words: Finn Butler
All posts tagged memory
Memory is an Enemy
Posted by aamidala on April 9, 2013
https://fairystardust.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/memory-is-an-enemy/
Snow Cherries From Eight Months Past
It’s over.
The sentence—and that’s exactly what it was, in every sense of the word—kept on falling off my head like a guillotine.
I died exactly eight months ago today. No, change that. I didn’t just die eight months ago. I was murdered. He failed to kill my body but he sure crushed my spirit.
At that time, I didn’t want to go back to work, ever. I didn’t want to get back up. I just wanted to go somewhere far away and hide from the rest of the world.
I remember being inside the rest room, crying and trying to dry my eyes in vain. I remember opening my compact mirror and setting it on the floor. It took three stomps for the mirror inside to finally shatter. I remember drawing out the plastic disc and all but one shard of glass. It was shaped like a tear, rounded on one end and sharp as a dagger on the other. I remember sliding down the tiled wall of the restroom until I was sitting underneath the sink. I remember dragging out the makeshift knife over my inner arm.
As soon as I did it, I wished I could take it back. I mean, only crazy attention-seeking girls cut, girls who walk like zombies through some teen novels.
But.
I felt the sting of my skin as it split. I felt the sting at the welling rise of blood. It hurt, but not as much as everything else. It was my first time to cut and definitely not the last.
I like to think that there’s still hope left for me or even for us. I want to believe that when life brings us to the edge of despair, hope is the only thing we can hold onto. I think hope is a great part of growing old and growing up.
We might sound so cynical and bitter to the world but we know deep-down that it’s just a defense mechanism, cover- up coating the pains, hurts and longings. We resort to this kind of coping mechanism because it’s too embarrassing to admit that in spite of everything, we still kind of hope that whoever we lost or whoever lost us would one day come back looking around for us, asking for a second chance.
In spite of our false bravado and superficial anger and cynicism, we know (but we don’t acknowledge) that we haven’t completely given up.
Eight months. Who would have thought I’d make it this far?
Posted by aamidala on August 12, 2012
https://fairystardust.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/snow-cherries-from-eight-months-past/
August Wish
Why, hello there, August! 🙂 Didn’t get the chance to write this past month as I’ve been very busy and yeah, lazy. Haha! after such a long time, I felt really happy so I had to savor each single moment. Hihi. 🙂
Last month, I got to meet new friends through one of my best friend’s birthday celebration. Last month, I was starting to be happy. 🙂 I was going out and I felt genuinely happy after such a long time.
I am in the process of forgetting. I am supposed to be happy but I realize that I’m not. When I realized that memories fall apart, too, I got scared. Because if that happens, then I’ll be left with nothing. It’s like I’m aware of what’s supposed to be there.
Just like the stars, memories have illusions of permanence. They’re always sneaking in, flaring up, making their ways in and out of my mind. But at this vantage point, I can at least pretend that things last. That memories last longer than moments.
But memories fall apart. They don’t really last. Even nothing cannot last forever.
So I’ll give these memories a forever in a numbered days or months or years or depending on how long until they eventually fade out. 🙂
Posted by aamidala on August 1, 2012
https://fairystardust.wordpress.com/2012/08/01/august-wish/
The Days of Yay Are Long Gone and Over
When we first started dating, he was so vocal about his need to protect me and I never had the chance to figure out what from until he broke me. It turns out that he wanted to protect me from his lying cheating self and only then did I realize that he never wanted to protect me at all. Had he wanted to protect me, he wouldn’t have come to my life, he wouldn’t have brought even the slightest change by destroying my mundane life in the first place.
It’s stupid how someone can claim to love you for almost everything you are but decided that you are not enough to let you stay for a very long time, decided that you are not enough, hence, the other woman.
It’s crazy how the harder you try to hold on to something or someone the more it wants to run away from you. In as much as you want to hold on, they want to escape just as much. It’s weird how you feel like some kind of criminal for having felt all these desperate feelings of wanting to be wanted by someone you so-head-in-the-clouds-ass-backwards want.
Sometimes, it’s so confusing because you think that your feelings are wrong. It makes you feel so small and weak because it’s so hard to keep it inside but when you let it out, it doesn’t come back. But I guess this is what usually happens in love, at least it’s the case with he and I. One of us (namely yours truly) cried a lot and then grew sarcastic after a relatively not-so-few months. Haha! :p
Moving on is never easy and so is staying moved on. Actually, staying moved on is a lot trickier. Haha!
Posted by aamidala on July 12, 2012
https://fairystardust.wordpress.com/2012/07/12/the-days-of-yay-are-long-gone-and-over/
Dreaming A Lie
Photo not mine
I woke up from a very good dream.Well, I never really knew it was a dream until I woke up.
