Losing Orbit

THURSDAY

When I lost loved ones in death, I didn't handle it very well.

For a period of time that I can't count I didn't allow myself to feel anything. I powered through every single day like everything was the same old usual, which a human being isn't meant to bottle up. There were no tears from me. No struggles to breathe. No tightness in the chest. No dizziness. I didn't let anything in, and thus, I forced myself not to be overwhelmed.

But my actions gave everything away. How I lived my life showed that I was slow on reaching acceptance. Behind probably, in fact, since I saw how everyone else were biting their lips and moving on. While they were letting themselves feel the pain of the loss, I was setting the table for two on the day I expected his company, that turned out to be a day that he never reached. I talked to inanimate objects, to things that couldn't hear, couldn't see and most certainly couldn't comprehend, in hopes that it would be him that would hear me.

I went sorta psycho. I went a little bit insane, and I didn't notice it one bit.

And it's that very energy that drove me mad. I was angry with how the world works, and I pointed the blame at the only thing I could; him. He left me, and he was like family. He was my best friend, the only one who was there for me since I was young, and the only one who had years on anyone else I might've come across. He made my interactions with most others seem brief, then overnight, gone just like that?

It's a lot to process. It truly is.

I was out of the blue pissed at him for every little thing. I hated how he scratched one of my DVDs last time he came to visit even though it was far in the past and long forgiven. I hated the mess he wouldn't help me clean up that he contributed ninety percent to, and I hated every broken vase, plate and there's the stitches I had to get in my head after falling from a tree way back when -- all things that I learned to laugh about since it happened when we were young came back up to the surface.

Finally I realized. It took me a good while, but I realized that my blood came to boil this terribly because for the first time when I was in pain, he wasn't around. Every single other time before, I had someone to ground me, and it was sinking in that, at least until I met you -- which I had no idea I would at the time -- I didn't have anyone. I was alone in a rotten world that I didn't get and I, though I hate to admit it, wish that I could be taken too, since I was convinced I wouldn't be able to handle it any longer.

I prayed for every one of those experiences to be a sucky, sucky dream and I prayed that I'd wake up one morning with it all over, amounting to nothing besides something to chuckle about, as the next day passed by, but as you know when I opened up to you about it, that wasn't the case. Real life came as a clash of the cymbals; too shocking for an ill-prepared person like me.

You see, acceptance is only a snippet of the beginning in the steps of grief. After it came to me, I don't think I moved for weeks -- actually, months. I despised every breath that I let myself breathe when I very much didn't want to. Watching my chest rise and fall felt like a sin. I was as paralyzed as a person could be, and I was hoping to be even more.

No eating, no sleeping. Absolutely nothing besides waiting for my last second.

It was embarrassing, but I had to be stood over by my parents and worse, my younger sister. She had to see me suffering the way that I was, though I promised myself as the elder that she would never see me like that. Still, if it weren't for them, I don't think I would've managed to make myself warm teas, taking a few bites from the plate set on a chair by my bed, or change my clothes. There's no way I would've, I believe. Not when death started to feel like a savior instead of something to dread.

Yes, eventually I got out of it. I started out with baby steps. I let myself sleep even though it didn't feel right to. I opened the curtains and the window, and felt the salt in the air from the beach down the road and I awed the sun after many chapters in the sulking darkness. I let myself linger on the good days I wished I could grip from behind, and I thought about how he defined my childhood memories, as well as contributed to what I grew up to be. I thought about meeting him again in a new world we didn't live in quite yet.

I told myself I'd be okay. I got through it by reminding myself that he would be mad at me if he knew that I spent my time feeling sorry for myself or shouting that life was unfair, but not doing a thing about it. I told myself that I didn't have a choice. That I had to live a different life and figure out how to make it fulfilling, almost as much as it once was.

Am I getting carried away now? Are you getting the point I'm trying to deliver.

My point is, love, will you be okay? Will you be okay when I'm gone?

