Posts tagged with "love"

hey, c'mon

He’s only 40, an age I’d still con­sid­er young for a doc­tor. I see the fea­tures of so many of my Chinese peers in his face, though he’s actu­al­ly an Irish expat. Family and a restau­rant sealed his par­ents deci­sion to emi­grate to the Emerald Isle when he was too young to speak. It explains why his con­ver­sa­tion­al dic­tion is impec­ca­ble while some spo­ken con­so­nants are merged or lost, a famil­iar accent from being born into a Cantonese fam­i­ly. This imme­di­ate­ly puts me on my guard. I’ve rarely got­ten along with those peers; the cul­ture has­n’t been kind.

But I’m not here for myself. I did­n’t even make the appoint­ment, which is why I don’t know what to say.

Thankfully, he takes the lead and takes his time. The ques­tions cov­er a mot­ley gamut, and I can tell how com­pre­hen­sive his notes are through the clack­ing of the key­board.

At some point he asks if any­one came with me, and I tell him who’s in the wait­ing room. He kind­ly offers to speak to her on my behalf, but she already knows. It’s the only rea­son I’m telling this sto­ry anoth­er time. I can’t help admit­ting how humil­i­at­ing it is to be so depen­dent on oth­ers, to need peo­ple like her so des­per­ate­ly some­times that I can’t imag­ine how I’d sur­vive with­out them.

Without any change in his pro­ce­dur­al tone, he says this sen­ti­ment is part of our Chinese guilt. We dis­ap­point our par­ents by not being strong enough to live up to their expec­ta­tions as self-reliant adults, but they pre­vent us from grow­ing up by treat­ing us like chil­dren and refus­ing to let us make our own deci­sions. He knows, cause he’s gone through the same thing. At the same time, he nev­er con­dones my feel­ings, offer­ing a reas­sur­ance that we all han­dle things dif­fer­ent­ly, and that we can’t do it alone some­times. It tells me he does­n’t just lis­ten; he cares.

Before send­ing me off with a dose of Pristiq, he hands me a sealed enve­lope — on it writ­ten “emer­gency room let­ter” — and tells me to give it to the doc­tor at the Queensway-Carleton, while care­ful­ly sug­gest­ing I have noth­ing to lose at this point. It makes sense, but I’m not ready. Not yet. This is good for now. She’ll thank me for tak­ing this step, one that’s as much for her as it is for me.

After, we hold hands in the car while wait­ing to be com­posed enough to be seen in pub­lic, bass lines wash­ing over us like heart­beats, an affir­ma­tion of rea­sons for and the things I love.

moment by moment by moment

It’s turned into a month of impro­vi­sa­tion. Even my reg­u­lar events are being resched­uled, so I’ve lost the only anchors I have to a nor­mal week. It’s hard to make plans when I don’t know how I’ll feel from one day to the next. Harder when I don’t know the next chance I’ll have to spend with the peo­ple who love me the way I need to be loved. I can tell it’s been too long when I start to dwell on my inse­cu­ri­ties, and the days feel more and more heavy.

I’m let­ting this peri­od be a way for me to ease away from alter­nat­ing between iso­la­tion and anx­ious cling­ing. Being busy is forc­ing me to pay atten­tion to the cur­rent moment. To be present with the per­son I’m with, but more impor­tant­ly, with myself. Otherwise, I can’t han­dle the thought of how much stim­u­la­tion I’m fac­ing.

cat in slippers

Slippers, because she needs to find ways to be more com­fort­able in her day-to-day life.

Dolly’s been sleep­ing on my duvet again, an old habit of hers. It’s a sign that fall is here, as she prefers to swad­dle in the dark when it gets too cold by the win­dow. She also recent­ly decid­ed to start sleep­ing on my pil­low1, and I can feel her purring through my skull, a new and unex­pect­ed devel­op­ment in our rela­tion­ship. I love the fact that I’m still learn­ing things about her, that she’s still capa­ble of change as she approach­es a decade with me. As always, I have the fall to thank.

backyard garden

A lot of pro­gres­sive trance has been in the mix dur­ing all this upheaval. It’s a genre I’ve nev­er pur­pose­ly explored until recent­ly. I’ve been try­ing to fig­ure out how to make my own cov­ers inter­est­ing by adding lots of dynam­ic ele­ments and mak­ing sure phras­es aren’t used too often. These DJs do the exact oppo­site with lots of rep­e­ti­tion and min­i­mal ele­ments, yet some­how make each song a jour­ney in itself. It’s a pleas­ant puz­zle to try to solve. Now I have many new addic­tions that have been per­fect for night time rides and count­ing yel­low high­way lines.

I won­der if these songs will end up remind­ing me of a time I’m con­stant­ly being bro­ken down so I can heal prop­er­ly. The old ones don’t mean the same thing any­more.

