8 posts tagged “moving on”

sometimes i wonder if people fully recover after loss. when a relationship doesn't pan out, you're told that it happens to everyone, you'll get over it. tapping into the oft-referenced kubler-ross' 5 stages of grief and what-have-you. but i wonder how true that is. i wonder how these aphorisms are actually necessary sugar-coated pills we take, not to get better, but to get over it. because after getting hurt the first few times, it's not about losing him, losing a friend, losing a lover or whatever. it's about losing the belief we'd - hopefully - held from conception up until the truth pierced that bubble we'd actually been living in. it's about losing that optimistic naivete that we'll never claim ownership of again. because we're hardened to it, no matter how stoic or in control we thought we were, it doesn't hit us until we accept two things: that we'd never understood ourselves as well as we'd originally had and that we'll never hold those false albeit sugar-coated-double-binded plexi-glass beliefs again.

this was a direct quote from one of my many past privated blog entries. and it's not necessarily about boys. augusten burroughs perfectly captured this sentiment earlier this week at the reading, when he said that you never recover. you're comprised of holes of variable sizes. some are larger and deeper than others, but after time, you hopefully adapt to them and move on.

but what if you're conditioned to a point where your exterior is so hardened that nothing phases you, surprises - hurts - you? sure, this year has been full of ups and downs. many people walk in and out of your life. we taste each other's laughters and miss each other's presences. sometimes it's mutual, others it's unrequited. games that are both good and bad. but the difference is this. i stopped putting my heart on the bargaining table a long time ago. not sure if that's a good or a bad thing.

The apartment, the cupboards. I came out of the bathroom earlier and reached over to chuck my clothes in what would've been a makeshift hamper outside of my bathroom door. After cleaning around my desk, I reached over towards the right to what would've been a wastebasket. It's funny how your body is conditioned to certain habitual maneuvers. I'm tired beyond comprehension, but I'm sure some introspective post will be written about life as an undergrad. Some things don't change. :o)

Autobiography in Five Chapters

By Nyoshul Khenpo
 

-1-

I walk down the street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk

I fall in.

I am lost...I am hopeless.

It isn't my fault.

It takes forever to find a way out.

-2-

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I pretend I don't see it. I fall in again.

I can't believe I'm in the same place.

But it isn't my fault.

It still takes a long time to get out.

-3-

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I see it is there.

I still fall in...it's a habit

My eyes are open

I know where I am

It is my fault.

I get out immediately.

-4-

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I walk around it.

-5-

I walk down a different street.

i pick my scabs, a lot.

yeah, that's right, scabs. like that small but deep one on my left ring finger after i hacked off a layer of skin cutting broccoli a few days ago. that clotted closure that forms after you've suffered an abrasion, lesion, incision, puncture (though i hope this doesn't apply to you) of minor or major severity. vitamin k catalyzing the platelets to form, causing the blood to coagulate and plug the open wound. again, of minor or major severity. yep, i still remember that episode of magic school bus.

you're told to apply direct pressure to the wound, to prevent blood loss. pressure to manually constrict the blood vessels to conserve and retain as much blood as possible. because regeneration eventually happens, but how soon is inversely proportional to how much you've lost, how much hurt you've endured. then you're told to dress and clean the wound or ignore it, to allow it to heal. because time heals everything.

but somewhere down the line, due to boredom or justifiable curiosity, you pick at the scab that develops. not the fresh and crusty scab, but the hardened variety. you wonder what's beneath this sheath of skin? membrane? you either bleed or your deeper layer of skin is exposed, vulnerable. and then you're at risk for infection. or you pick at it so much that it leaves a deep and dulled scar, a permanent and corporeal reminder of your inability to let things lie. of your inability to let time heal sans disruptions.

there's a menagerie of the faintest scars on me that are each memory-specific, up to what contrast the sunlight was when it happened. and AA can testify to my hyper-episodic memory to a T. i have trouble healing. aside from scab picking and scratching bug bites, this can be due to my very low levels of iron or because i'm not getting sufficient nutrients as a vegetarian. this can be due to the fact that i don't take preventative measures or because it's hereditary. because sometimes it's exhausting/mundane to keep guard and take your vitamins every day and the titillation of being temporarily vulnerable is so palpable you can't deny it. because i still have those damn mosquito bite scars from this summer on my left arm and that dulled bruise on my leg from tripping near the bus two months ago.

even hemophiliacs need to learn how to walk, to run, and to live, just like us.

question is, what exactly is it that i'm talking about?

found the neosporin!

