sadness

Two Three Four

Gah, I actually saw J today. I was sitting in the window seat at a cafe, drinking my coffee when he walked by. We made eye contact so I’m pretty sure he saw me too, then I looked away before we acknowledged each other.

I feel… okay? This is what I text my friend earlier today-

…It was strange, I felt a dissociation between my present self and my past self. I felt surprised and a slight tinge of sadness but I don’t think those are present feelings. It’s like my present self is empathising with a past self or like my body was reverting to an old habit of feeling that way towards him. When I saw him I thought he looked very ordinary, like any other human being walking down the road but it’s the knowing he wasn’t an ordinary person to me at some stage in my past that I’m sad for.

So this is where I’m at. My present self is okay. I know that all I’m feeling are just remnants of what I once felt but that’s still sad, remembering how much I loved him and how deeply I felt that loss. I’m in a different place now, I don’t love him anymore. That’s good! That’s growth.

Advertisement

Fifteen

everytime i close my eyes

all i see is you and her

her and you

hands held

looking at each other

laughing

talking

do you dream together

the same dreams we had?

do you hope together

the same hopes we had?

are you scared of pain with her?

or only with me?

because what we had was too real

you had to run away

or were you a coward

too scared to tell me how you really felt

if you didn’t want me then you should have just fucking said so.

i’m not that precious

i’m not that fragile

i am me

i have always been me

and i will always be me

without you

my life will keep rolling on

i will find love again

but better this time

with someone who isn’t scared

with someone who is committed to me

with someone who will make me laugh

with someone who will hold me when i cry

with someone who will make me a better person

with someone who will stay

Fourteen

Today I saw him holding hands with another girl. I think he saw me too because they were about to cross the road but then changed directions.

There are no words for it. I feel sad and rejected and inadequate and small and lonely. But those just scratch the surface. My insides feel so contracted and I feel like I need to let it out somehow but I’m just completely paralysed too.

I really thought that if he was coming back here, that he would come back to me. But he hasn’t come back to me.

I feel so stupid and such an idiot for thinking that I was someone different, someone special to him.

But I need to remind myself that even if I was just another number to him, I’m not dispensable.

I am different.

I am special.

Fuck him for being selfish and running away from commitment.

Fuck him for telling me he had a dream about me and then asking to catch up.

Fuck him for being a coward and not being upfront in his communication.

I’ve unfriended him on Facebook and unfollowed him on Instagram, and removed his following on my Instagram. I need to cut him out of my life.

I’m thankful for friends who I can cry with, who will join me in screaming into the wind at the beach, who will remind me that I will have someone better than him in my future. I will. I will. I will.

Five

It’s 10pm and I’m sitting in bed, typing this out and thinking about my counselling session tomorrow. It’s my first session with this counsellor and it feels daunting, thinking about all the ground we have to cover to catch them up on my life.

I want to be honest but am scared to be vulnerable with a stranger, want to be able to say the right words for them to feel what I feel, but don’t want to expose my weakness. Even with someone who has probably seen the worst of worsts, who is trained to be empathetic and understanding, I still somehow feel like I have to prove something? Still somehow feel like I need to downplay my pain even though the fact that I’ve made an appointment is admission that I’m not okay.

In the last few months, I’ve had to learn again that it’s okay to not be okay, but more than that – it’s okay to be sad, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Sometimes we’re so used to being comfortable and hearing good stories, we forget that life isn’t always easy. Life is ugly sometimes – it’s crying in the bathroom at work, it’s running until your lungs burst because you need to feel something else hurt that wasn’t your heart. It’s sitting in the uncomfortable with friends who are hurting and not trying to fix them, just sitting.

 

Two

A week after J and I broke up, I visited a church I don’t normally go to. During one of the songs, the pastor there came up to me, asked me my name and then described a vision he had of God making a daisy chain flower crown for me, said he felt God say that I was precious to Him, that He would bring something beautiful out of a place that’s been torn apart. The words that came to him (the pastor) were from Isaiah, specifically the part about beauty for ashes:

“He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion – to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” Isaiah 61:1-3

Since then, I’ve been thinking a lot about beauty for ashes and what it means. At first, I held onto it like a lifeline, repeating it like a mantra, trying desperately to find hope and peace in it.

Then, I became overwhelmed with sadness and amongst that, a lot of frustration and anger towards God for not delivering on this beauty.

Today I’ve been thinking about how ashes by definition mean that something has burned out, has died, and maybe that’s what I need to happen for beauty to come out of this shitty situation. I don’t know how I feel about this idea, because as painful as it is to be where I am at the moment, I don’t know if I can bear to let him go yet.

I also don’t know how I feel about God and Christianity in general at the moment either. I was brought up in a Christian home and I understand most of the Christian ideas but often find it hard to reconcile the Jesus and God that I think I know, with the one that the majority of people who call themselves Christians say they follow. Anyway, deconstruction is a whole other topic that will probably feature in another post but in the meantime, how can I hold as authority something that I don’t even know if I believe? Maybe I’m just so desperate for something good, a reassurance that how I’m feeling now won’t be forever. Or maybe there is something worthwhile there? I don’t know, I guess we’ll find out.

One

You know those days which are an effort to just think about, those days where you just want to crawl into a ball and cry and have no human interaction? This is one of those days. It’s hard. “Being normal” takes a lot of effort and is exhausting. I want to sleep for 1,000 years.

But somehow, I’ve made it here, in this cafe, writing my first thought. I wish it was an uplifting one. I guess it’s more important that it’s an honest one. I feel like shit and in a lot of fucking pain but on these days I take it 10 seconds at a time and try to live like a normal person, hoping that one day I will feel like a normal person again.

Nevertheless she persisted.