March 29, 2009

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October 29, 2008

Emo

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I’ve had the strangest day. Or week. Or month. Or something.

Not strange in an odd of way, but strange in a con­fus­ing way.

It’s like I don’t know what I’m feel­ing right now. I don’t even know how I’m sup­posed to feel. Maybe it’s the uncer­tainty of my life right now that’s doing it. The insta­bil­ity that makes me want to go home and hide in the com­fort of my chaise, behind the warm glare of my Macbook Pro.

All day, I think of being at home and fin­ish­ing my projects. Then I get home and pro­cras­ti­nate — not watch­ing TV, or movies, or read­ing, or clean­ing, but lit­er­ally sit­ting around — because all I think about is talk­ing to John.

It’s only after I’m off the phone with him that I feel like I can begin my evening and be pro­duc­tive. I can talk with­out think­ing, with­out wor­ry­ing that he may judge me, with­out feel­ing like I’m being patron­ized, with­out car­ing whether I’m repeat­ing myself, with­out fear of offend­ing him, with­out even hav­ing to make sense. Like a small ses­sion of ther­apy, where I need to fig­ure things out for myself, but which can only be done after I’ve put it all out there to some­one else. It helps me more than I can under­stand or explain. Unfortunately, he gen­er­ally remains unavail­able until later in the night, and by the time we’re done, it’s already passed the time I should be in bed.

Even this was only writ­ten after he called me on his way home from ini­ti­at­ing new pledges at his old fra­ter­nity. And it’s already an hour later than when I planned to be asleep.

In any case, I couldn’t even bring myself to cry today. It just wasn’t in me. It isn’t what I’m feel­ing right now. Or not the only thing.

And when Death From Above1 came on, all I wanted to do was dance.

  1. Back when Iain and I first saw them in con­cert open­ing for Billy Talent, they didn’t have the gra­tu­itous “1979” suf­fix, as it was before the legal dis­pute. I refuse to acknowl­edge them as any­thing else. [↑]
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July 15, 2008

Every Sadness is Unique

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Which is why we can never truly pre­pare our­selves. We may see it com­ing, we may under­stand why, but that never makes it any easier.

Every tear is an entity. An expres­sion that swells to escape our bodies.

Every day is a chance to heal.

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April 28, 2008

Tears as a Turn-On

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It became painfully obvi­ous that my turn-on of girls cry­ing is related to my own pen­chant for sad love­mak­ing.

I’ve always liked the idea of bring­ing some­one from tears to bliss­ful phys­i­cal plea­sure. Like make-up sex with­out the fighting.

A girl was able to do that for me once, so I’ve always wanted to be able to do it for some­one else.

Either that, or my sad­ness is min­gling with my lust.

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April 25, 2008

Alone Again

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The expe­ri­ence of emo­tional depri­va­tion is harder to define than some of the other life­traps. Often it is not crys­tal­lized into thoughts. This is because the orig­i­nal depri­va­tion began so early, before you had the words to describe it. Your expe­ri­ence of emo­tional depri­va­tion is much more the sense that you are going to be lonely for­ever, that cer­tain things are never going to be ful­filled for you, that you will never be heard, never be understood.

Emotional depri­va­tion feels like some­thing is miss­ing. It is a feel­ing of empti­ness. Perhaps the image that most cap­tures its mean­ing is that of a neglected child. Emotional depri­va­tion is what a neglected child feels. It is a feel­ing of alone­ness, of nobody there. It is a sad and heavy sense of knowl­edge that you are des­tined to be alone.

I’m so fuck­ing angry­fu­ri­ous­livid at John right now. We were sup­posed to talk and play tonight, but yet again, I get brushed aside for his friends or girl­friend. I have no other com­mu­ni­ca­tion with him, save for the phonecalls.

It’s not just this time, it’s a whole bunch of times added up. And I’m left alone, again. This is the first time ever that he’s made me cry. And I’m not even sad. I’m just angry. I’m sweat­ing. I can barely see through these tears.

At least I found out that I could show my feel­ings to him. He’s the only per­son with whom I don’t have to worry about being polite. I can raise my voice at him, and I don’t clam up like I do with most people.

