It's been three years since Vern died.
I actually don't know what to say right now. This isn't exactly a loss of words; it's like an inability to decide which train of thought should I take. Should I talk about this or that—can I talk about everything?
Some things are still exactly the same. And of course, with the passing of three whole years, even more things have completely evolved into greater or lesser versions of their prior forms.
For example, I've become a better person.
I'm lying, I'm still a terrible person, but I have been improving a little. In terms of gaining confidence and eradicating my social awkwardness, I've made leaps that I feel quite certain even Vern would be proud of. He had always been scolding me for being too quiet when I shouldn't be, for not saying things that I ought to. Sometimes he'd be quite understanding of my old fear of speaking, sometimes he'd be driven mad by it.
I'm really unable to write anything substantial right now. My brain is numb due to overuse, due to the streams of conflicting and concurrent thoughts swimming around in spirals.
I will instead post extracts of a few things I wrote in the past but never got around to posting here or sharing with anybody. I wrote this things for myself, and avoided sharing them for many reasons, but now they gain a public presence. Sometimes the best way of being miserable to is keep it all to yourself, sometimes the best way is to shout it out into the world. I will do the latter for today. I don't think I will get another chance to be publicly miserable, not for a while.
Some of the below snippets are embarrassing (and you know, these are actually the better segments of the original texts that I cut them out of, imagine that), and I might delete this post one day. But because these were written privately and honestly, while I was trapped in some emotional states, I want to preserve the below notes. It's a bit like finding an old diary you used to write in when you were a child, and all your entries were stupid, stupid things that seemed so important at the time. And despite how inane and embarrassing it is to read it, you still want to keep that diary just because it was an honest part of your past. What I will post below are my thoughts, both old and recent. They tend to talk about the same things again and again, but that's just how my thoughts cycle and repeat themselves. Dates of when they were written are included, if possible.
♦
He'd piss me off terribly; he'd make me cry and weep because of an injured ego; he'd make me smile and giggle in sheer bliss. I was desperate for those sorts of feelings. I don't think anyone else could affect me as much as he did. He breathed life into my passionless worldview, ignited sparks and blizzards of iridescent flashes to wake me up. It was magnificent, he made me feel alive and like a breathing, angry, happy, sad, everything person. I was desperate for that. Being alive is wonderful, and he could unlock that life trapped within me. With him, there was always the flashing trepidation, the knowledge that my mood could be and would be rapidly affected by whatever he did and whatever he said.
This wasn't healthy. But it was beautiful on its own. Feeling alive is beautiful. Maybe if it had went on for the long-term, it would have worn me down and turned me into an empty husk, drained. But for those brief moments, those brief years, it was wonderfully maddening. He could do anything to me, he could manipulate me into his puppet with his will, because my desperation for life and passion and emotions overrode my common sense, at least when it came to him.
He wasn't that bad for me. In some ways he was. In some ways he was wonderful. I think he really gave me the motivation and the push to change some of my ways, to hide away my deadened soul and present a smile and a friendly aura to others. Isn't that a good change? He did that to me. At least, he made me do it to myself. He knew how to hurt me, but more importantly, he knew how to love me and make me happy. I think he used the latter more than the former.
♦
date unknown
I'm not mature now, and probably won't be anytime soon, but at fifteen years old, I was a downright insecure idiot. And when you're an insecure idiot, learning that someone who mattered so much to you had died was The End of the World. I was wailing on my bed, thinking that with his life, my own had ended. Learning of his death had me expecting the world to stop, the seven horsemen of the apocalypse to glide into town, shaking their scythes at me and saying, "Hi there, hope you're prepared." And I was ready to run around, getting ready for the end of all things, storing all my Lord of the Rings merchandise in a safe area (because I clearly have my priorities straight), stockpiling food, finding a bomb shelter to rent for myself.
But the world didn't end, much to my surprise. Things went on. I went to school. I had my orthodontist appointments. Piano lessons. Chores and homework and assignments and exams. And all along the way, I was expecting Time to stop for me and say, "Hey, you look like you need a break, so I'm just going to take a nap and let you have a breather." But Time's kind of an asshole, so that never happened.
