On our last day together she brought me a bouquet of tulips and carnations, and a Joe Hisaishi CD — a childhood memory of mine she ordered from Japan. I had mentioned it in passing on one of our walks as the only album I’ve been unable to find for download or purchase, and there it was, in my hands.

We watched Before Sunrise, and afterward, we laid next to each other on the couch, silent, unsure of what to say, because there was no comfort to be had. Soon, I was kissing the tears from her face, over and over again.

She asked what she was going to do without me. How long it was going to be before we saw each other again. Whether a simple phone call was allowed. I could say nothing, because I understood the necessity of it all.

So she said she was being reduced to an observer, and I grew cold and distant. It was the first time I had considered my own feelings, when I had felt reduced to much more than that, and she wasn’t making it any easier. With her lips on my neck and her hand through my hair, she comforted me in turn, and our passion took hold of us one last time.

Before she left, I hugged her, felt her tears grow cold on my shoulder, and kissed her once more on the cheek. Thank you, she said.

My heart has been filled with a calm sadness ever since. A struggle between the pain of being away from her, and knowing that it’s for the best. That we would be stronger, and more stable when it was all over.

In the days since, I’ve remembered the things I wanted to say to her before she left my back porch, running to car without looking back before the emotion could overwhelm her. Things that didn’t come to my head because I was too focused on keeping myself together.

Don’t stop creating. Take care of yourself. I love you.

I’ve come to realize that I cling to pain and yearning because they give me inspiration. They may not be the sole source, but certainly a great deal. I always listen to Leonard Cohen and Elliot Smith during such moods, as they have the ability to intensify and deepen the sadness.

I can tell it’s something of a destructive habit. It’s almost like I subconsciously choose to dwell on things that have been resolved for the sake of something to write about.

It makes me think of the last lines from King Missile’s song Ed:

“Yes, this is the answer. This is the ending. I shall keep on running, because a body in motion tends to stay emotional, and it’s better to feel. Pain is better than emptiness, emptiness is better than nothing, and nothing is better than this.”

Is this how I feel alive, a way of bringing significance to my life? Or is this the way I truly feel, and I’m simply a slow healer, and too much of a thinker?

Or perhaps the better question is this: does happiness inspire me just as much?

Sometimes, you stab yourself in the hand with a point, but it’s not sharp enough to break the skin.

Sometimes, the blood comes to the surface, and this is as much of yourself as you can show the world.

Sometimes, the pavement is covered in snow outside, and you can drive over 100kph in one spot before the traction kicks in.

Sometimes, you scare yourself with your recklessness.

Sometimes, you realize that life is pain.

Sometimes, you have nothing left but numbness and resolve.

The woman I’ve been looking for my entire life.

Her name was Christine. She was thin lipped. Frail limbed. Not the least bit camera shy, as she pulled her shirt up to expose a breast, like she had fallen on the grass this way and the folds in her clothes rearranged themselves on her body.

Here she is on a horse in the night. Here she is, grim-faced, cradling her son. There was a scar on her neck from a suicide attempt years earlier, and through a series of photographs, you could see the scar heal.

For seven years she was married, before she successfully jumped to her death from the 9th floor of an apartment in East Berlin.

This is someone who understood his art, his morbidity, his need to capture her suicide in a frame, then publish the image of her body on the pavement, looking down from the 9th floor, along with insouciant pictures of a teacup, a playground, a tank, three plants.

And as soon as I had found her, she’s gone.

Should I be happy that she existed? Should I be sad that she’s gone? Should I be punished for comparing the women I’ve had to her?

Is this painful, or beautiful, or both?

Quand je vous aimerai?
ma foi, je ne sais pas,
peut-être jamais, peut-être demain,
mais pas aujourd’hui, c’est certain.

One day, he discovered that she loved him just as much as the day she left, and that every new man she sought for comfort was just another attempt to replace him; he was unlike anyone she had ever met before. But there was nothing that could be done; the pain had left him cold and unmoved.

And it’s only being on both sides of such an idea that allows him to accept this.

John figured out that I don’t forgive people because my memory is too good.

And it’s true. Not only do I remember experiences, but emotions. It’s like I can relive every moment I’ve been hurt down to the smallest detail¹. The pain remains strong and salient, years after the incidents have passed.

While time may heal wounds for most, it doesn’t for me. I’m generally fine with this, since I believe that it should be actions and apologies that breed forgiveness, not time.

It’s only hard when I want to forgive someone, but I can’t.

1. This works with the other extreme too; for me, being happy is just as vivid. [↑]

And I keep hanging up.

The first thing she asks, nonchalantly like nothing has happened, is whether I’ve eaten yet. This is something thing she used to say at the beginning of every phone call. One of her old habits, to make sure I’m eating enough.

I didn’t answer her question, but asked what she wanted. She told me she just wanted to see how I was doing.

She doesn’t get it. I don’t want to talk to her. I never want to talk to her again. Every call is a reminder of the wounds that haven’t healed.

It’s like having your rapist show up at the door with flowers.

“Love doesn’t end, just because we don’t see each other.”, she told him

“Doesn’t it?”, he asked.

