tears

Long Distance (Family) Relationships

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Just said goodbye this evening to my parents before they fly back to HK tomorrow. They’ve been living there for almost a decade, and yet I still haven’t quite got used to saying goodbye to them. Weirdly it’s just got worse as time goes on. I struggle to not well up when saying goodbye. It’s always awkward, and looking at my dad always sets me off – he’s the one who’s also welling up. Then comes the awkward shoulder grip and pat that’s loaded with emotions as we force smiles that are a mix of happy of having spent time together but sadness to be separating again.

They brought us over here in ’96 to help enrich our lives and give us a unique opportunity that many kids in HK would never get – for that I will always be grateful. But it has caused a difficult conundrum when they moved back to HK and we stayed here. Trying to navigate familial bonds when your parents are a 12 hour flight away and 7/8 hours ahead (depending on time of year) is difficult at best, painful when you or they are going through harder times where other families may band together, we don’t have that luxury. I hate that word is even somewhat applicable.

It certainly forced me to become self-reliant in a sink or swim fashion and that is something that I identify as a fundamental part of my personality. But still I want to acknowledge the pain that come along with this process.

In a bittersweet way, the distance does make the time that we spend even more precious. But until next time, I will go back to being the island that I am.

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Mourning a Ghost

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I still miss you. I can hardly believe it myself but I do. I’ve always found it tricky to let go and move on after relationships but I’ve never stuck around for long. It’s coming up to five months and I still feel a deep sense of loss when flashbacks ambush me or when I wonder about you. It’s slowly dawning on me that maybe it will always be that way.

It’s frustrating to be in this circle. I think about you, feel the sadness, get frustrated that it’s still so dominant but allow myself to feel in the hope that I’m working through it and thus it goes round.

I’m not pining. I’m pulling hard hours at work, see friends, climb, yoga and plan trips to escape the city. I joke, laugh, rant and cry. I’m a different person to the one I was already but emotionally I am still there.

I’ve worked through it rationally as much as I need to. I know I’m fine on my own, and I understand from an overall perspective things as they were, why things happened. But nothing helps this sense of loss that hits me in the core and I can’t shake.

The worst part of it all is that the person I miss isn’t even the you that you are now. Or even the you who you were five months ago when we broke up. I miss the you from almost a year ago (doesn’t time fly quickly?). The worst part of it is knowing the person I miss doesn’t even exist right now. I am mourning a memory. I have no precedent of how this goes. All I can do is see how it goes just to keep going.

Walking Away From It All

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I’ve always had to restrain myself in relationships – they always remarked that I was too intense.

They never got me. I could explain and express myself as plainly as I could but they never really understood what I was saying.

I always felt alone in some way. Even when I was physically with them. That was us too by the end, because you pulled yourself away.

None of them, bar one, could entertain the conversations that I craved. The philosophical questions about consciousness and self-awareness.

I quickly outgrew all of them, leaving them behind because of some way that I felt they were immature.

Until I met you.

One day someone will listen to me talk about you and when I’m finally finished, they will ask “so why did you love him?” and I will answer “Because I got to see who he was and I just loved him.” Simple as that. And it will be the truth. But it wasn’t enough. I finally met someone who I didn’t have to restrain myself with, who could challenge my thinking, who I could explain myself to and understood why I meant what I said. But he was too young to see what I could see.

You hate being called a boy, because you think to use the phase “boy” or “girl” is disrespectful. (I don’t agree, I think they’re purely cultural but you were never really open to listen to me on this point). But I have to say, by the end of our relationship all you proved to me was how much of a boy you still were, how sheltered you had been, and how blind you were. If you ever find someone like me, never let her go. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone else in the same breed as me, overly rational but still in touch with just enough emotions to be able to function. Especially to hear the things you say without over-reacting. There’s only so many times I can hear “whatever I’m looking for, you’re not it” without letting myself fall apart from the feeling like whatever that was left intact was being ripped to even smaller shreds (what even was that? You tell me I’m not it but then progress in the same piece of prose to tell me that you could see that our future if we were physically together right now would be incredible?? What a load of garbled mess. You have a lot of thinking and growing up to do).

No I don’t see our relationship in that movie because the guy asks the girl back near the end – although I find it interesting that’s the part you picked up on and reacted so strongly to. I relate to and aspire to be like the heroine who finds her independence even though she deeply loved and shared a unique connection with the boyfriend who abandons her. Does that seem somewhat familiar?

I will continue to cry about us for a long time. You may have to live with your decisions (and it was more or less wholly your decision), but so do I. For me, I can take some small solace in the fact what you think and decide is outside my realm of control, but I still have to live with your decision to starve our future out of possibility. I can see there may come a day when you regret this decision. Or you may not; again this is completely out of my domain of control. I will move on from this with acceptance that I did all I could, I loved fiercely, proudly and without restraint. It was beautiful and it hurt like hell like I’ve never known – deeper than I could’ve imagine. I’m not sure I would do it again but I’m proud for the fact I did.

