its been a year..

people still think i'm brave and strong
i wish they knew what really goes on (or just tell them to shove it)

i dont want to miss you anymore
i dont want to remember how you take your drinks
or how you light a stick
or how you like your food, or how you like to dress
how you take hours in the shower
and how you made up a song to hold my hand
i dont want to remember what you used to call me
or the things you bought me
or the late mornings you'd make my coffee
i don't want to remember how you talk in your sleep or how you crawl under the covers
i don't want to remember your favourite songs
or your favourite movies
or your favourite football team

i dont want to remember the yelling, and the fighting
and the hurt and the crying

I dont want to look around my room and see you in everything
You have your stamp on all my favourites
my favourite restaurants, my favourite celebrations, my favourite songs, even my favourite people too

I need to peel your labels off, labels of me and you
i hate that i still see you in everything i do

We made life together
We also ripped the worst out of each other

We loved each other and we hurt each other with equal intensity
I don't know if i'll ever go down that path again
You're one step ahead of me

He told me
Its ok to remember it as the saddest part of my life
but i dont have to live life sad
he always gets it right, and i miss him the most right now
you're not even here anymore and he catches me everytime you make me fall
he's the only person in this whole world who will never 'break up' with me

I hate what this has made me
I used to love weddings, I can't bear to sit through one anymore
I used to believe in eternity, its easier to throw a cynic's laugh now
I used to think honesty won you everything, honesty lost me everything
I don't give credit, I don't care, and I don't trust

People tell me the best is yet to come
Truly, its just the rest that are yet to come

I look around and realize how different life is
I look around and realize how still life is..

Sometimes

...you just need to have a really good cry..

You cry a little, you drink a little

and then you look out for the familiar faces to catch you when you fall..

Somebody told me today, that the only way to live life to the fullest, is to do the things you want to do and then let it unfold - to not over think it and not to force things, we can enable it, but we cannot force it.

We can enable it, but we cannot force it. I think that's just so clever.

Most times we don't do things because we fear breaking out of a comfort zone, or we fear losing someone, or we fear looking stupid. We look for an excuse not to go ahead and execute our true desires, because we fear something as stupid as what other people might think. Worse still, we convince ourselves on why we shouldn't purely based on fear. Harshly put, you want something so bad, but you're just too chicken shit to give it a shot.

I don't believe in having to live through a destiny, I believe you make your own destiny.

So what if we put ourselves out there for something we really want, and people think we're a little nuts. At least you can turn around and say 'hey, I tried'.

So here's what i'm going to do. I'm going to learn to live, love, lust and laugh with passion.

And if you respond like i'm a psycho freak, then its an adjudication of you not me, because at least i'll know i'm giving it my all.

you cry a little, you drink a little, you let them catch you, eventually you'll be true to yourself and get what you desired, otherwise you'd have still been true to yourself and you move on...

Really..

Correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't it a norm for people to smile in photos? Seriously, its not really common practice to take 'kodak' moments of people crying or sulking or feeling like life is in the pits isn't it..

Why do people keep finding the need to tell me how good it is to see me smiling in my photos? Do you really think its encouraging, or comforting?

It's just as bad as saying 'i know what you're going through' because you fucking don't..

Is it really such a big deal that i choose not to sit at home in a dark corner and cry my eyes out, or walk the classic stereotype of a broken hearted girl?

I wish people would stop telling me how brave I am, or how strong I am, or how happy I look...

There are those of you who really can make me smile, and that I love you for, and wish I had more of you..and I love even more how you don't keep telling me that i'm smiling..

But those of you who come out of nowhere..and think you're being concerned or supportive, stop it. Because you just don't know. And it hurts even more every time you think you're helping.

Half Empty or Half Full..

I’m not really a big believer of signs. I’m tempted to take everything that happens around me as signs towards how my life should be directed hence forth, I then realize for that to happen I need to have some remote idea of where I want it to go at least. Otherwise signs just seem negative regardless of how positively they’re being injected into daily activity.

I wonder, if one knows that the direction they are heading in isn’t something that will necessarily end well, with things around them happening to somewhat support that idea, if they’re able to merely tell themselves enough times that it will be well, whether it will really be well. And if they do enough things to counter that instinct that it isn’t going well, will the gods get together and make things a happy little ending, just because one tried hard enough, and repeated it like a mantra in ones head..but didn’t really believe enough?

You want to believe that if you tried hard enough for something it will work out for you, but if it doesn’t, you don’t know if you should stop believing or stop trying.

Which is worse, having no idea where you’re going, or knowing that something isn’t right and yet going towards it? Or knowing that its a 50/50 and not sure if you want it to go well or not so well..? Hmmm..?

Going along

I thought picking up the dress would be the finality of things. But returning his things carries a whole different kind of sting.

I couldn't bear to look at it when it was hanging in my wardrobe, but now I keep peeping through the doors hoping to find the bright orange suit jacket.

Things should just be things, and not stand for so many symbolic meanings. At least I wish I could look at it that way..

I am sappy. I am emotional. When I give myself to something I give my all. When my all isn't enough, the hardest part is picking up the pieces as I go along.

And with the help of you, you and you.. I am going along.

I guess its time I came out of hiding.

And say it out loud. The marriage is not happening anymore and it’s something I will take with me for the rest of my life. Though how the relationship ended saddens me, I’m comforted knowing that love was still present between us when it ended.

Sadly, this is not the movies and love doesn’t conquer all.

I am not brave or strong, I am just a good actress. I am living that story you watch in the movies and you say this never happens in real life. And then it happens to me, and I wish it had a fairy tale ending too.

I appreciate everyone’s kind words and support, I wish I didn’t walk around like I am numb to everything going on. I wish I could wear my heart on my sleeve again.

I finally packed away the wedding things, without shedding tears, but my heart never felt so heavy before.
I don’t have to stop the car and cry alone anymore, because I’m telling myself to look at the good times we’ve had, and I try to smile at those memories.
I don’t have to stay away from home because I fear being alone.
I can read his text messages and wonder how it would be if responses had been different without getting angry.
I will not remove his pictures from my office table, because I do not have to yet.
I will not give his shirt back to him, because it still has his smell on it, and no matter what has happened between us, I want to remember that.
The ring stares at me every morning as I get dressed, and it will serve as a reminder to where the road less traveled by will eventually take me.
I don’t know where I am going or what I am going to do, I don’t know if I really know what not being Aji’s girlfriend anymore really feels like even.
I will not pick up my wedding dress until I really really can, because not being able to wear that dress ever signifies the finality of all this.

I hate when people ask me how I am doing, because I honestly don’t know how to answer that question. I can pretend to smile, to laugh, to talk a lot.. I hide behind ‘dealing with this and wanting to move on’. I don’t know how to act when you lose love.. because no matter how difficult it was, you can’t pretend to love.