Life in Gestalt

Breathe

VITA BREVIS

When life has stopped at a really low point, there's nothing one can do except to keep breathing. In the words of a famous castaway, "tomorrow you don't know what the tide will bring."

The past two weeks have been nothing short of hell. And here I thought nothing could hurt worse than breaking up with someone you love.

Apparently there are worse things. And they're the sort that tear out your gut, and you wouldn't even know until you try to rage but find that you've lost your will to even try.

Two weeks ago, my physical weakness, sheer inability, and filial duty all conspired to evoke a decision from higher authorities I had no choice but to obey. The decision called for giving up a long-held dream because of my collective 'failures'. I didn't just lose that dream. I lost friends for life. People I loved and still love. And there's no way of getting any of it back.

For two weeks I've walked, talked, gone about my work, with sawdust in my head, a perpetual bitterness in my mouth, sharp pains in my heart that never seem to abate with time. My nightmares haven't stopped....over and over I dream of the same thing. Things I could've done, should've done, wished I had done. To this day memories of all the past few months keep playing in my head. It's worse than a break-up. I don't have the solace of thinking that I'll heal, and maybe have a chance to have that incomparable feeling again someday. This time, I know there's no going back.

I don't have the luxury of an open mourning. I have to do my work, day in and day out, and try to find some way to block out that incalculable sense of loss I feel. I can't share the feeling with the people I would've ordinarily had the right to share it with. I cannot shed tears and hope that someone will reach out and say things will be alright in the morning.

A large part of me hopes against hope that any of them will reach out. A large part of me prays fervently that any of them would care enough to want 'closure'. Every fiber of my being wishes oh so desperately that they'd meet me halfway, that someone would extend a hand, and let me mourn with them. I was one of them once. I may not be so on paper anymore, but I still feel one of them still. Unfortunately, no one else shares this feeling. I feel like a hollow vacuum with a caustic tang that will never wear off.

And so here I am. Trying to teach myself never to expect, never to think that I have a right to expect anything. In the nights when I'm alone and I don't have the comfort of pretending to be alright before the rest of the world, I tell myself that I have to keep breathing. To just go on. To forget that I love them. To remember that I don't have the right to care.

If only I really was as emotionless as they thought. Maybe then sleep wouldn't be as painful and traumatic an exercise that it has now become.

Just breathe...

Posted by Angel Fidelis at March 7, 2003 11:46 PM