I was just a coward.

Truth is, the voice inside my head is just me and my deadly assumptions. I listened to her, and at the end of the day, tried to blame everything on timing. Timing is a bitch. Everyone knows that. I shouldn't have to be another one.

I don't know you. Or her. I was not aware of how beautiful your union was, but believe it was the kind that nobody would ever want to let go. After all, what you survived--at least for the part that you did--is a fairytale to me. I knew back then as we were drinking in your balcony and the night wind rustles between our hair: you were trying to hold back your tears, so you shut me up with a kiss. You knew I would keep asking. I understood that I have the look of someone who keeps on taking the part as the footnote in someone else's love story... perhaps including this one.

Maybe things will get better someday. She will be back soon, and, maybe things will be good again between you. Things are never beyond repair for two people who are meant to be together anyway.

It is strange even for me to wish such thing for you. Here's the catch though: you can't force yourself to forget. You can't see two hundred people or one person two hundred times just for the pain to go away. The pain will stick with you; making you lose sleep or deliberately stare outside the window for ten minutes straight. Or some variations of that.

The truth is, healing is not linear. Yes, eventually everything will be better with time, but time is a bitch we shouldn't trust. Yes, we have to proactively try to walk away from all the pain, but every now and then we will fall into a slump and be forced to climb back up with bare hands to keep walking. Healing does not happen all at once. You don't wake up in the morning feeling like that someone is completely locked in the past that's behind you. Every once in a while, you wake up in the morning, open Instagram, and there it is... the slump. You fall. You have to choose to go back up, climb with the remaining will and strength that you have, and that's something that you have to keep doing until somehow, the slump isn't a slump. The slump will look just like downhill slope, and you will effortlessly walk up the inclination, not climbing up a wall with no rope or a safety net underneath.

We both know by now that you're not him and I'm not her. We both know that, maybe if we look just a tiny bit closer, we will see that we're so wrong for each other. Perhaps like those failures, we didn't meet at the right timing. Perhaps, if people are to be believed, we are here for a purpose: and that purpose is to help each other heal. I know you're not going to replace him just like I'm not going to replace her. But we can be here for each other because maybe nobody else understands better. Maybe two broken people can lift each other up, climb that slump or cry together. Who knows what we are here for... just like who knows what they were for in our lives before.

Am I Happy?

I have a feeling that when someone is actually happy, they never have to ask themselves, "Am I happy?"

Because, why question the obvious? Right?

So when you're not exactly sure whether you're happy... chances are, you are not.

The better idea is probably this: Don't ask yourself if you are happy. Just be. Just feel it. Don't, for a second, ask if it is happiness that you are feeling. Just feel it. Just believe that it was the only thing that you know how to feel, and it must be happiness.

Unless you can't even convince yourself to feel it.

In which case, I'm really sorry for you.

One Year Later, at 26

If there is anything I learned about adulthood, it is this: adulthood is hard because you remember too much. All the details. All the feelings. 

I still remember vividly what happened to me this time last year. What I was thinking. What I said. What I felt. Why I cried and why I laughed. What author name I mentioned.

Why I was sitting there at Dollop in River North, reading First Amendment cases for my finals, which would end in two days. Why I was there and not the library. Why I was sitting by the window. How I knew he came to the wrong store. How I waited another hour because his Uber took the route where there was a protest. What I thought when he showed up in his tweed jacket and it was over 30 Celcius in Chicago. What he said when he grabbed a bottle of green juice and paid for my second cup of coffee. 

What he said when, after talking for a while, I was thinking I'd go home and read. But we took a walk down to the Willis Tower instead.

Walking-and-talking is what I'm pretty good at, but I did find him to be extremely irritating. But lovable. I remember wanting to throw him down the Chicago River. How I thought he's an asshole. How he kept on making me find a job, so as to say, "I'd put in some good words for you." And I remember what I thought to myself after that. "You hardly know me."

I remember how I did not want to stop and go up the famed skyscraper, citing possible visit the following week. What I offered to do afterward. What he said when we suddenly stopped in front of the Lyric Opera. What he said about the cruises and wanting to get on one. Then, two minutes later, a comedy club. What kind of ticket he bought (but didn't tell me) when we sat down outside of a Starbucks. The Filipino driver who took us to Old Town. What they talked about. The jokes about how the younger generation does not really want a wedding. The business advice for the driver who is also a wedding photographer. What the driver joked about his first and second wife. 

The Italian restaurant was packed. I remember what lies I told him. What I told him about my profession. How he wondered about how young I am when I started working. How he let me finish up the Chardonnay and walked to the Second City while telling me stories about his past substance abuse. How I realized that he bought tickets for the wrong kind of show--a stand-up, instead of improv--but we sat there anyway. In our VIP seats. Ordering drinks he didn't let me pay for. Why he traded his cocktail with my beer because he did not like it. When the comic says, "Everyone is a little annoying when you get to know them better." and he whispered in my ears, "I feel like I have not known you well... I do not find you annoying at all." Because I actually thought, "Dude. I find you annoying."