You were surprised by my breaking up with you the morning before I left (know that I chose to only because I could see that you had exited the relationship already and my integrity refused to let me continue). You were also hurt when I told you that even if you asked for me back, I’d say no. This highlights your immaturity, you’re not used to someone who might actually stand up for themselves. And there are plenty of people who wouldn’t, who would stay and stick it out rather than choose being alone and facing the unknown. But just as what you choose and feel isn’t within my control, nor am I in yours. You may think I’m predictable but you underestimate me. You tell me that I’m so much more emotionally advanced or that I’m incredible in communication or whatever, but you don’t actually believe it. I see it in your actions. You try and paint yourself as this anti to the male ego, that you’re so much better than that. But at the end of the day, what you did was no better than any of my exes. You have a high opinion of yourself for someone who lacks the self-awareness they claim that they have. This point, I really hope that you read one day and really reflect on. You are just as self-serving as any of them, which is ironic given how your aim in life is so community focused. On a wandering tangent, I wonder how selfless it can be counted if you orientate your life around giving back to the community if it’s to make you feel fulfilled. Get off your high chair, maybe then you can learn real self-awareness.

I am going to stop talking about you after this. Hopefully at some point in the near future I will stop thinking about you too. I took a chance and I gave it all I could. And it’s likely that I will never love anyone like I did you, but I don’t think loves like that are meant to happen multiple times in a lifetime and I’m making peace with that. If you had any sense, you’d fight, but you don’t and nor will you if you ever realise the gravity of this in future. Men in general are so scared of hurting themselves and their egos – no matter how hard you want to believe you are exempt from that, you are not.

Self Reflection

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The future is so uncertain and at times frightening, I don’t know what I want to do, I don’t know who I’ll “end up with”, I don’t know where I want to settle down and be. These thoughts would’ve been overwhelming and so heavy in weight a year ago, but days of recent times it’s not had the same influence.

To the person who I was this time last year, I know you’re in immense pain. The last couple of months and the months following will be the hardest and most heart-crushing pain you will have ever gone through. You will learn some truths that goes against some fundamental principles you held dear, but you will grow from it. Don’t try and hold tightly on who you were because that Louisa is dead and gone, all you can do is look forward. The new you is not worse or better but just is. You will be pushed to the furthest edge of the mortal cliff, you will come back having gained a better idea of where the drop-off is and make peace with it. All of this will be a trial by fire which will give you a new skin of cold, hard steel when you finally emerge – a process that is slow and not a quick transformation by any means. Well done on being you Louisa, I’m proud that you are still here and have made the last year what you have. Shit happens all the time. People will do awful things intentional or unknowingly, but do them they will nonetheless and that’s not within your control. You are the master of only your own actions.

One thing that I did learn about myself in the last year was the existence of my anxiety which has always accompanied me and been an obstacle in many situations. Living in London did not help things, being in such a high pressure city where there’s little love for strangers on the street, where there is little time to get from A to B it feeds anxiety and sometimes it would make me feel and act small. The new skin of cold steel has been priceless in gaining clarity on when this affects me and helps me challenge why it is I should feel small (to which the answer is always “no real reason”). It’s a big but subtle change. The best way of explaining this is to liken it to how Evie changes in V for Vendetta after V tortures to “free” her from her fears. I suppose when you’ve stared into the eyes of something so dark, nothing feels as bad anymore.

My lowest point last year was being unable to answer what my motivation was in life, what I wanted to do, what direction I was to have. When I rationally thought it through, I rationally saw that there was no point to my life. My life (as with all other lives, it is not special) is an accumulation of moments, relationships and knowledge learnt. But without feeling a reason (and I still don’t, this is not something I think I can change), nothing I do matters. It got to the point where I saw logic in ending my life – although I have to stress that I was not suicidal. There is a distinction, albeit nuanced, between feeling like you need to end your life and seeing the logic in ending life. Being the latter, it also allows me to carry on to see what the alternative is, because what else am I going to do otherwise? As dark and possibly twisted this post is, I wanted to be brutally honest about how I felt, what I continue to feel. I am still alive and actually doing really well. I have a new job and a new house lined up, I’m about to go visit my boyfriend in the US. I don’t need help, and I’m currently not seeking help. I feel perfectly in control and at peace with who I am at this moment in time and what happened. The purpose of writing this was to point out that no one needs to be happy 100% of the time. That’s not human. Dark thoughts happens in all of us, but they need to be conversed with. Why are you feeling the way you feel? Don’t try and shirk from it – the most unhealthy thing here is denial.

The event that threw me into the existential blender of the past year was atrocious. It is heinous, despicable and should never have to happen to anyone. But having spoken to people who have had similar if not worst tales to tell, and having had time to process, I’m glad it happened. I am who I am today because of it and what I did after. How much I learnt is something that I’m fiercely proud of which no one can take away from me.