Because I know what it's like, but I don't know what it would be like to lose you and it hurts me to even think about it. Could you get by living it?

Please find a way to cope.

FRIDAY

I wonder about you a lot.

It's not like that's new. I think about you all the time, and I can't turn that off if it was the only trade I strived to master in this life, but as for this, I wonder about you in the sense that I worry. I worry what this will make of you. I have the right to do that, don't I?

As a wise person once said, a companion can't make the problems go away, but they can be there for you when you need them the most. The thing is, I have a very special case approaching you like lightning that will surely electrocute you and it's the awful thought that I can't do either of those things. I am the very problem that you don't want to face, and when things turn to the very, very worse, I'm not going to be able to be there for you either.

That's why I wonder. I wonder if you'll be able to gracefully pick yourself up like you did in every situation that came your way before, and I have reason to feel bad about that. On one hand, if this strikes you with a hurt that you've never felt before that means that you cared about me more than you cared about anyone else who came into your life. It means that I was the most valuable thing that your hand ever grazed upon, and that's touching. That's the kind of love that everyone wants, but I don't want you to feel that kind of hurt.

On the other hand, if you go on and put yourself together without too many hurdles, of course I'll be happy that you were muster up the strength to keep going. Deep down, that's what I long for. That I'm not the cause of your suffering in both life and in death, but it's easy to think too much about it. To overthink it and believe that if you went down that pathway, that your love wasn't as deep as the love I had for you, as terrible it is to let that come up.

I guess the real and important question is this: truly, if you meditate it, do we want the one who swept us off our feet to feel agony, emptiness, sorrow, mourning, grief? Do we want them to hurt every once in a while, never or all the time? Do we want them to hurt in the times that it counts? If that's the case, does that mean that we wish hurt on the very person that we love even if it's a rare occurrence? Even if it's only here and there?

See. If you really deeply think about it, it's not that simple.

But behind whatever intention it is that I have that I can't very well describe, that's why I wonder about you. I wonder if your heart will always skip a beat if you casually bump into someone at the market who might look a little bit like me, or that you thought for a snap of the fingers, was me.

I wonder if you'll always keep my mini and easily-forgotten habits at the forefront of your mind to the point that when you notice someone years ahead that has the same stance when waiting in line. Someone that sorta "glitches" when they hold back from dancing to the music that's playing in their earbuds they notice no one else can hear, or the expression they have when a song plays overhead in the cafe that they clearly hate, -- will you'll think up my face?

Are there strangers out there who'll remind you of me? What do you think? Probably not?

How about when someone through a fit in a used book store because the previous owner used a folded page as a bookmark or dotted ink into a classic? Will you recall the multiple times I ranted about why people should treat the spine of their favorite novels more kindly?

Will you remember how I tapped at my watch as if it were frozen and broken because I was hungry at a restaurant the day I skipped breakfast and desperate for the waitress to bring over our order, but was much to timid to actually complain to any of their faces because I know how it was like working there myself? How about how you'd figure out a fun way to pass the time once you noticed my foot tapping to the floor because you knew I was getting antsy? Will it feel off to not have to do that anymore when I'm no longer around?

Maybe asking these questions is inconsiderate. Maybe I shouldn't be talking about what it will be like for you to mourn me, and maybe I should think about the now, while I'm still around.

It probably makes me a bad person to not be able to shake it off, but how could I? Please, if you know, tell me. Tell me how to think about the magnificent things we experienced and not the depressing that is getting louder as I near the corner.

Because right now, this is all it's about. I'm pondering on whether or not you'll search for me in a crowded street the way you did when I called you from the opposite end and you couldn't figure out what direction I was coming from. On the nights beneath fireworks and on the mornings beneath clouds. On the shoulders stained with exhausted tears and cold sweats during the troubling events. On the afternoons with angry fights that wouldn't last long for us because we refused to go to sleep moody.

