Denial

Here & Now

"What is it? My dear?"

"Ah, how can we bear it?"

"Bear what?"

"This. For so short a time. How can we sleep this time away?"

"We can be quiet together, and pretend - since it is only the beginning - that we have all the time in the world."

"And everyday we shall have less. And then none."

"Would you rather, therefore, have had nothing at all?"

"No. This is where I have always been coming to. Since my time began. And when I go away from here, this will be the mid-point, to which everything ran, before, and from which everything will run. But now, my love, we are here, we are now, and those other times are running elsewhere."

- A.S. Byatt, Possession.

A Box of Souvenirs.

Hey you.

It's usually around this time of year that I think about you. It's been, what, 6 years or so now, and it's true, life goes on. People grow and live and eat and breathe and love, the same as it has been, the same as it will be.

I think back to our teenage years, and wonder sometimes how we could have ever been so young.

So carefree. So simple.

So blissfully naive.

So alive.

We're supposed to be 26 now, and I still think that I know less than what I know I should.

It's funny. Whenever we visit, I hold one sided conversations and I don't even know why I do that because you're supposed to be in heaven and I'm supposed to be on earth and I don't think there's an answering machine there that records messages.

We all were just kids, thrown together into the same system that spat us out again into an adulthood that you never got to see and every time I see or hear updates on the guys and how life is hard and beautiful and  actually happening for all of them I smile and think fondly of them and you for a moment because after 5 years together all the time I have for us now is just one moment.

One.

Loaded.

Moment.

And then I go back to what I was doing and they go back to what they were doing and we can but you can't because you no longer exist in a time or in a space that we can comprehend and you live only in our memory and because of that you will live forever because someone once said that people die twice, once when they breathe their last and once when their name is spoken for the last time and I know that even though all I have of you is sometimes only a moment you won't die a second death as long as any of us draw breath because that is how long we will remember you.

A fifth of our lives we've spent together, you and I and us. Half a decade worth of fragile recollections and they are all we have. I hope they're enough. They have to be. What are we, if not a scrapbook of memories, a box of precious souvenirs.

I hope that's enough.

Godspeed

What do you do when someone leaves?

When one moment, she was there, and the other, gone?

When all you feel is a sharp pain, knowing there is nothing you can do to make it go away, and at the same time, knowing you don't want it to go away because it is an inward proof of a friendship, of a connection between two people, a line that not even death can cut.

What do you do when someone leaves on a journey you can't follow, on a road you can't walk?

You remember.

You remember the first time, and every subsequent time you've seen her, and how she will never fail to greet you with a cheerful "Hey, man!"

You remember how she loved singing and playing her tiny guitar, and how we played Sempurna during one of the builds while becoming a buffet table for mosquitoes.

You remember how small she was in person, how big her character, how large her presence and how enormous her spirit.

I remember how welcoming she was, how she always seemed like an older sister, how she had a funny cadence in her speech, just because she was from out of town. How she was so full of laughter and energy and enthusiasm and how I wish I had been there to celebrate your last birthday and how you hit all those nails with a hammer that was the length of your arm and how you absolutely have no shame when describing the idiosyncrasies of your body. And how I just want to tell you what a great impact you have made in my life.

Relationships form when some part of the other becomes a part of you. The bond that tie friends together is a line so strong that it transcends life. It goes beyond death.

And even now, in your absence, it is real and permanent, and that is what I will take away from our short walk together, a walk filled with laughter, joy, sweat, late nights, and above all, Life.

You will be missed, but you will never be forgotten. You will live on in the many lives you've touched.

Godspeed, Anny. It's time to build some castles in the sky.

Untitled #2

I wish we'd had more time.

A day, a week.

Just, a little bit more.

Friends

Have you ever watched Strangers, Again by the Wong Fu Productions?

Of course you have. It's so simple, so painfully poignant.

It is one of the stories in my life. Two strangers meeting and they find something special, someone to believe 

in. Someone with whom forever may not be long enough.

The short walks you through the stages in a relationship; from strangers to friends, to the passionate going out stage, to the sadly inevitable comfortable (read neglect) stage, and then, finally, to a parting of paths.

Strangers to friends to something much more to an abruptly strangers, again.

I don't disagree with this. The video is so relatable because so many of us have gone through something similar.

It reminds me of Barney's 'Don't poop where you eat' theory, aka the Platinum Rule, otherwise known as the never-love-thy-neighbour paradigm.

He lays out the stages as Attraction-Bargaining-Submission-Perks-Tipping Point-Purgatory-Confrontation-Fallout. Ted then adds another stage, Coexistence.

I think Ted is partially right, and so were the guys at WFP.

I'd like to change that last stage, to more than just coexistence. Let's call that that stage Friendship, a stage that comes with much time, and much patience.

Because to be any less than that would signify some degree of unforgiveness, of not letting go.

You don't have to be strangers, again, or to merely acknowledge the other's existence.

Friendship is possible, but it requires both to be mature, to acknowledge that the past did happen, to be honest that there was pain, but there was also love, and above all of it, the love you shared was real.

I can honestly say I am a better person today, because the people in my past chose to forgive me and to look above my failings.

Maybe, we need to change the perception to Friends, Again.

Running

I asked a friend to describe me, to be as brutal and honest as she possibly could.

She said a few things, but the one that struck me the most is that I am a runner. I run away.

I wanted to tell her, she's wrong, that I fight if I need to want to, but the truth is, she's right. I run. Away. From a situation that I dislike, from my past, and in doing so, inadvertently I shape a future from which I want to run.

And it goes on and on; a sick-cycle carousel.

Where can you run to escape from yourself?

I received a package today. It was a reminder of the past, of a girl that I really, really wronged.  I have been running from it, without meaning to. We were good friends, and I cut her from my life.

Without going to much into it, I was expecting old letters, and reminders of a failure - not that our relationship was a failure, but that I was. Tears. Recrimination.

But there was nothing like that. It was a new letter as well as a present for my birthday, and in between them, forgiveness and love.

I don't know what to say - and speechlessness doesn't afflict me often, but.. I am just so overwhelmed right now.

And even more than that, I feel God telling me, "You don't have to run. You don't have to beat yourself up. There are people I have put in your life that loves you, that care, that will make you better if you allow them. Open up to them."

I ran away, and yet, here is grace. Grace to make it right. Grace, undeserved, unasked, and yet, so overwhelming.

Where can you run to escape from yourself?

Nowhere. Or rather, nowhere that matters.

But the carousel doesn't have to go around again. You can stop running. You can be better.

I can be better.