I woke up with a heavy heart. And I finally agree with John Mayer that when you’re dreaming with a broken heart, waking up is the hardest part.
You know you’re damned the moment you wake up and realize that you’re still alive.
You know you’re damned the moment you wake up and realize that you cannot possibly go back to the best days of your life.
You know you’re damned the moment you wake up and realize that some things are just dream-bound, partly because it will never happen or because it will never happen again.
You know you’re damned when you wake up and realize that some of the best possible realities cannot go outside the confines of your dreams.
No matter how much I read into the situation and try to twist it until it looks the way I want it to, I can never deny that being with him again was and will be just that: a dream.
In as much as I want to tell myself that I wasn’t consciously thinking of him or of what has been, I can’t just ignore the fact that I dreamt about him. That means, subconsciously, I was thinking about him or anything that reminds me of him. Or of what has been.
In my dream, I was able to talk to him. Be with him. Laugh with him. Hear him say he loves me.
We held hands. We laid on our backs, next to each other, watching the stars glow and fade. We listened to each others heartbeats. We kissed.
And just right after that, I woke up. Didn’t I realize that such thing as good as that ends? Didn’t I realize that such thing as good and glorious and wonderful as that is just that? A dream.
That dream? It was a lie!
That dream? It was a treacherous enemy. I cannot trust that dream because it was filled with better days.
Posted by aamidala on June 28, 2012
https://fairystardust.wordpress.com/2012/06/28/dreaming-a-lie/
20th Century Inferno
I woke up earlier than usual, considering that I slept late last night. I woke up because I was having chest pains and difficulty breathing. It was like my veins somewhere around my ribs were knotted in a very uncomfortable, twisted angle. Every time I tried to take a deep breath, it would hurt so much I’d rather not breathe at all if that was even a choice.
It was hell. Well, my version of hell might not coincide with your own version or with the version of the Theologians and some practicing hard-core Christians.
The Theologians and hard-core Christians would argue that hell is a lake of fire. This is the destination of people who didn’t repent of their sins and accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. This is where they would go and be judged after their physical death. Eternal damnation, so they say.
photo not mine
But what if there’s really no lake-of-fire kind of hell? What if hell is just a metaphor for all the bad things that happen to us, and whether we deserve them or not is out of the question? What if hell is just a name we give to something we can’t explain or bear?
Some people might argue that hell is living with the mistakes and choices they’ve made, waiting and relying on second chance to make things right.
For most UP students, hell is having to sleep late and wake up even before the sun does. Hell is to study your butt off and still fail. Hell is the exam day. Hell is having panic attacks wondering whether you were able to meet that 12:00 MN deadline or not. Hell is having to go to a certain class unprepared because you had to go to a relative’s wake, and your professor decided to do his favorite hobby of humiliating irresponsible students. Hell is going through the motions of being a student, a student leader, a sister, a daughter, an intern all at the same time. Hell is the unstoppable budget cuts. Hell is the tuition and other fees increase. Hell is having to file a Leave of Absence from school due to financial restraints. Hell is getting an INC and 4.0 right after you submitted an application for graduation. Hell is either graduating on time or otherwise.
Six months ago, my version of hell was different. I knew I was damned the moment I woke up in the morning and realized that I wasn’t dead. I knew I was damned when I went to sleep at night and I kept seeing this person at an arm’s length but every time I try to touch his face, he vanished. I knew I was damned when after all that has happened, I somehow trusted him to explain why my whole life has been upended.
Today, though, I don’t feel anything like that. Today, I just want these chest pains to go away. And these knotted veins around my ribs, come on! Grow up! Don’t go around blocking each other’s ways, you stupid lot!
I just want to get out of this hell. Tomorrow, I’ll have to deal with another demon, in another hell.
Posted by aamidala on June 20, 2012
https://fairystardust.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/20th-century-inferno/
The Fight Isn’t Over Just Yet
My patience was tested today. Not only was I suffering from a terrible case of hang over and a really bitchy fever, I had to work (part-time) for five hours, teaching some hard-headed bitchy Korean girls of the Basic English Grammar. What’s worse than having a dumb student (like, someone who can’t even answer a simple question as “How was your weekend?”) is a dumb student pretending to know she knows everything thus not wanting to study anymore.And getting mad at a student is not an option because they pay me to teach them, not reprimand them. Argh! So I had to swallow my anger and annoyance, my chest hurt so much that I feared all the piled up anger and annoyance would choke me to death.
When I opened my twitter, I got a mention from a really wonderful friend, asking me why I deactivated my facebook account.
Hmmm…It’s kinda weird. You know what it’s like to cry in the bathroom because you lost that stupid online game and you didn’t want anyone to see you crying but she saw you just the same? And she wanted to ask you what made you so upset, she wanted to comfort you? That’s how it felt. Only that I didn’t want to tell her. She didn’t need to borrow anyone’s problem, especially mine. She didn’t deserve to be burdened by the harsh realities of love when she could be swimming in rainbow-colored dreams. I didn’t want to ruin her thoughts about relationships and stuff just like that.
