tire yourself, numb yourself
Change the you to me — yourself to myself — , and the sentence becomes the mantra I put myself on these days. I’m not one to share my feelings with others — with the exception of a few people and when I am just super fed up— , not one to ease myself and be comfortable with just any person, and not one to socialize a lot anyway.
There are times when I fail to find the vessels to pour my emotions into. For different eras of my life I’ve had different vases for the specific use. First: my childhood, full of ideas and energy era. I’d talk to my mom before bed, both of us on fluffy pillows under a dim light of a table lamp used as a night light. I’d steal her from my dad until she tells me to go to sleep. Then, comes my “*insert color/characteristic/cool, random names* girls” gang era. I talk to the girls and keep them informed of the current happenings and angers and jealousy that i have towards anyone. It’s interesting, truly. They’re my ceramic pot, I’m theirs, and we throw our thoughts into each other, yet our hearts did not get fuller but became lighter after our rant (sometimes accompanied with gossips) sessions.
Don’t forget my productive and journal girl era. Give me a journal, and I’ll take my time to jot down my thoughts. Sometimes would take a long time. Then I also had my short meditations — yes, or at least that’s what I intended to do. Closed my eyes, breathed in and out, thought of the moment, and became more — as what the meditation mentors like to say — “aware” and “present”, coming closer to my own feelings, on my own.
Of course there are unchanged vessels, too. I’d really like to say one of them is myself, but at times like now I start to doubt if it would be true in any way. Those unchanged vessels include my sister.. and more reliably (sorry sis, this is not in any way a way to diss you): writing. Journals weren’t my first sentimental encounter with writing. It has always been. Whether I slip my thoughts into the words I write implicitly or straightforwardly. But today I’m not writing about writing. I’m writing about lost vessels.
In this.. I dont even know how to name it era — perhaps university girl or away from home or adulting era — I find it harder and harder to cope with the endless blurt of emotions that comes along my daily activities. I’ve come pass my previous vessels but have yet to find another. And so instead of using my one reliable tool or putting my all to turn someone or something into one, I created a strategy to get away from my feelings instead. Yes, to fill up my days so I barely have the time to face how I’m feeling. To occupy my mind with work and challenges so the space for feelings gets reduced to nil. To distract myself with business so I have an excuse to turn away from what’s inside. The purpose: numbing the heart with tiredness.
And surely soon enough I get tired. And the plan failed somewhere in the middle when the activities not only created tangible busyness, but also made my mind busy with all the new emotions. I still am running away from it, though I have a feeling I’m due for a dead end very soon. We all can conclude what it means: I should turn back and face reality. But let’s be real, I did this to run away, and stopping someone from running away is not as easy as saying it, isn’t it?
I feel like those rebelling feral teenagers in coming-of-age movies who would run away from home with anger to find happiness and freedom, things they think can only be found out there. The difference is that I’m running away not from something comfortable, but from something so complicated and frightening that I don’t want to face it. The similarity is that both home and the reality I’m avoiding interaction with, even as little as making eye contact with, is that they’re both so close to what makes me, me. So close that I can call my reality, home. (In fact, I think one’s reality is what makes up the situation and the mood that flows around a home.)
To learn from these teen movies, then, is to recognize that you can’t find happiness, or freedom, or any sincere thing you’d want to find in life if you keep running away from home, from part of yourself. These teenagers always end up coming back home, realizing that they took for granted what they had. Coming back home with realization, appreciation, and the ability to accept their realities.
I think in the long run I will, return to my realities. I have to. I am bound to. And if I’m being honest enough with myself, I need to. And by then I will do the same as those dumb, full of unrealistic thoughts teenagers from the movies. The only difference is that I know it’s going to happen.
But for now, let me run away from reality a bit more.