Right now, I have no one. John’s the one per­son I can count on to talk to me when some­thing goes wrong. No one else truly under­stands me. It’s com­pletely dev­as­tat­ing when it’s this per­son who pulls the rug out from under you.

Maybe I am sad. Maybe this makes me think of how I’m always a sec­ond pri­or­ity to every­one I know. That I’ll be alone for the rest of my life. That it’ll always be like this because I’m fuck­ing flawed and fuck­ing defec­tive and fuck­ing unlov­able in some way.

I wasn’t going to drive to nowhere tonight, but I think I will now. I just have to remem­ber not to rest my foot on the pedal.

People don’t under­stand how frag­ile I am. That some­times I have to fight to feel sig­nif­i­cant, that I have to con­vince myself that peo­ple would be sad if steered into a con­crete pole and died.

Just because I try to be easy-going and under­stand­ing doesn’t mean I’m not important.

I’m a per­son too.

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January 18, 2008

Overflow

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When a man is full, what can he do?

Burst.

—Zorba, the Greek

Or in my case, overflow.

I started cry­ing in class. Thankfully, no one noticed. People can get awk­ward around a crier. Unfortunately, sup­press­ing a good cry is as unsat­is­fy­ing as sti­fling a sneeze.

A lot of peo­ple hav­ing been say­ing the wrong things to me lately. On top of that, the abun­dance of inter­ac­tion I have with peo­ple — a side-effect of my projects — is leav­ing me drained and overstimulated.

Sometimes I won­der if it’s in my nature to be emo­tional. That try­ing to change this is like try­ing to teach a bird not to sing.

I don’t even have time to deal with this. I have to put it all aside, because there are more impor­tant things to think about right now.

At the bus stop, I real­ized that I have a ten­dency to brood. I don’t lis­ten to happy songs to get me out of the mood. It’s all minor keys and lemon peels, so I can help it run its course.

It’s been a rough week.

Sometimes, a part of myself spills out.

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January 3, 2008

Ersatz

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This looks familiar.

A place I’ve been, a feel­ing I’ve had, a girl I fucked one night in the fall.

Back then she cried. Lying in bed next to me, she told me she was sorry. I believed her, but I didn’t trust the tears, because she knew how much it turns me on. She got what she wanted any­way, and I sup­pose I did too.

That was the last night I saw her.

And now this. A replace­ment who used my shots, my con­cept, my idea, and called it destiny.

But it isn’t can­did enough. It’s too forced. Unnatural. As if she’s try­ing too hard again to cap­ture what was lost, and what she could have had.

So she found another ver­sion, and used him in my place.

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November 18, 2007

She Doesn’t Know How Beautiful

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The art of longing’s over, and it’s never com­ing back.

—Leonard Cohen, Death of a Ladies’ Man

They ask me why I’m cry­ing. I tell them the song is too good, not to cry.

They ask me why there’s a bounce in my step. I tell them I’m in love, and I don’t care.

They ask me if she’s taken. I tell them she is.

They ask me if she knows. I tell them it doesn’t mat­ter as long as I feel this way, and I’m never let­ting go.

They ask me, “Why her?”.

I tell them she makes me happy with­out try­ing.

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October 30, 2007

The Weeping Sky

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Thumbnail: Hurdman station on a rainy day

Thumbnail: Walkley station on a rainy day

It hasn’t stopped pour­ing since I woke up. I’m trav­el­ing through the city in my favourite hoodie. Thinking about you and your del­i­cate wrists. The pho­tos I took of you smil­ing, always look­ing away. Wondering what it must be like in your world. Wondering if we’ll ever meet again. Wondering what you meant when you told me it’s hard to be alone when you’re told you’re grow­ing old.

I write this so I won’t have to write about you again.

Perhaps in a sim­pler world things would have worked out dif­fer­ently, and you would have given me a sec­ond thought.

But I have no tears in me.

The sky weeps instead.

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October 18, 2007

Unplanned Feelings

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I found a small boy sleep­ing on the steps with a birth­mark cov­er­ing his face and won­dered what kind of god would give a child that.

—Sarah Miles, The End Of The Affair

I’m in such a weird mood tonight.