I remember being drunk and offering him to wait until he will be good enough to drive again. I remember ordering Lyft, entering my place, and his observing of my passport that was just sitting on my desk. I remember preparing the airbed. What he said when he saw what I was doing. What we talked about on the couch. 

What he said before it all began.

How it all happened.

What he said after that.

What he kept saying when I tried to read again, feeling guilty for not reading enough during the day. I remember when I surrendered. How hot the apartment was. How bright and dark it was. I remember when I woke up suddenly because of my own noise, and heard him softly laughing. 

In the morning, when we thought of breakfast. The booth he chose. What he said when I said that it was hardly the best breakfast place that I know. His, "Why are you like this to me?" When he talked about his usual business attire--which was more business casual than business. When we came back and remembered that he needed a charger for his phone. How I helped him talked to the Walgreens girl. 

How he said he's looking for something he did not have the night before.

The smile. Oh, the smile.

I remember feeling nervous. How I tried to suppress it. How he pulled my hand while asking me to hand him his watch. What I thought to myself when it was going on.

What he asked me. And then realized that he knew the answer--which was, definitely, wrong.

When he almost fell asleep, face facing mine, but suddenly opened his eyes like he forgot that he had work to do. How he rushed and told me how to keep in touch--his LinkedIn name, which bears a resemblance to the author's name. What he said while he was putting his shoes on--a sentence I actually got from an episode of Saturday Night Live.

And then he's gone. Poof. After the most remarkable 18 hours of my life. He was gone.

Had, and always will be.

Damn. I really miss him all this time.

Time Can Come and Take Away the Pain

I remember when your name popped up on my screen once again. After a long hiatus. After a long, long, silence on your part.

Yes, I knew it did not work out. I knew that I recovered from our long, cold good bye. I knew that you love her--you have, for a very long time by then. I have always known that you are going to marry her eventually. Because, as much as I did not see it coming a few years earlier, I know that you are meant for each other. I know that she offers you everything you have been looking for in a person. Particularly, in a person you are going to spend the rest of your life with.

And I was never that. 

I was fickle. I was detached. I was cold. I was emotionally unavailable. I know, because I am all of that.

And you don't deserve that.

But even that day--that very day when you name appeared on my screen again... I was hoping that you'd remember what we had been through. You would acknowledge what happened. You were aware that that could be us.

And, you were aware. You did acknowledge that. So even though I could never, never ever say it directly to you... Thank you. Thank you for not erasing me. Thank you for not making me feel invisible. Thank you for always, always being the you that I have always known back then.

It has been years and time has come and taken away every single pain I felt when it was over. Thanks to those rough months--those rough, miserable months of trying to get over you, I learned how to treat the pain. How to heal and mend the broken heart and fix whatever is damaged... in private. By myself (and a little help from my friends).

Thanks to those months, I know I can do this one now. I know I'll get through it.

So thank you. For everything.

When My Body Won't Hold Me Anymore

I always feel like... Like everyone attending The Avett Brothers' concert are very kind, humble people. And the reason is because they are people who have been brokenhearted before, people who know pain... People who know what it's like get hurt. So when they were there together, there was only love, only kindness. Is that the case with you, too? You've been brokenhearted and in pain?

She choked. Her mind flashed back to all of the pain she has tried to suppressed while listening to the song. The very song that helped her heal.The very song that, each and every time she tried to rise above the pain that she was feeling, she listens to intensely to manipulate her brain into thinking that she has absolutely no hard feelings for anyone who has hurt her. Who has left her in deep pains. 

I have a feeling that people who like this band... They're the type of person who's addicted to listening to sad songs, you know? Like me. I listen to sad, depressing songs on a daily basis.

She stopped and watched the music video, playing on the smart tv that was hanging by the wall. She remembers the very instance when somebody she used to know showed her a playlist called Life Sucks and laughed it of... only for her to admit that almost all of those songs she actually listens to on a daily basis. Because, as she put it mildly, "Maybe because my life does suck."

The band's leading members, Seth and Scott Avett, were sitting on a chair with another man who, apparently, had had his daughter died of cancer, while singing emotionally and shot in black and white film. 

He runs his fingers gently on her legs, who were sitting on his laps, eyes locked on her face as she tries so hard to fight the urge to cry. She remembers those sombre days, walking as far as she could until her legs hurt. She thinks of the many moments when she was both sad and angry, with nothing she could do about those complicated, foreign emotions. She wonders if he could her the shoutings in her brain: I have no enemies. I have no enemies. I have no enemies. I have no enemies. I do not hate him.