Worry Dolls

When I was in 7th grade, we had a trip to a museum which found its finale in the gift shop. While my friends quickly headed towards the T-Shirts and mood rings, I stuck around the faux-indigenous stuff. I bought a small box of Guatemalan trouble dolls, little dolls you place under your pillow at night, each of which represented a worry that you'd liked to have dissipate or disappear altogether.

I remember doing this every night, placing usually two - or maybe even all five of them - under my bed. My neighbors were being annoying and loud, an argument between SS and me, impending parent-teacher nights, et al. And when they'd go away - the troubles - the subsequent night, I'd whisper a thank you before I went to bed, not until after I placed new troubles under my pillow, of course.

I grew older and my troubles couldn't be mollified by little dolls made of cardboard and string. And it wasn't a great representation of life when worry dolls became permanent fixtures under my pillow. By the middle of high school, coupled with the fact that they were getting lost one by one, trouble dolls weren't chasing away my inner and outer poltergeists. But I did keep one thing though, I still whisper a "thank you" before I go to bed. Not to God, not to myself or the person who made my day with a smile, but to something.

I woke up this morning a prisoner of war of finals week with this intense headache that felt like someone was hitting me with a paddle board every time I sneezed. Yet I managed to stroll into work in my pajamas and Ugg boots to a realization that this is what my situation is going to be like next semester - a little emptier. One is leaving our job and moving out of the apartment complex. Another is going away to Rome. A number are done with grad school. Leaving the school, leaving work, leaving the building, leaving me. En masse.

I guess that's the catch about having great people in your life, no matter how transitory it may often feel. They'll take you to bubble tea when you're feeling crummy. Stay up with you at night either online or on the phone because you've got a paper due in three hours. Share your pain over a piece of tiramisu or gazpacho. Berate you for not eating properly during finals week. Inside jokes and secrets divulged.

I know I can't keep them under my pillow at night, no matter how meticulously I try to make sure they don't get lost in the folds. Even by stitching them into the pillow case in some cases. So I'm going to keep up this streak of gratitude I've more or less maintained over the course of eight or so years.

Thanks for the memories.

I try to stay awake and remember my name
But everybody's changing
And I don't feel the same

i'm trying to think of a theme by which to follow for this blog entry. my mind has been a strange cake batter mixture with too many parts that aren't congealing well together. that's not to say that they're all bad thoughts - far from it. but i've been confronted with so many different things to think about that i guess i just need to get them sorted out here. i think i got into this after speaking with CS on the phone for about an hour and a half last night. and it's strange, to learn so much from a person whom i've only known as an acquaintance.

if you had told me a year ago that my life would be as it is, i would probably not believe you. not that it's in any way bad. but turning twenty, or even at beginning of the fringes of the end of my teenage years, has brought so much out on me. i remember AA and i walking, weeks ago, and i made the self-declaration that this was the "transitional" year for me, because i've learned so so much from any angle that's not of the spectator.

i've always held the idea that befriending those with whom you had a falling out was a non sequitur - if you're kicked off the island, you stay off. and it's different from the gradual erosion of a friendship because the latter has a hidden stipulation that you can always return to each other because things didn't end on bad terms. but what about a friendship, a relationship, a courtship, or anything along the lines of a dyadic partnership, that had myriad bad seeds in it? the bad seeds of which were deeply rooted and when they emerged, became all the more evident to you that what you had was a bad thing?

