Are you alright?
No, I am not alright. I don't understand how anyone would think I am alright with anything that has been going on the past few months. I hate that we have to have it together all the time. Yeah, I'm fine. Sure, I'm okay. No, no, I'm just not feeling well, nothing's wrong. We're so scared of how people would react if we really told them how we were feeling that we just keep it all in, and then when it gets too much, we let it out. And when it comes out, it's never subtle. It's a giant cloud mushroom. It's repressed anger, sadness, disappointment, melancholy, in one explosion of raw, unfettered emotion.
Which brings me to ask the very simple question: why must we have it together all the time?
I want to break down once in awhile. I want to get completely irrational, stay in my room and keep to myself whenever I'm too tired to face the world. I want to throw a bitch fit. I want to be able to get disappointed at the people I love when they disappoint me, without feeling like I have no right to impose my expectations on them.
No, I'm most assuredly not perfect. I have my bad moments. I make bad decisions. I say bad things that I don't mean but can't take back. But I know that doesn't define me. It doesn't mean I'm a bad person. It just means that I don't have my shit together sometimes, and that is alright.
Are you happy?
Yes, yes I am. As far as I can be, I am. I'm not saying that I'm happy with the way things are now. I'm not saying I enjoy passing by our usual haunts and see the ghosts of what used to be. I'm not even saying that it doesn't kill me every time we see each other and we take great pains to pretend we don't. All I'm saying is that as I live day by day, I am happy. I do the things that I know will distract me and I spend time with the people who try their best to make sure I have a smile on my face. I refuse to sit in my room and brood or cry over what has happened. Maybe if this was 2010, that would have been me. But I've grown to realise that you can't hinge your happiness on the people you love, no matter how much you loved them, no matter how much you still love them. You've got to do things for yourself so that when things fall apart, you're still put together. Because the truth is, when you break down, some people will run the hell away, no matter the promises you made to each other when things were fine and dandy.
But no, I am not happy that I've lost a part of me. I can't pretend that there isn't a gaping emptiness somewhere in my being that cries occasionally, or that my heart doesn't long for the familiarity of a long, comforting hug.
Sometimes, I just feel lost, amidst all the ways I'm trying to keep myself busy. Amidst all the tuition sessions and the guitar lessons and the volunteering. I pass by the Esplanade and I think about the night we bared our hearts out and I thought about the simplicity of life and friendship and family. I sit in a cab and I think about the time you said you lost the only family you had when she left to go home and I told you that you always had family here, and you smiled at me in a way that said you were grateful. Then I think about the fact that you both were my family, and it hits me that I'm losing family all over again. Only this time, it was a choice.
The worst thing to realise is that your love is a burden. That you love so recklessly and sincerely that sometimes, you expect more than they are willing to give. That you all said you were family but only you meant it. That they're better off without you weighing them down with your sullen nature and occasionally temper-tantrums. That, no matter how much you love them, you know they're happier now and all you are is a piece of their past.
Well, then, it's time to move on.