“People go on loving God, don’t they? All their lives. Without seeing Him.”

“That’s not my kind of love.”

I realize that on days like this — when the wind is cutting through the seams of my jacket, when my stomach is so cramped that it twitches, when I’m uncontrollably nodding off to sleep on the bus, when my transfer expires before I can use it, when incompetence isn’t keeping my appointments — that I can’t call you. It just wouldn’t help.

You abandoned me when I needed you the most. I’ll never trust you with anything important again. Including me.

You may say you love me, but I don’t love you. Not anymore.

My love is (was) boundless.

Yours is of convenience.

So I deleted your numbers off my speed dial. I took down your pictures. It was an in-the-moment thing.

I’m calm now, seeing things objectively, yet still undecided.

Part of me wants to believe we can still be friends. That we can still hang out without me depending on you for anything. But I’m not like that, and I don’t stay friends with those on whom I can’t depend.

I cried, not only because you weren’t there when I needed you, not only because you had a responsibility to my friends as well, but because I never allow those who hurt me so much to be a part of my life. Our friendship may be lost, and this is what upsets me the most. Perhaps it hurts so much because you were so important to me. I don’t want to lose that, but I’ll never forget what you did and I’ll never trust you again.

And if I can forgive you, you’ll know that I truly love you.

Through all this, I’ve come to realize that I cut people out of my life as a defence mechanism.

When someone hurts me, I distance myself from them so they mean nothing to me.

Often it’s an easy choice — just one wrong word or action — but not all the time. Cutting off my mom was by no means a rash decision; it took years of consideration and plenty of chances before she finally went too far.

What surprises me the most is that even though I now know that I have this defence mechanism, I don’t see a problem with it.

I’ve been hurt by enough people, and I don’t want to be hurt any more.

I’ve gained a certain notoriety amongst some as being a crier, but today was the first time that I actually had a breakdown. The first time there wasn’t just a single thing that brought me to tears, but several, which, by themselves, would have been tolerable. And even though I’ve long known and been an advocate of the practical aspects of lachrymology, today was the first time that I still felt like shit when I couldn’t cry any more.

This song in my head is telling me about how the stars keep shining down, the world keeps turning ’round, not to let these hardships bring me down because times like these will come around. I believe him, because I’ve been there. I’ve been to the point where I wished my interest in suicide was just a cry for attention, and I’ve been to the point where it felt like nothing could bring me down.

All I know right now is that I’m going to get through this week, but it’s not going to be easy.

I haven’t seen Pat in more than two months. We’re trying to schedule something for March, and by that time it’ll be an entire quarter year since we’ve hung out. I’ve come a long way since I last saw him, in terms of mindset, and he’s probably the only one who totally understands how gravely important that is to me. It’s too bad that my other close friends don’t completely understand me, although it’s no fault of their own and I don’t hold it against them.

It takes pain to understand pain, and Pat is the one who’s had the most similar experiences. If there was one person in this world who has me figured out, it’s him. It used to feel as though he would have to come to my level to talk to me, to understand what I was going through, to give me guidance and support.

Now it feels as if I’ve come to his level, and I understand his attitude, motivations, and worldview much better as a result of this. He admitted that he always wondered when I’d get there, and he’s curious if he’ll notice a change the next time he sees me.

I see all the influences that change me as adding more to my mind, another piece to the quilt.

Keeping every piece becomes as important as gaining more.

Whenever Trolley and I hang out together, whether it’s a car ride or a session of tower defense, we queue up albums that we both enjoy. Billy Talent, The Artist in the Ambulance, Sing the Sorrow, Give Up. However, there’s one song that he never queues up, that he always skips without anyone else knowing.

He knows that I can’t listen to that one song off guard. As much as I want that song for myself, to mean nothing more than a frail voice and bouncing beats, I can’t give up the memories that I associate with it, I can’t let go of what the song has come to mean.

And it’s only now that I realize that it’s better this way.

Out of the storm of life I have borne away only a few ideas — and not one feeling. For a long time now I have been living, not with my heart, but with my head. I weigh, analyze my own passions and actions with severe curiosity, but without sympathy.

—Pechorin, A Hero of Our Time

When I was younger, I decided that I wanted to cast all my emotion aside, because at the time I knew nothing but pain. I set this as my goal, and started to work towards a sterile, cerebral mindset. I wanted to feel nothing, and this idea followed me through to university.

At this time, I never believed that I was completely successful; I still felt too much. However, as my situation changed, as I met new people with good hearts and minds, I experienced what happiness was like. I was never satisfied though, never happy enough, and always wanted more but could never achieve it. Suddenly, it felt as if my cerebral goal was too successful, and I was stuck, I was numb.

I’ve gone from one extreme to the other, from wanting nothing to wanting everything. In both cases I was a failure, but it’s only now that I realize that success would have assuredly meant no turning back. I believe that when a certain extent is reached, one becomes ignorant to anything that could possibly change oneself. Now I understand the balance, the dichotomy that absolutely must exist in order to have a healthy mind.

And things are much better this way.