I mean well with this, believe me. I just don't want your potential to fall to a slump. I don't want you to be nothing more than two sad eyes, a body that would snore if it were honest, spilled coffee you couldn't aim into the mug, closed doors and tinted windows.

I want you to do whatever it takes to get over it, but I want you to love me.

Will you? Will you love me and miss me? Present tense? Or will you figure out how to make it past tense because you had to lose me? Babe, will you feel the certainty you used to, or is it meant to be forgotten, buried when I'm buried?

It's up to you. I can't and won't make that kind of decision, especially because I know that you'll choose to do what you trust is best for you, but it's a valid question.

Aren't I allowed to wonder?

SATURDAY

I'm too much of the "all or nothing" type of person even in scenarios like now, where it's the worse possible thing I could be. Infinity comes from the mind, a patient in a movie could have an entire spin off dedicated solely to the things they imagined while time was somewhat frozen to them. Since I learned what a thought was back before I knew how to walk or crawl, I thought that was an amazing thing. I admired how our brain works, but it's betrayed me.

My awe has backfired because of the kind of person I am and the routine I got familiar with.

I'm not as patient as I wish I could be, and I'm not as calm as some people are -- specifically the ones that seem to have their lives together. I have to keep the gears in my head moving, speeding rapidly, a busy, busy blur between my ears. If I were up and awake, I'd be so pacey that I could hardly give myself a break to inhale and exhale. It's the way I like it, just so I don't dawn on the negativity. Otherwise, I'll be doing nothing, and I'll be alone as can be with my own thoughts, noticing things that shouldn't be a big deal.

And yet look what's happened. The one escape that I've been able to rely on and that was always there as a safety net has completely vanished from beneath me. I'm taking a fall from the highest of heights. Yes, I'm on a roller coaster that only goes down, and the past hopes I've been able to grip are shouting, screaming, that they've been false expectation.

My heart is officially sick because of that stupid angel in disguise we call hope. There's no such thing as precautions anymore, no such thing as preventing. Those are just words now.

Words among the other uncountable that exist in a senseless jumble.

I liked it better when I was up and at it. I swear, if a miracle decides to pay me a visit, I'll show that I'm thankful for it since I know what it's like to be without it. I'll take the five in the morning jogs I thought people were crazy to sacrifice their sleep for, and maybe eventually I'd run a marathon.

I'll stop by the gym and be thankful for the way it burned even though I despised it before, and I'll meditate on how happy I should be to have feet and legs that have carried my body as far as it has. To a new extent, I wouldn't have to think so much except for the moments that it mattered and the memories that were so stand-out profound. It deserved proper appreciation.

I hate that for now, that's all I can do is think about good, good and good until it leans into the darkness I've been trying to avoid and stays there longer than it did anywhere else. I miss the past when I had a choice on how to spend my time. When I could be much more balanced than this. I'm exhausted with my own boredom, and with the fake scenarios that pop up. If I wake up and you leave me, if I don't and you hate me, if I do and you resent me -- when did this become a horror-twisted version of the flower petals and 'he loves me, he loves me not'?

A person can only take so much, you know? And this is a lot. I don't want to admit it, but it is.

I know this isn't the way it works, but sometimes in my lonely mind, I think that it's not impossible I brought this upon myself. There was a time I asked for bad things to happen to me. I asked to feel pain when things weren't going well and to see blood trickling down my skin, my organs ripped one by one from my insides. I wanted to be punished more than death could punish me during the dark period, so I had excuse to cry and sit around feeling sorry for myself.

What if it's come now? What if my wish was purposely granted right when everything got bright? What if life flashes before my eyes at this instant more than every before to rub it in my face that I'll never be the pretty-in-one-person's-eyes (the only one who mattered) or the someone who is loved anymore? What if that pain I had in what feels like another era is catching up with me?

Regardless, it was wrong to wish pain upon myself especially with the occurrences in the world that nobody can figure out how to fix being much more impacting than my personal trials, but I know I had my moments that it felt like it was what I deserved.