Met a nice, loqua­cious young man at the bus stop. I saw him hob­bling there, his man­gled gait vis­i­ble from the win­dow of my house. His voice was loud and verg­ing on uncon­trolled, “My car is in the shop, I have to be there by seven, I can’t be late, I’m coach and man­ager and med­ical staff of the Generals, so they can’t go on the field with­out me.”

With inno­cent, child­like can­dor, he con­tin­ued. I won­dered if he was aware. If peo­ple took him less seri­ously. If I really under­stood who he was.

He got on the bus first, and in a con­fi­dent tone, said to the bus dri­ver, “Can I get pri­or­ity seat­ing?”. I con­sid­ered sit­ting next to him and con­tin­u­ing our con­ver­sa­tion, but by the time my trans­fer printed out, he already started with the per­son next to him, “I can’t be late. I’m coach­ing football…”.

So I cried on the bus because Misery Is A Butterfly, even though it wasn’t loud enough. Even though I put it on. I was doing it to myself, you see, because of this mood. Because I need it and want it and won­dered how I’ve ever lived with­out it.

I’ve been read­ing Beautiful Losers. Can you tell?

I don’t plan on writ­ing these things.

Then again, I don’t plan on feel­ing this way.

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September 1, 2007

Just Enough To Get Me Through

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My boss caught me cry­ing in my office. He must have heard me hyper­ven­ti­lat­ing, because my back was turned.

I have to be strong now. For my friends. This day isn’t about me, it’s about them.

And that’ll be enough to get me through.

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June 1, 2007

Embracing My Emotional Reactions

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I laugh when I’m ner­vous. Especially around girls I’m attracted to — total gig­gle­fest. I also laugh uncon­trol­lably around peo­ple I meet for the first time. People lower their guard when there’s laugh­ter, and I sus­pect my mind sub­con­sciously finds humour in every­thing to put peo­ple at ease around me.

Around peo­ple I hate, I’m dead silent. That’s how you know I don’t like you: if I don’t talk. The mere pres­ence of one of these peo­ple forces me to fully con­cen­trate on not drilling a 4-inch hole in my tem­ple with a cord­less DeWalt.

Pat’s dif­fer­ent. He told me once that if you ever see him shake his head and shrug his shoul­ders, you’re in his black­list. In an act of faith, he’ll give every­one respect and will even go so far as to stab you in the front, but he gives up if you cross his line of ethics. He’ll never be involved with any­thing related to you after that. It’s not that he hates these peo­ple, like me, he loses all inter­est. This is prob­a­bly even worse than my reac­tion which, because his is cold. You mean noth­ing to him. I try to let go as well, but I can’t. In the back of my head I cling to the hope that these peo­ple can change. Sometimes I also won­der if these peo­ple ever lis­ten to them­selves and can under­stand exactly why I hate them, because it’s so obvi­ous to me.

I also cry in emo­tional sit­u­a­tions. It doesn’t have to be any­thing par­tic­u­larly sad or happy, just a time when emo­tions are high. Intense sports games, Tim Horton’s com­mer­cials, some­times just because some­one else is cry­ing. I can hide it pretty well though; peo­ple don’t under­stand if you start cry­ing in a seem­ingly innocu­ous situation.

As frus­trat­ing as these emo­tional reac­tions can be, I know they make me who I am.

I used to try des­per­ately to remain cere­bral and log­i­cal — like Pat — but my emo­tions would always get the bet­ter of me. Now I’ve learned to embrace them. I could only do this after accept­ing myself and becom­ing con­tent with who I am. They give me some­thing Pat doesn’t have: intense inspi­ra­tion. That rush, when your stom­ach churns, when your head is burns, when you heart flutters.

They’re a part of me, and they make me who I am.

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May 7, 2007

Multitasking Emotions

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Left screen, I’m going over the bach­e­lor party footage. We’re recov­er­ing from a night of drink­ing over bacon and eggs in a high-corner wide-angle shot. Right screen, I’m talk­ing to Aaron on Messenger.

Aaron: bro, you know I love you
Aaron: like for real
Aaron: no shit
Jeff: thanks man, i love you too
Aaron: no ‘you’re my bro’ shit
Aaron: the real deal

“No ‘You’re my bro’ shit”, he says. Bro. The word we some­times use to remind each other that we’re fam­ily. Nothing emas­cu­lates some like the “l” word, but we’re passed that.