I struggled really hard to keep moving. I remember that, just a few days after I found out about his death, I had a piano lesson. I went in, and the first thing my lovely piano teacher asked me was a very normal "How are you?".
How can one question that I receive every week, practically every day, suddenly take on such a loaded meaning? How am I? I'm horrible! I'm on the verge of tears constantly! I'm surprised I'm not crying right now! How can you expect me to practice scales, learn new songs, learn all this stupid musical terminology when I'm ready to wail and writhe and steadily deplete the world's supply of tissue paper?
But I just said 'fine', albeit a little awkwardly, and went on with my piano instruction. What else could I do? The world wasn't going to stop for me, despite how much I wanted it to.
A few hours after my piano lesson, I had my orthodontist appointment. Same thing again. "How are you?" Horrible! Life sucks! What is the meaning of life? How can anyone be happy when this tragedy has occurred? Ridiculous!
I actually remember pausing then. Earlier at the piano lesson, a rapid "I'm fine" had came out, just an automated response built up by years of training, but sitting in that surprisingly comfortable chair in the orthodontist office, I had paused when he asked me that question. Some part of me wanted to just tell him everything that had happened.
Man, that would have been weird.
I just sucked it up and nodded, "I'm alright," and he went on with the usual routine.
This pattern continued for the next few weeks. Heck, I'd say it went on for months. People would ask me how I was, and I'd be ready to burst out into tears, pouring out my story of what I've been through the past few months. But that would've been idiotic, and I did have some fragment of self-restraint, so I'd just shut up and let out a nice, polite answer. That's all people wanted to hear, and fine by me.
---
I still remember thinking that Sophira had been joking when she made that call, telling me that Vern had died in the night. I reacted in complete seriousness, and my brain also registered it was completely non-jocular, but some part of me was still going, "Okay, she's gonna burst out laughing now, and say that she's kidding. I'm gonna hate her for this for a few weeks, but we'll be fine after that." That moment never came. I kept waiting for it. For weeks, for months. It was some blind hope I was running on, that all this was an elaborate lie set up to make me look stupid. I would've preferred that. Even when I went back to Malaysia, I still kept my hopeful vision of Vern suddenly popping up and saying something stupid about how, har har, I was so silly, of course he's not dead, it was all a prank!
Because that's how preposterous the entire thing was to me. No way was he dead. No way did he die in a road accident like that, no way was he gone forever, no way was I never going to see or talk to him ever again. No way. It didn't make sense, not a smidgen, it was completely absurd. So absurd that it can only be a lie.
I think the truth only completely sunk in when I entered the columbarium with my friends. It had already pierced through the surface of my reluctance, but the realization had yet to completely submerge into my conscience. It was only on that ridiculously hot day, with mosquitoes buzzing around, surrounded by endless rows of plaques bearing faces of the dead, did I finally accept the truth. Or rather, the truth shoved its way into my head, kicking and smashing open the doors, leaving only broken fragments of hope in its path. I burst into tears at that moment. I hadn't even seen his plaque yet, we were still near the entrance of the memorial center, but surrounded by all those tributes to the once alive, it was without a doubt a place of the dead. And if Vern was here, that meant that he was dead. No two ways about it. I had managed to befuddle my logic the previous months through a myriad of ways, till my common sense had swiss-cheese holes in them, but once you're surrounded by death, the bits of neurons in your cranium start patching up and logic starts flying around again. And the logical conclusion, unmarred by hope or self-deception, was that Vern was dead.
So I started crying there, next to a wall of plaques, looking at the photo of a dead person who I didn't even know, but knowing he was dead was enough for me. It was sad enough for me, and it was proof enough for me. Vern was dead.
I bawled like a baby that day, only comforted by the presence of my friends, and the blessed foresight of Yvonne to bring a bunch of tissue papers for me to use.
---
I think the only thing that kept me going in the past two years was the goal of making Vern proud. Kind of a stupid, cheesy goal, but damn did I cling to it. It became important to me.
But that goal sort of violates a few of the fundamental principles of goals. Namely, measurability and achievability.
