plus qu’hier moins que demain

when two people split, the process is not a linear thing.

it works more like an intricate web of rubberbands where some are weaved together, some entangled, some twisted round, some tied with knots, and when one snaps, everything else happens all at the same time, but in different frequencies - thinning, loosening, stretching, unravelling. that’s how human relations are; everyone is connected, affected. everyone is linked, somehow or another.

links. links.

back then when ichitaka and i split, it was bad, not only for the both of us, but also for our many mutual friends. we did not make them choose, but still. they had to tread around cautiously, ensure both of us were not in the same place, amongst other things. it was tough returning to the association. the ghosts of us haunted me in every step of the way, and there were endless questions in every face i saw, all seeking to be answered. it made me tearful and a little resentful, why do i have to face all the questions, and not him? but on his side, his distance from the community meant a pull away from the people he had worked with, his fellow performers, his friends. and that was difficult too.

difficult. difficult.

‘distance’ is underrated. i didn’t fully understand it then, but now i do. distance and alienation. despite the things friends defend, they will be caught in between sometimes somehow, forced to step in one direction - whether consciously or not - which naturally take them away from the other, leaving the other reaching out to.. their retreating backs. alienation, it happens all the time - this time notwithstanding. it’s nobody’s fault, really, just the nature of human relations. the bonds of friendships are ever so tenuous. so fragile, so delicate.

fragile. fragile.

i know it is partly my doing. when things happened two months ago, i simply pushed everyone away, took off and hid. it was just… too painful to deal. it still is. but in the course of nursing deep wounds, the ties of friendships and friendship-in-making unravelled, and fell away, like runaway spools of thread.

a couple of them asked when i will go back in there. tried once, but didn’t write any. it felt like a foreign place, one which i never really felt ‘in’ but somehow did for a little while. perhaps it is time to let go of that community, of all the hesitant friendships-in-making which drifted away before anyone realised it. because when it comes down to the crunch, the steps wouldn’t be towards me. invisible boundaries. it has already happened - several times. not that i’m faulting anyone though, no. no choosing, no siding. i just feel bad for putting them (somehow) in difficult positions.

choices. choices.

should i let go of those friendships then, to make things easier for everyone? am i ready? i do not know. who can truly be prepared for loss, of any kind? the only thing i was prepared to lose was me, my heart, to him - in the sweetest surrender possible, which did happened. i wasn’t prepared to lose friendships, or him; i was led to believe that i wouldn’t lose anything else. just when there may have been a world for me to belong to, it shimmied from beneath my feet and dissipated.

maybe, in some distant place, everything is already lost. after all, what is this world, but transient, with people being the most fleeting of all? loss is something we collect more of when we grow older.

and of all the things we lose, what will we regret the most?

hindsight is always 20/20. when i reflect on the way some things were handled in the past, i know they could have been done in better ways. then maybe things would have turned out very differently. sometimes in our determination to get our point(s) across, extremities are taken. we get too focussed on trying to prove to the other the worst that we could be, which made us look worse than what we actually are - to let them see the point - that even we forget who we truly are.

truly. truly.

who am i but the sum of yesterday’s loss and heartbreak? i miss him in the weeping of the rain. i dream of him almost every night, and think of him every day; there is no rest. while i am aware that he may have already moved on and these only serve to hold him back, but i cannot help.. nevermind.

whenever things get unbearable, i’d ask Him about us, only to hear a voice resonating in my mind “Wait. Be patient.” what is that supposed to mean?

so for now, we see through a glass, darkly.

for, the time we had together, we have made a thousand memories, lived a thousand lives, and now there are a thousand continuations from our thousand stories, paused - all silently waiting, with the commas in place. i do not understand it, i cannot explain it, and so this entry is going to end like someone i have read before, dangling without a full-stop, because i cannot find any

s t a r m | s t July 23rd, 2007

• the core , the sentimental lover