“you know I love you”. He was first to say it this time, and it cat­alyzes the tears down my face.

The video’s still play­ing. In it we’re ebul­lient, frat­er­niz­ing, and I can’t help but laugh along too.

I remem­ber another time, about three years ago, when I broke down after deal­ing with my mom and her incor­ri­gi­ble ways. I rolled a joint and smoked it as soon as I got off the phone. As the weed went to my brain, my mood evened out. I was numb to the pain but the tears didn’t stop, like a phys­i­cal reflex.

What a strange feel­ing it was to be cry­ing and laugh­ing or stoned at the same time.

Life is the same way. It’s never black and white, and there’s no absolute right or wrong. There are grey areas, points of pas­sion between plea­sure and pain.

Even cry­ing from joy is an enig­matic micro­cosm of such an idea. I remem­ber doing so only one other time, at the end of grade 7, dur­ing the final audi­tions for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Out of 10 schools, we were com­pet­ing to spend the sum­mer singing on stage with Donny Osmond. When they announced the name of our school we jumped out of our seats in cheer, but I could feel my face gri­mace from the emo­tion, tears fill­ing up my eyes. It’s as if you’re over­taken by sad­ness that you’ll never feel as happy again.

Like yin and yang, one doesn’t exist with­out the other, and often they exist at once.

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October 6, 2006

A Place To Stay

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Thumbnail: Scratch sand 1

Thumbnail: Scratch sand 2

Gua sha, or sand scratch­ing, he calls it.

I’m already sob­bing. The cul­mi­na­tion of another week of stress and lack of sleep. One dis­ap­point­ment after another.

With the bowl of a porce­lain Chinese soup spoon, he scrapes the mus­cles along the back of my neck.

This causes rup­ture of the small sub-dermal cap­il­lar­ies (petechia) and may result in sub-cutaneous bruis­ing (ecchymosis).

According to Chinese med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers, the inter­nal tox­ins in the blood are released and cir­cu­la­tion is improved.

Before con­tin­u­ing down my shoul­ders, he rubs on some Vic’s VapoRub. It lubri­cates the process, cools the skin to ease the burn­ing dis­com­fort, a mix of east­ern and west­ern tech­niques. The patch he rubs turns a muddy mix of red and gar­net, and from this he tells me that I’m work­ing too hard. I have to look after myself bet­ter. Relax every day. Take an hour to exer­cise or walk. The first step to a healthy mind is a healthy body. The colour indi­cates that I have a lot of tox­ins built up in my body.

The darker it is, the more it’s sup­posed to hurt, but I feel nothing.

I take a sip from the mug that he hands me, full of pale yel­low liq­uid. It burns going down. Flavourless, but maybe that’s just the congestion.

“It’s spicy”, I mum­ble, no longer speak­ing Chinese. It’s too much on my mind. I need to express myself with­out limitations.

“It’s just ginger-water. If you can’t take it, you can add some sugar.”

I don’t reply. The unas­sum­ing con­sommé raises the inter­nal tem­per­a­ture, killing the sick air. To quell the spasms in my chest, I take slower, deeper breaths. It doesn’t work.

“I admire you, uncle. One day I hope to be a father like you.”

He breathes a short but heavy sigh. I can tell that these words pain him more than any­thing else I’ve said. He tells me, in Chinese, “Uncle doesn’t make a lot of money. I make sure I spend a lot of time at home”.

“I like you, uncle. I hope that no mat­ter what hap­pens, we can still be friends.”

“No mat­ter what hap­pens, you’ll always have a place to stay with us in Hong Kong.”

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May 5, 2005

Broke Down At Work Today

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I haven’t cried in a while, and I think it was just build­ing up, which would explain why I felt so much bet­ter afterward.

I just kept work­ing. One can be sad, stressed, wor­ried, even to the point of tears, and carry on with the rest of daily life. Crying is just a phys­i­cal reflex of a state-of-mind.

Two peo­ple may have noticed, but nei­ther of them said anything.

Thank god I don’t have to deal with the bull­shit of hid­ing this from someone.

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