It's kinda hard to please someone who, you know, is dead. You don't know what he wants, you don't know if you're on the right track. But it kept me going. If I had told myself "Alright, I'm going to do this for myself" in those first few months, I would've crashed and burned. Telling myself "Yeesh, you gonna sit on your ass all day and cry? Wow, Vern's sure to love that. Idiot." was the kick in the ass I needed then.
So I did a lot of not-very-logical-but-shut-up things to motivate me. I constructed a lot of conversations between us, along with a lot of praise and motivation from him to me. It's not really a bad way to motivate yourself, actually. Intense guilt and grief can be quite the energy source when you're down. Not recommended, really, but I managed to do a lot of things then that I'm surprised at.
Of course, it's all completely imaginary. Maybe he would've praised me for this or that, but maybe not. But in my mind, I could turn that uncertainty into a 100% chance, so I did. When I was down, I'd make up a dialogue that essentially boiled down to him giving me a pep talk to psych my spirits up. When I failed miserably at something, my transposed image of him would just shrug and go, "Meh. Just try again," and that was good enough for me.
It wasn't a normal way of functioning, and maybe not entirely sane, but it wasn't bad. Just a little creepy.
I still motivate myself in this manner for a few things. It still works, albeit not as strongly as before. But this trick really instills perseverance, which is quite a boon.
---
I don't think I've closed this 'chapter' in my life, if I can cheesily call it that. There's still a lot for me to think and ramble about, sometimes in quiet contemplation, sometimes with tearful cursing. There's still a lot of things I haven't let go of, some things still left unresolved. But maybe these things are just meant to be left as is, open and threads splayed, ready for further unraveling and tangling. Maybe this isn't so much as a defined chapter with a beginning and an end as a...theme? A motif? And underlying thematic motivation? I don't know. I'm pretty sure I just made up that last phrase, too.
Life is kind of annoying with how unorganized it is.
---
But in the end, that's just the sort of person I am. I'm quiet, not very sane, a little creepy, I think too much, and a large proportion of that thinking time is spent on over-thinking.
I can't say that I don't regret anything from the past two years (because I regret many, many things) or that I wouldn't change anything (dear God, I would change everything), but that sort of thinking just leads to a dead end, doesn't it? There's not much else for me to do. I could sit on my hands and just tuck away every thought, or I could just try to think a little bit about every memory I have. Willful stasis is easy, transformative enlightenment is arduous to the point of impossibility, but the latter sounds a lot nicer than the former. So what I'm really doing now is sitting in front of a massive jigsaw puzzle, still mostly undone, looking for the right pieces to press together. Maybe after a bit more thinking, I'll come away a fuller picture, not an undone scrambled lot of pieces.
♦
28 May 2012
I was completely irrational for him. And that is an amazing feeling, being so enamoured with a single person that you feel ready to shed every semblance of sanity just for brief moments of satisfaction and happiness. Those are majestic minutes where you feel that every bit of life's difficulties and complexities can be overcome with sheer strength of emotion and willpower and love and determination. You feel powerful just by the unvirtue of being irrational.
♦
date unknown
I just wanted him. I needed him for many reasons, but mostly just because I wanted him. I've wanted him since we were young, since we first talked, since we first gossiped, since we first made fun of each other (more of him making fun of me, of course), since the first time he told me he liked me, since the time he gave me a bottle of Pepsi Twist for my birthday, since he first called me fat, since I first successfully made him call me slender instead, since the first time I told him I loved him even before I had a definition of it (I didn't know what it was. But I knew I had it for him.), since every time he made my heart skip and stop and sputter in frantic, bewildered love. However childish and naive this love of mine for him was and is, it is a brand of love that is wholly Vern, one crafted by and for him. This is one that still burns alongside the vestiges of my childhood dreams, and if in time it withers and turns into ash, it will lie buried alongside its fellow dream compatriots.
I needed him. And for two weeks, I got him.
Not enough, not nearly enough.
♦
4 January 2011
It was a year of magical thinking.
And to be honest, the magical thinking, the flights of fancy and earnest wishes, have not stopped. I still sit here, thinking that if I beg God hard enough, he will spare Vern for a day, let him down and let me see him.