I didn’t want to tell her that things break all the time. Glass, dishes, bones. You can break the ice. Day breaks and so do voices. There are coffee breaks, lunch breaks, prison breaks. Chains can be broken. So can silence. Promises break and as soon as they do, so do hearts.
I didn’t want to tell her how the fault lines are the very spot where earthquakes are born, where volcanoes originate. I didn’t want to tell her that the solid ground on our feet is just an illusion and will break sooner or later.
I didn’t want to talk about my reason(s) for deactivating because at least, I’d get to pretend that nothing was wrong. You see, the people who discussed their problems, fought and ached and felt really miserable.
I originally planned to go on a word strike and never tell her anything. I originally planned not to reply to her message.She might not understand. How could I possibly tell her when she’s related to the vampire (who was once my built-in best friend) who sucked me dry?
But I did tell her. God! How could I pass that burden to a sweet 15-year-old girl? This was meant to be rhetorical but I’ll answer anyway. Because I was such a selfish 22 year-old, trapped in her 21-year-old self, back when everything was all rainbows and unicorns.
Posted by aamidala on June 18, 2012
https://fairystardust.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/the-fight-isnt-over-just-yet/
Stone Drunk
I’ve never been a good drunk. Even when I was still a student and had my first drink two years ago, a few beers would make me sick. Hard liquor only made me hyperaware, wondering why the tables had been stained the color of mud. Hard liquor only makes my head throb, as if it’s being pricked with a thousand needles.
I would drink a bottle every night. For two weeks.
Six months ago, I would drown my sorrow in my sleep. But most of the time, I would drown them in alcohol. I would drink at home alone, with Florence + The Machine on the background. I would be stone drunk and would completely pass out and would wake up the next day having a terrible case of hang over, like a steel is being drilled into my head in the slowest, most excruciating way possible. It continued for almost two weeks. I would drink as much as I could so I could fall asleep without thinking and crying. And today, I found myself back to where I was six months ago.
It was disturbing to suddenly have a memory come back out of nowhere, it made me wonder where it has been hiding all this time. It was all it took, to see that extra moment and suddenly I was breaking apart what I thought was a solid something. But when I looked at it hard enough, it’s just a string of events.
How could you walk into my life again after half a year, as if nothing happened, as if you didn’t do anything wrong? How could you pick up, when you were too selfish and I was too naive and hurt to even know where we left off?
In the aftermath of our virtual pseudo conversation, I was moving slowly, as if I was walking underwater. And I had to deactivate my facebook account for the meantime. We can’t rebuild our past when we haven’t even leveled common ground.
Cheers!
Posted by aamidala on June 17, 2012
https://fairystardust.wordpress.com/2012/06/17/stone-drunk/
Time Travel
“It has been worth it.” Your tone was historic, it sounded final. Like a farewell. Well, it was, wasn’t it?
I wanted to say something but my tongue tasted of copper and lead, I couldn’t force my lips to open. I just looked at you, like after an accident where I watched my own blood flow and feel nothing. According to you, the more one can’t feel the pain, the more grave the injury is. The muscles are dead and have stopped responding to stimulus. I could be dead, too. Only that I am not.
“It has been worth it.” What has it been worth? What will happen next? What will happen to me? What am I to suffer?
That’s the thing about tragedy, it takes you by surprise, always comes without warning. And no matter how prepared you think you are, you actually are not. It was like being caught in the flash flood; you see the waters rushing towards you ragingly and you just know that you are powerless to stir an inch.
Calamity, in my opinion, has a generalizing effect, so why did I have to suffer in an annihilating detail instead of suffering in a monumental way? I tried to consider my resources, ranging my ideas, my secrets carefully against the future. But ideas don’t and cannot replace feelings. They just prepare us for, sustain us in our feelings.
If I understand why am I to be hurt, then does that really mean that it will hurt me less? Unfortunately, no. It doesn’t just work that way. It does not make things any easier and lesser painful.
I know that we have to come to terms with this. Yes, to terms. But whose terms–isn’t that the point? If what we had was an us, then how come only you got the chance to decide?
Life, no matter how balanced it is, is unfair. You hated the truth that life is unfair and yet, you became exactly what you hate. And I knew you would look different from that moment that you stopped loving me.
“I would always care about you,” you went on, anxious to be understood, unaware that you were rubbing salt on raw wounds. You narrated lines of your litany but they weren’t comforting; they felt like bullets and guillotine.
Posted by aamidala on June 6, 2012
https://fairystardust.wordpress.com/2012/06/06/time-travel/
Like an Avalanche 