Life has offered me too much questions. As I grew up, I grope for answers that I hoped would satisfy every bit of my curiosity, answers that I thought would fill in the holes of my own misery, answers that I assumed could ease whatever it was I felt. Too much heartaches, too much despair, life had given me things that were too much for me to handle.
We all had our fair share of bitterness and all of us had our own ways of dealing with awful experiences. But it did not stop once we dealt with it. Pain lurked into the bottom of our soul as it caused heart decay. On how to repair the damage, most people did not know. So much as we tried to avoid it, at the end of the day, we went to bed carrying a heavy heart thinking of life’s past and how the hell it hurt us. How the hell it struck us, caught us empty handed, left us injured and paralyzed in the middle of battlefield, and we did not have any idea what to do but terribly swallow everything hard. As much as we tried to ignore the questions in our mind, as much as it haunted us down until we blurt it out of our mouth.
When I was younger, my parents persistently reminded me of something. That if someone would approach me and ask for my personal belongings, I should immediately let my things go. Let it go before I get hurt. To surrender something that I wanted to keep, was that what it meant? I wondered what if it happened to me. What if someone would try to get me the things I love or the things I truly treasure, would I just hand it over to someone who does not deserve it, or would I hold on to it tight? Would I let it be taken away, or would I fight for it and keep it safe? I wish I knew the right thing to do.
But the idea of letting it go to avoid getting hurt, was it really worth it? More and more people tried to protect themselves from terrible heartaches by letting go. Nevertheless, I could not just imagine myself giving away something that truly matters to me so easily, for just the thought of letting go hurt me so much.
When my mother decided to left me, I had no idea what to do. Confusion, rage, sadness, I could not remember how it felt. One thing I could recall, I did not beg for her to stay. As she was released from my family, I was imprisoned of despair. I let her go, but I was dying of such hard pain. I had to admit. Life became agonizing.
There were times that as I walked down the streets where we used to pass by, I would see her face to some people and thought that it was my mom, but after a second glance, I would realize that I was painfully wrong. My heart was broken. How hurting it was for me, to miss my mother desperately that I tended to see her to somebody else’s face.
I could not explain how hard it was to long for someone, that I tried to project her in the identity of others that I get disappointed because of the fact that no one could replace her. That I tried to avoid the places we used to go, the food we used to eat together for how I missed her company, how I missed her presence, how I missed the entire her. That I had to accept the fact that I could no longer depend, that I could no longer rely on the things she used to do for me, that I had to do stuffs all by myself, without her hand and sympathy. That I had to feel the pain every time I wanted to talk to no one but her, that I knew no one could make me feel better the way she could, that no one could comfort me for who I really wanted was her.
I was too busy convincing myself that everything would go back the way it used to be. However, as I tried to dip into my illusory of optimism, the more I found myself rooted in such agony. Pathetic, what I called myself.
Everyday, I tried to put a little hope on it that someday, just maybe, she would realize how much she missed us and came back full of tears and she would wrap her arms around us and tell us that she had made a mistake. A happy ending was what I hoped for, and everyday, I slept in dismay.
Was I making a big deal out of it? I lost my mother, she left me. And of all people, it WAS my mother. I grew up clinging into the invisible rope that both of us were holding, a rope of security, and a rope of love. But she failed me by tearing it apart. She made a choice, and I felt empty, undeserving to be fought for, unworthy of a sacrifice. My mind was filled with question, and everyday, I wondered, what had really happened? I could not find the answers that I wanted, and every time I tried to search for it, I end up losing and losing. She disappointed me a lot that craters started to form inside me, filled with both loneliness and anger.
Brick by brick I started building walls of courage to protect myself from whatever the future might bring ahead of me. I started accepting the fact that people always leave, and that I had to attach myself to nobody. And yes, to detach from my own mother whom I shared all my life was definitely hard, for me, it was like letting it all go. It was like cutting the umbilical cord that connected us many years back. I had to stand on my own as I had to do the breathing alone.
As time went by, I had to learn how to armor myself with valor that every time I was asked about my mother, I had to put a proud face that everything was doing great, that she just simply went abroad to work for my family and to take care of some financial problems. Such courage, that I could make up that everything was fine, everything was normal. Fooling people, and fooling ourselves. I ran meaninglessly from the reality, convincing myself and the people around me that nothing has changed, that my family was doing well.
I pretended, for I knew my family was broken but I did not know how to fix it. I grew up in a society where people take pride in pointing the mistakes. Everyone was fond of criticizing the wrong things but had little wisdom of what was really right. Things that were different from the standards of the society were labeled corrupt. And my family would certainly not miss the eyes of people hungry of mocking. I wonder if things were not the same as the usual, should it be considered wrong? Most people would not stop to think about who they were hurting. Insensitive, people became insensitive.
When I was very little, my parents gave me an activity book where I found a page of spotting the differences. At such an immature stage, I was taught how to take notice and discriminate the discrepancy. Is that what life supposed to be, to observe the difference and single it out with the rest? How pathetic if that is what it should be.
Time passed but the wounds never heal. From time to time, I tended to ponder about the life we used to have. I could not let go of my memories, they were the only thing I could grasp when everything seemed to fall apart. However, that was all they were – memories. I could not snatch my mother from it and live the life the way I wanted it to be. And yes, I truly say that just the idea of letting go hurt me so much. And the idea of letting my mother go, I could not explain how it hit my heart so hard, that I almost died.
Nevertheless, though I tried to keep tight of her memories, to hold on to the hope of her, I should keep reminding myself I had let her go in the first place. No warm hands to clasp, no nagging to be irritated at, no favorite dishes to plunge myself in, no mother to think about. I had let it all go long ago and it pierced the entire me. The freshness of everything seemed to last for an eternity.
I kept on wondering, if I should have tried hard to let her stay. Maybe my love was not enough; maybe she was groping for something, for her own fulfillment, which I could never give. Maybe I was not able to satisfy her emotional needs, I could not give her enough happiness to make it hard for her to go away. Or maybe I was trying too hard.
As I would never be sure what to do when things seemed to go the way I did not want them to be, I knew I should have known how to forgive, to forgive myself and the people around me. The process of forgiving, it might take time, as too long with the healing, but I am trusting on it. To hold on or to let go, the world does not stop from spinning to help us pick our shattered dreams, and spin again when are finished picking them up, our life continues to go on whatever it takes. And little by little, I should have known how to live, love, and believe once again for a life without pain is crap. God is in charge of my everything.
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