I was writing on Medium for a while, but now the internet has been shut down. Only here remains for me as a space for English self-expression.
Have you felt like your stomach is filled with blood, and something is spinning and whirling in your stomach in a way that you want to vomit life out of yourself? This is how I feel right now.
I’ve seen people fighting about the simplest things in front of my eyes. But when I see myself against myself, I retreat. I cannot be the one who wounds me deep, about I am.
I feel my mind is against me. I make things hard for me. I don’t believe I am sad. But no matter whether I do believe in anything or not, I am destroyed already. Something in me isn’t the same anymore. I want to be dead really. But I don’t know how. It sickens me to take care of myself. I feel warmly bitter about anything related to life sometimes. I don’t know what to do with myself. University makes me crazy. I should have taken a rest. This semester seems like the one that actually can kill me.
There is this sentence from the novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower that says:
“We accept the love we think we deserve.”
Is life like a sick place to be? Or it can be a place where you blossom. But you need to find the people who can help you to get out of your mind, when you don’t see yourself enough to be friends with others. Or when you don’t see yourself enough to be a part of other people’s lives. It hurts when you unconsciously worry about people leaving you. You feel unsafe, and you feel the world is a sick place to trust anyone. How can someone change that? It isn’t easy to get rid of a feeling of incompleteness. Something you lacked in your childhood.
We all deserve goodness, but when we don’t see ourselves as good enough, no one can help us to achieve it.
Bob Marley wrote once:
“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul, and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved, and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather, they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.”
And it’s true. And it’s dark. Because you make yourself so vulnerable that someone can get inside you and mess you up. And when there is no sign of that person, there is a part of you dead.
This is how Neil Gaiman describes it:
“Have you ever been in love? Horrible, isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.”
And there is this truth that makes my heart stop for a moment or two:
Life depends on a single heartbeat. Why do you waste it? It flashes like a wink. It’s gone before you think of it. So you’d better be with the people who make you happy rather than sad.
This is how Bob Marley continues:
“You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She’s not perfect — you aren’t either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break — her heart. So don’t hurt her, don’t change her, don’t analyze and don’t expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she’s not there.”
Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night’s Dream explains the reason for considering Cupid as the symbol of love. I put it in simpler words:
Love is like a child who takes action based on its emotions and imagination. It’s blind to reality, and it acts based on no logic or sense. (Wings) That’s why Cupid is a blind child with wings in Greek mythology.
And when love dies, its death isn’t a natural death.
This is how Anais Nin describes it:
“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.”
And Everytime I get to this point, I get this feeling that “books, maybe, are my soulmates forever”.
Read this line with me. It’s from Alfred Tennyson:
“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you…I could walk through my garden forever.”
And, unfortunately, to love is to be vulnerable. It’s its nature. In The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis writes:
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
And this is my last thought. Wish there was a time channel or tunnel that we could get back at some moments, and don’t make the mistakes that we made. If there were such a channel, I would have always been in line for getting another second chance of redemption, to avoid my damnation from the beauties that I made myself blind to once.
