Thrice.
It slapped me hard that day. I'm aware that i dont share personal details. In fact, i constantly avoid revealing too much about myself. But that day was different. It was different because i took a step back and realised i have no confidante. I have friends, yes. But i have no one whom i would like to willingly share my problems with.
It was a few weeks before my birthday. I remember people coming up to me asking if i need any help. I said no, i will handle everything. You just need to come and help me set up. And that's me. I have always been independent. I have always done things myself. I have always hated to ask people for help. Fast forward to a week later and i realised some of the most important people whom i thought would be attending, will not. I had planned something special for my birthday and i had counted on them to be there as my moral support. They did not know that. I did not tell them of my nervousness and that i needed them. Instead, i told them its ok and i cried myself to sleep that night. I cried not because i was upset at them not being able to attend. I cried because i realised i dont have anyone that i can fall back on. It was no one's fault but mine - i never allowed anyone to come close to me.
The next day, i woke up feeling fine. I thought to myself how silly i was. I knew i was going to carry on what i had set out to do - with or without people supporting me. I knew that even if man fails me, my trust and strength comes from God. But i also knew that there was something wrong with me. I was conscious of this all along but i never cared much for it. This time round, it is different. I know God wants to mould me in this area.
I have always found it difficult to love. Or more accurately, i find it difficult to love in a selfless way. When i was younger, i was pretty obnoxious. I wanted everything to go my way. I simply insisted that the world revolved around me. It was a miracle i had any friends left by the time i finished my primary education. And i am so grateful to those people who stayed by me despite me being a brat. I grew out of my (outwardly manifested) selfish ways. I remember my leader chose me to do a cardboard testimony for Easter service one year. I wrote that I changed from a selfish brat to a loving friend. And i thought that was quite an improvement. But the lesson did not stop there.
I started to learn that loving people meant being there for them. I used to hate it when my mom or grandma ask me questions because it would take away my precious time of doing my own stuff. I'd get mad and lose my temper at them. But there was one sermon about honouring parents and it talked about the act of Jesus washing his disciples' feet the moment he knew all power was under him. It touched me a lot because i learnt that a person is given power so that he can serve the underprivileged more. It sounds pretty lame coming from me but it was a sermon that impacted my life. And so, i began to hold my tongue whenever my mom asked me to give her the same tutorial a millionth time. I try to be patient. I try to be there for people when they needed me.
Soon after that, i was thrown into the toughest lesson i've ever had so far. I had to learn that loving people meant placing them above myself. I am a person who values my alone time and there was a period of time where it seems as though everyone was fighting for a piece of me. Every other day i had different groups of friends asking me out and i was running in circles without a break to catch my breath. I couldnt even recharge myself. Around the same time, i was struggling with the concept of "love". I consider myself a low-maintenance girl. I dont need people to contact me regularly to make me feel loved; i dont need people to buy me gifts; i dont need people to spend much time with me. Yet, i was in a position where the person i love felt unloved because i couldnt fulfil his/her expectations. "Friend" eventually reduced to a label with expectations to be met. I remember thinking to myself that if i ever have a boyfriend i would never, ever demand him to do all those things for me because that was how i felt - like a boyfriend trying so hard not to disappoint his girlfriend.
I was stretched and tired. What does it mean to love? Why is it so hard for me to love (not that i dont love but for the other person to recognise that i am loving them)? When did love become conditional? Why is this love choking me? But eventually, i learned. I was struggling the entire time because i was unable to place anyone above myself. I came first. My needs came first. I learnt that loving someone is placing others above myself. If a person feels loved by eating chocolate, i should bloody buy that piece of chocolate even if it means i have to forgo that lipstick i've been eyeing; if a person feels loved by spending time with them, i better give up my time for watching shows. Love is not conditional. Love is sacrificial. To some, it may be natural to always think of others first. But it was never the case for me. I went through nights filled with tears because i was under so much misery (simply because i didnt have enough time for myself) and i remember shouting vulgarities in my head and imagining myself smashing a guitar (because it is easier to smash a guitar than a piano). Everything that my friends demanded from me, were things that i would not ask from them. I could not understand why was there so many expectations and requests required of me. Though i've grown in that area, i sometimes still struggle in placing others' needs above myself.
And I thought that was it. I went through months of frustration, hopelessness and bitterness. What more could be installed for me? Big mistake. I have one final lesson left. I assume it is the final lesson because it is the deepest root in me that i am aware of. I have yet to finish this lesson and i'm dreading it. I've known of this problem for quite sometime, as mentioned earlier, but i have always just ignored it. My issue is this: i may behaved selfishly or may have acted in self-seeking ways but the epitome of my selfishness manifest in the sense that i have never, ever given anyone the ability to hurt me.