But it terrifies me to another world if there was even a one percent chance that I'm the one who brought this on you because how dare I enter your life just to leave it.

I'm disgusted with myself.

This is why I shouldn't be allowed to think. This is why I need to keep busy.

SUNDAY

Well, thank you for loving me. Thank you for loving me so greatly when I was so mediocre and little in comparison to much more spectacular persons and creations. Thank you for opening that door for me. It's because of you that I was able to experience what I never thought I would be able to. A letdown this is, definitely, but while my lungs were still expanding, I'm glad I hit such a jackpot. Seriously, I'm certain I hit the jackpot.

I still don't know what I did to deserve you. It's the biggest puzzle of all time.

Ever, ever, ever.

Do you get what that means? Do you understand the extravagance of what you've accomplished? Do you feel the diamond-worth in the way you've made me feel? Do you know, truly know, how much you've changed my life? Do you realize you've done the impossible? You probably think you do. You probably think I talk about this too much actually, but let me explain it to you just so it gets across with one more punch, one more urgent adrenaline before it's a thing of our lovely past.

People fall in love with the sun and the stars. I'm sure you've observed that for yourself based on the metaphors you like to retell, and I don't think people fall in love with the moon in the same way. Many people say they do, but it's singular presence and it's million flaws within its craters aren't part of the admiration. They only remember how it glows in the dark like a night light, and that's all they truly have it amount to. Most don't give it the attention it deserves. They don't love it in its entirety.

It's commonly forgotten how much more it is than that. It's what holds courage in the sense that it gives people reason. It brings people to embrace the emotions they have and it listens to them when those very emotions reach the surface in happy-sad droplets. It's what gave an ear when nobody else did, and it's what cheered people on with the hope that someone's other half is looking up at the exact same beautiful thing. It's what reminded the night owls that they are aren't alone and it's what promised to always be there.

Think about it. What would we look up at if there was no light in the sky? What would reassure us and console us the way that the moon did when we had no one to turn to? I don't think the millions of stars representing our scars would've been enough to get us through. At the end of it, we're not much different than insects. We're drawn to the light. We want it to save us, make us better. We want it to engrave the honesty right smack in the middle of our foreheads; we're going to get through the trials we face because it's what's going to aid us in appreciating the good that's to come.

On some nights, the moon was shy. It hid itself away without a trace every so often, but on other nights, though it took time, it gave us a performance we couldn't forget, taking spotlight, front and center, a mesmerizing pearl that couldn't be found in the deepest depths of the seas.

To be able to witness such a sight down below, we had to be patient and wait it out. We'd tap our feet to melodies against a tile that's started going cold, knowing for a fact that it'll come back out again at its own pace, slowly but surely. It finds trust and love for humanity, and refuses to part from it permanently. It always comes back, even when we set it free again and again. Our jaws drop at every step it takes to reveal itself once again as if it were the very first, beautiful in each of its phases.

She's humble and she's modest unlike the sun whose scorching heat is out to get us in a terrible sickening revenge. She's not the kind to be overly proud, begging for attention and worship. No, no, no. She's not like that at all. She, whether we can see her or not, has proven that she's always there once we gave her a chance. She listens when we can't see her, when her head is barely peaking out, and when she's reassuring us with all she is.

We're soothed wherever she goes. We're revived.

In enthusiasm, in sorrow, in the bright, in the dull, in the brave, in the fear that rattled her own life, she was always there. She always came through. Always. A promise never backed down on.

In other words, thank you for loving me through thick and thin. Thank you for understanding when I fell short and when I hid myself away, and thank you for having faith that I was always there for you even if I wasn't standing right in front of you. Thank you for knowing me -- the words I say when I'm not okay, the expressions I make when I'm holding back on being the buzzkill that ruins the party with sadness I didn't get off my chest. Thank you for having my back.

Thank you for loving the moon in me. How could I ever repay you?

If I had the time to repay you -- heck, if I had forever, would I be able to give back what I owe?