CS said something to me last night that echoed the words of DP from the office. his friends question why he's still friends with a certain person, even though she'd done some terrible things to him. aside from the longevity/history they'd shared, his rationale was that everyone fucks you over in one way or another, if i'd dropped each friend of mind who had, then i wouldn't have any friends. and CS said something in a similar vein. that life was too short to take a friendship off life support so abruptly because of minor or major mishaps.

and it's a wholly different experience for me - the whole starting off with the slate wiped albeit not cleaned. it's different and somewhat alien, renewing certain friendships that i held the conviction were bad for me, years ago. maybe this'll be good for me, we'll see.

i had more to say, but i'll return to it later.

is time relative?

i remember discussing this in the teacher's apartment. this was something completely random that was blurted out in a completely unrelated context. regardless, i still feel that random sayings hold their weight in gold. so, par for the course, i'm introspecting about this summer.

you should know that i had a great summer. while it started off with what can only be characterized as tumultuous, thus leading to its temporarily painful evanescence, i sought closure in myself when i couldn't find it or receive it from others. i found that the house of cards i'd so painstaking built over the course of months, of excuses, of ideals and false pretenses, of self-doubt and questions that were frittered into complacency, needed to be taken down by only one person: me. and what a collapse it was. the shards were still embedded past its expiration date, but i'm happy to say that i've found inner resolve alone and i'm in a healthy, albeit newer, state.

but i wasted no time during the getting better period and afterwards. i went out most nights and afternoons of the week. it was filled with dinner dates, visits to teany, candle-lit cafes, long phone conversations into the wee hours (which was pretty out of character for me), tons of writing, restaurant-hopping, park-hopping, dog walking, support from strangers, summer dresses, movies and take out, hand holding, long drives, tiramisu, Canada, perfume, text-messages, flirting, family, mini high school reunions, and first kisses.

i met with a lot of people this summer, most from my distant past, some from my near, many in my present, and some in my new and hopeful future. and it's an odd dynamic, coming to terms with what you want and know you don't want. i suppose that's what you deem maturity. because after years of being around people who made me feel inadequate, and being with people, new or originals, who make me feel an unprecedented sense of good, it makes it that much easier to grow.

and as i'm sitting here in the apartment, fully furnished by the school, with a balcony outside of my bedroom, it can only get better. i know i'll be super busy this semester, but i'll have one day off from work and school. i'm reading the Times again and catching up with reality. because while this summer felt very real, it was somewhat surreal, in ways. that JLC was sitting with me in Washington Square Park, citing the 7-week countdown until class, and here we are, awaiting the semester with breath that is bated.

sometimes it astounds me - the human condition. it astounds me when people seemingly have such ease turning certain faculties of humanism on and off, not unlike a light switch. at what point in time does concern for the welfare of a person reach its expiration date? i may play the card of the stoic, but this is a process that takes years. and no matter how much time has passed, no matter how watered-down these sepia-toned memories become, i don't forget. i'll still look after you.

while driving today, as usual, the instructor was playing 106.7 FM: my equivalent of Chinese water torture. Brian McKnight's "Do I ever Cross Your Mind?" came on in a way that was cruel because it was so attuned to the myriad transgressions on my emotional bubble. so this begs the question of how to divorce yourself from a fragment of your past. can it ever be as easy as putting an embargo on your memory, to purposely and effectively stop thinking about some one, some thing, some time?

i'm compassionate to a fault. i'm empathetic at given times, much to my own detriment. i hurt when you hurt. friends, family, acquaintances, others. every now and then, even the inconsequential get a small fraction of my attention, of my concern, of my consideration. like how last year, when we were driving by 11th Ave, a woman was leaning against a telephone with a nosebleed. as we turned the corner, i was still fixated on her, and to this day, i sometimes wonder if she ever made it home safely. like that man who fell on his ass on the steps of Bryant park a few days ago. or like Priscilla, a customer from American Eagle who had her sweatpants stolen from her locker in gym class.

so when i'm faced with a paper trail left by someone, left by others, without so much as an inkling of regard, i'm compelled to believe that my efforts were unrequited from the beginning. i've been on the other end of this as well. and no matter well off i think i may be, no matter how happy i am with someone else, with others, with a new chapter in my life, there are stimuli. stimuli, originally independent of its conditioned stimulus, that evoke long buried emotions and memories. months and years can and have transpired but scars are souvenirs you never lose.

this entry may appear to be more melancholy than i actually am. but i figured i'd write it down if not to keep me on my literary feet. :)