  1. Although I can’t fig­ure out how she fits on it by her­self to begin with. []

This is a picture I didn't take

Of you, arms up and chest out, body crash­ing against the surf. Top pulled back into place with each wave, bot­toms adjust­ed as need­ed. A splash of rain on a flower soon to bur­geon.

In that instance I became aware of what was hap­pen­ing in myself. I could look at it clear­ly, and saw it as it was because it was already there, part of my expe­ri­ence in that moment, for bet­ter or for worse. I allowed myself to be exact­ly as I was with­out fear or shame. Detached yet present. Mindful to how I’ve longed to feel this for some­one again, and how I’ve nev­er ful­ly sur­ren­dered myself to it until now. A rea­son for the lyrics in the awk­ward smiles, the molto crescen­do in every inci­den­tal touch.

This is a pic­ture I did­n’t take of you, a mem­o­ry from which I can’t seem to look away. A moment I car­ry with me to remind myself that I can love again.

thanks for the trouble you took from her eyes

That lit­tle fur­row was there because you weren’t. That’s why you nev­er saw it, of course. You must think I hate you cause it was the only thing I could­n’t help her with myself. But I could nev­er hate you. You gave her what she want­ed. In the end, that’s all I real­ly want­ed too.

I knew it was seri­ous when I saw your umbrel­la under her bed, back when she hid those kinds of things for my sake. You nev­er real­ized she only took it as an excuse to see you again (not because she was par­tic­u­lar­ly scared of get­ting her meri­no socks wet), the same way you nev­er real­ized how easy it all was for you. That was a sign that you were the right one. I knew it before she did.

If only there was a bit of mys­tery left in you. Instead, I had you pegged by the sec­ond night, and all I can tell peo­ple is that you’re a nice guy, when I want to say you’re an artist, a lover, a fight­er, a wor­thy rival, a slay­er of inse­cu­ri­ties, a break­er of bar­ri­ers, a tes­ta­ment to testos­terone, a hero among men. She deserves more than the painful­ly pedes­tri­an life you’ve giv­en her, but I know she’s had enough of heart­break to think that nor­mal is hard enough to come by. And so I’ve learned that a per­son­’s hap­pi­ness is all that mat­ters, not the dreams you have for them. I guess it’s hard to give up those dreams when you’re part of them your­self.

I want to say I’m leav­ing for some noble rea­son of great impor­tance, but it’s real­ly because there’s noth­ing left for me in this lit­tle town. I used to believe I could escape; even­tu­al­ly I real­ized you can’t out­run your mem­o­ries. Now I’m just try­ing to fig­ure out where I belong. She was all I knew for so long, and now that life is gone.

And so I must tread care­ful­ly with new lovers; it’s impos­si­ble for me to tell my sto­ry with­out that part of my past. That’s why I won­der what she told you about me, about us. About los­ing feel­ing in her face and let­ters you would­n’t know how to write. If she inten­tion­al­ly left any­thing out, or whether our time was even worth men­tion­ing. But the past is still the past, and that’s the only rea­son I can write a let­ter now to the man who saved her with­out ever know­ing it.

zhui long

There’s noth­ing in this world you can’t turn into hero­in.

—Get Him to the Greek

At our last draft, Steph asked me what was new. It was weeks since we played, but noth­ing came to mind, and it felt strange to have no updates at all. It was only a few months ago that things fell apart. Things had been chang­ing quick­ly ever since.

And then, all of a sud­den, sta­bil­i­ty.

the hearth

The hearth.

Meanwhile, I’ve picked up an obses­sion with sort­ing my Magic cards. Darren came by a few weeks ago and he gave me his col­lec­tion, which we both start­ed around high-school. I have about 8000 cards now, ordered by rar­i­ty, colour, block, and alpha­bet­i­cal­ly, which took me the greater part of a week. There’s no deny­ing how sat­is­fy­ing it is to have a neat and orga­nized set, where I can quick­ly find a card instead of going through ran­dom hand­fuls.

I also start­ed watch­ing Cops, sea­sons 20–24, non-stop. A strange addic­tion1 for a real­i­ty TV show that’s no doubt biased in favour of law enforce­ment and against low-income cit­i­zens, but not glo­ri­fied with a nar­ra­tor, a sound­track, or any mon­e­tary incen­tives. After watch­ing the same episodes a few times, I feel like I have some inti­mate insight into the peo­ple who choose to break the law, and those who make careers out of stop­ping them.

They’re signs that I’m a glut­ton now, hav­ing to lose myself in some­thing, whether it’s being pro­duc­tive or social or hap­py.

Love used to be my drug of choice, but nowa­days it’s any­thing I can get.

  1. I used to see an episode here and there when I was a kid, but it was nev­er with any fre­quen­cy, and I haven’t seen one in years. I have no idea why I find it so fas­ci­nat­ing now. []