CS Lewis once said, "To love is to be vulnerable". And isn't that the essence of love? When you love someone, you give them your trust; you give them your heart. And when you give someone your heart, you are essentially giving them the power to hurt you. I have always been an independent person. To me, there is no use in dwelling in a problem. If i have a problem, i will resolve it. The no. 1 reason why girls complain that their boyfriends dont listen to them is because they dont want answers. They just want someone to hear them out. But i am not like that. If i decide to tell people about my problems, i tell it because i want advice; i want solutions. Hardly will i tell people i feel sad just because i feel sad. If i feel sad, i will process the feelings myself and i somehow will revert back to normal after a night rest. In that sense, i never needed anyone to help me with my emotional well-being.
And it is not just that i dont see a need to hand my heart over to people. Even when i recognise that i should, i dont. Sometimes i feel like i am cheating people's feelings. For some reason i know not, i have this natural ability to draw people to myself. Especially girls. Honestly, i am not someone who would go all the way out to make friends. Despite my 'outgoing personality' (actually i am only extrovert when the situation demands me to), i am someone who just likes to be alone. I dont even like messaging people - I even have to write notes in my phone to remind myself to message people so that they know i am (was) thinking of them. But because of this ability (???), i become quick friends with most people. And we have fun and we enjoy each other's company and sooner or later, they start opening up to me and baring their hearts out. But i could never offer the same to them. And we would be stuck in this heartbreaking, conflicting situation because i cannot meet their expectations. You see what i mean? Like a mermaid, i lure people in only for them to find out what they perceived as reality was only an illusion. And that's how i am a swindler. I know of this fact yet i refuse to do anything about it.
I love people, i love my friends. I do, i do. But it is a selfish love. They give me the keys to their hearts but my love peaks and ends at the moment when i am obliged to hand mine over. And that's it. The end. Zero, zilch, nada. Even as i recognise this, it is still hard for me to want to change. I look at couples and wonder how they even manage to love one another - to give their hearts to each other for safe keeping. Is it because they spend a lot of time together? Is it because they open up and talk about their deepest fears and secrets? That they talk about things they dont share with others? If that's the case, how do you even begin sharing details about yourself that you dont even want people to know? Like how???? REALLY. How do you even start??? Where do you even begin????
Once, i met a guy whom i thought 'for once, i met someone similar to me'. We were both thinkers. We were both swimming in our own thoughts. I opened up to him a side that i dont usually show people. But as it turns out, we were not as similar as i thought we were. He left the realm of thinking and went on to an... extremely physical reality. I had a shock when i saw that he was now pursuing (and enjoying) a life so contrasting to what we shared. And despite that betrayal - despite i had open up to him a secluded side of me and i felt like i had known a stranger - i merely felt a tinge in my heart. Like someone who got scratched by a cat. It was not even a wound. Not something i would cry over. I was disappointed at worst. And i thought of all the girls who cried for months because someone broke their heart. I thought of how their injuries became a scar which they would have to bear for the rest of their lives. I thought of all these and i looked at my own heart - damage-free. As though encrypted in stainless steel. It does not help that i have some super recovery strength coupled with the worst memory one can have. Give me a day (night actually, because sleep works best for me) and i'll be over any accident.
People ask me all the time why i am not attached. I think to myself, i cant even handle friendships now, what more a relationship?
I say all these now because of 3 things that happened. 1. the preparations leading to my birthday 2. when my LG shared about carrying each other's mat (in reference to Mark 2), i realised i had been carrying mine all along and 3. when HJ exclaimed that she never knew about my family situation thrice. All of which happened within the span of a month. Though i have been conscious of my problem since long ago, those 3 are the inciting incidents. I know from them that God wants me to embark on my final lesson of love. I am still in the infancy stage because i have yet to feel any pain (unlike the previous lesson) and i honestly have no motivation to want to change. But i know this is a process and i am simply a work in progress.
It has been a truckload of words and quite possibly the longest i have ever written for a blog post. I wasn't kidding when i said the reason for my disappearance from this space was because i had thoughts to sort out in my head. And this is not the only topic floating in my head. Well, i hope i have vomited enough to make up for the lack of entries in September. I dreaded writing this because i knew how much effort it was going to be. It is 3am now and i have spent at least 2 hours writing this post and i have morning classes tomorrow. Thoughts are never easy to map, eh?
(this post may have grammatical errors which i will come back to edit. just wanted to post this up first anyway.)
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