[…]
But I am sad. I am sad because I know, I do know, that it is not possible. I am a creature of logic. And that little logic of mine grows every day, and it tells me, louder and louder every day, that it is not possible. I am getting further and further away from the year of magical thinking.
I lied to myself a lot that year. But that is not so bad, I think. There are worst things a person can do to himself, and I think telling myself boldfaced lies helped me cope in some way.
Inside me, logic and wishes were engaged in a ferocious battle, but sometimes one bent and bowed to the other, often the former to the latter.
Fantastical lies.
♦
17 September 2010
It is the realization that I cannot do anything that stings me.
[...]
I only need a chance. A chance to cheat Death, reach behind him as he's not looking, and pull Vern from beyond his grasp. But I cannot. And this is the fatal strike of the knife, twisting its blade into my already wounded hope. No matter what I do, who I am or who I become, this is something I cannot change. It will always remain far beyond my power to reverse. I will never be able to bargain with, cheat or trick, or bribe Death.
I do not have the option to do so.
I would very much like the option. I like options. They give me hope, in times when I have none.
And I have none now, of either.
♦
date unknown
Even now, it is hard to know when to use past tense and present tense.
♦
29 December 2011
I still have so much to say about him, but now I'm afraid that it's too late to say them because I should be completely over him by now. I need to get this out, to put into words the webbed concepts inside my brain.
I had so much invested in him. So many dreams and hopes still pinned to his image, like words of promises scrawled on a photograph. He was going to be my first boyfriend, my first date, my first kiss; he was going to be to one to take me to this restaurant, to that theme park, along this street, into that mall; we were going to argue about stupid things, laugh about stupid things, talk about stupid things, and promise stupid things. We were going to be all cute and smooshy with each other, we were going to act sickly sweet only around each other and to each other. He was going to call me stupid names, and I'd love it, and I was going to ramble about random topics, and he'd stare at me blankly (but secretly love it). And while we were doing all these silly things, we were going to (somehow) grow and mature and become wise, together. He was going to be the centerpiece of all monumental and inconsequential events in my life.
I think I should've by now discarded all of these dreams, should have burned them all up and scattered the ashes into the wind. But I'm still clutching tightly onto them.
I don't believe that they can come true and be fulfilled, of course. Not anymore, not since a while. I did though, even a few months after his death. I would console myself with insane, soothing thoughts that these dreams could still come true, because Hope and Love can conquer even Death.
I was a jackass. But I was a grieving jackass.
[...]
And when he died, I was faced with the reality that I had failed the bulk of my plans, and the rest were now beyond the realm of possibility.
I think that broke me somehow.
♦
9 May 2012
And this is my biggest fear: that I'm forgetting him. Not him entirely, of course not. I don't think there'll ever be a time where someone says "Vern" and I wonder "who?" or when someone asks "your first love?" and my mind doesn't immediately snap to him. But the details that made out the fringes of his being, that's what I'm forgetting. That's what I'm losing.
He's gone, and all I have left of him are shoddy memories, however fond and well-revisited they may be. He's gone and in his absence, I can only mentally revisit him. And every time I do so, I squish his character and life into a box for my convenience. I flatten him into a 2d character. He's losing his shape and his realness in my mind.
But this is an unavoidable fact of life. As I trudge forward into my life, bits of memory spill out of my pockets, leaving a trail of crumbs in my wake that I can't reclaim unless I constantly backtrack to pick up the missing details of my memories. And that's not possible or practical.
♦
29 May 2012
It used to be that I could say that he had been an active part of more than half of my life. Now, it's a little less than half. With the power of vague rounding however, I can always just say half.
But this amount will continue to shrink as time goes on. Soon he'll have only been part of a quarter of my life, than an eighth, than a miniscule fraction. The quantity of his presence in my life will diminish, unavoidably.
It shouldn't be this way. He should've been with me, in some role (any role), throughout more of my life, not until I was only fifteen years old.
I had him, officially, to myself for two weeks. I've been grieving for three years. This ratio of happiness to grief is only going to grow more imbalanced and ridiculous, moreso than it already is.
It is somehow inexplicably painful understanding that he will have no greater presence in my life beyond existing happily in my memories.
♦
17 October 2011 More than many things (than anything!), I miss you.
♦♦♦
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