I'm Tired, You're Lonely

I saw this coming. I knew it was never gonna be okay. I was pretending to be stupid. Pretending like I couldn't hear what my friends have been telling me—even when I knew that they were right.

Then I realize that I'm the only one I was fooling.

Now I guess I'm done. 

Feeling Feelings Since 1993

I'm guessing that, since all of you reading this are longtime readers and friends of mine, you know already that I am not a fan of expressing my feelings. A lot of me is buried deep in the bubbly packaging that I let most people to see (Yes, I have met people who called me "bubbly" as if being described the same way as a bottle of champagne is a compliment)

A quick catch up with what I've been doing since I last wrote that teary post about someone remarkable: 

I came back home. The home that I have left for only one year and yet felt so foreign already. How did I survive 24 years in this city? Everyone is so rude and hateful and weird. I always knew that I love this city; this country. But it does feel like the kind of love in which I was the only lover in the relationship because I got nothing. And yet, somehow, I just keep loving it anyway.

Perhaps it is true what they said: at the touch of love, everyone becomes an idiot.

If there is one thing that I realized about coming home, it is that being away did not really change me. I have always been like this. I have always felt this way about these people. These situations. Being away only made me romanticized it for a whole year. Right when I got back to it, there is nothing so romantic about it.

Work is hard. Friends are lovely. Families are complicated; tricky, but warm. Weekends start at Friday night and are the best times to vent: about the things you could not say, about the bitterness you thought you should not feel. Brain is still your frenemy. Heart is still fickle. Love is nonexistent. Dating is unthinkable. Where do people find the energy for that anyway?

I know I'm only 25--I just feel like I'm so exhausted to carry on with life and all of its dramas all the time.

Feelings are complicated. Can't I just turn it off for once?

The Silver Year

This is the story of how a young woman of 25 year old just started to find out where is her place in the world. When everyone around her seems to have found their niche, she is indeed exploring places she has never been before. Bear with her--she is indeed a very fragile person.

January 2018

First day of The Silver Year started the revolution in her life. A thrilling meeting with her most favorite Dentist at a breakfast place. Meeting a new, Familiar Face while shopping for groceries.  A short affair with a Former Wildcat 14 years her senior who stole her first proper kiss, living in a fancy apartment at the Gold Coast neighborhood; had an Aziz Ansari-style bad date, and ghosted him for a week before he asked for closure. This one month alone felt like it lasted a whole year.

February 2018

Experienced Superbowl for the first time. That night, another dramatic moment with drunk Former Wildcat, who still couldn't seem to accept her refusal. Almost cried because of the embarrassment. Secretly traveled by train 4.5 hours away to Ann Arbor just for the Dentist; made her best friend mad because of her disappearance. Met Fuckboi 1, mistaken first date as thrilling as the first one with the Dentist. Fuckboi 1 lives across the street, so she hung out with him quiet a lot. Until...

March 2018

... he ghosted her by late March. She was disappointed; lonely and disarrayed. For a while.

April 2018

Finals weeks are the worst--and indeed, she had to spend her birthday at the library doing a group study for a private equity class. Familiar Face took her for a stroll during the day with Familiar Face's 14-year-old son. She had been lonely all month long, and it was still pretty cold in the city.

May 2018

She had to learn the hard way that she actually makes more bad choices sober than drunk. The Accountant took her most prized possession, something that she will remember forever, though the more that she thought about it... she gave it to him. He just took what he was given. She made it to the end of grad school, reunited with her family in a far away land, and for the first time in her life, she felt like she was enjoying life.

June 2018

True, bar exam prep is tough and grueling, but it didn't stop her from having fun. The Consultant is distracting her, and the Jailbird as well. She went back home for a little while, reconnecting with best friends and their respective babies... Then she realizes that maybe, just maybe, she belongs here. This is her home. Everyone is here. The group of people that makes her feel home, is here.

July 2018

Bar exam. More loneliness. The Consultant was around, and she actually thought this might be it. This is all the love she'd ever got.

August 2018

Fell in love with a cute toddler. Visited Dentist for the last time. Met with and/or lied to Painter. Left Chicago.

September 2018

Readjusting with "home."

October 2018

Readjusting with "career."

November 2018

Readjusting with "adulting."

December 2018

Readjusting with the idea that she romanticized so many things in her life... much to her own detriment.

I'm writing the first draft of this post while overlooking a beautiful snowy mountain, all white and beautiful... clearly entertaining my ever restless 25-year old heart. He was sleeping next to me, probably dreaming little dreams where I took no part in. My heart constantly shifts between expanding and wrenching; this truly has been a roller coaster ride. This entire trip. This entire year.