comprehension

“You’re telling me why they did that to you, but you’re not telling me how you felt”

I look back at my therapist, almost how a goldfish stares back at you when you tap the tank. Seemingly startled but wholly expressionless. I stutter. It’s not that I can’t verbalise it, I explain, it just helps me process.

“I understand” I begin every sentence. I understand she needed me to be twice the child I could be to make up for the mistake she thinks my brother is. I understand it’s a cultural and generational disconnect. I understand that he couldn’t love me the way I wanted him to. I understand that I finally found someone that does, but there has to be a catch. I understand that we can’t violate immigration rules. I understand that we have to make it work on FaceTime, for now. I understand that he has to board his flight. I understand, I understand, I understand.

I’ve spent the last two years counting down days. One month to go. One week to go. This time tomorrow.

It’s a steady ascent into happiness, and then, after a certain amount of time, it comes crashing down. The countdown becomes a tightness in my chest that suffocates me. The grief cripples everything except my tears. It comes like a shock each time. I abruptly remember that this hazy, dreamlike happiness I’ve been in is going to dissipate. Like a sharp knife that penetrates, the pain of that reminder takes my breath away. The more I think about it, the more it turns and turns inside of me. For two years now, my muscle memory has been going through whiplash. I know his face, I know his body. I hungrily touch it, letting the pores of his skin sink into my fingertips so that they find their way into my bloodstream, into my brain, into my heart and lungs. I want to be able to feel him even when I can’t. I always forget, though, that once we’re apart, I don’t want to remember. I compartmentalise his smell, the way his arm fits around my waist, how his feet poke out from under the duvet.

These memories get isolated, only to pepper my days as cruel reminders for months on end. Finally, they’re clumsily picked back up at the airport. We awkwardly string the months ago to the right now. Like the spaghetti on Lady and the Tramp, the noodle between the two is long, but after the first few hours of realising that you’re looking at each other through nothing but your corneas, you come together. You can’t see the noodle anymore. We both trick ourselves into thinking it’s like we were never apart. But seriously, I swear, wallahi, it’s like we were never apart. My dormant fingers are awakened again, running the tips up and down his arms, clasping his hand, wishing it would sink into mine.

I’m subscribed to 35 podcasts. I listen to new episodes every day. Yesterday I listened to a woman who found love late in life. Today I listened to one about lining up for pizza. Later I will listen to one about the Zika virus. They talk and talk and talk. I don’t have to listen to my own thoughts and I don’t have to talk back, so it works out. I started Gilmore Girls — a world far removed from my own. Cliched escapism. I buy skincare products. I buy make up. I try them on, hoping that they change something about me. I shower and put on a face mask and eat a dessert and feel like I am put together. Control is nice. Not having my happiness dictated by flight confirmations is nice.

Once a week, I pay £45 and cry for an hour. I make lists: 100 things I am grateful for. 100 things I like about myself. I realise, at around 17, that gratitude controls me, and that I want people to like me more than I like myself.

Hours are long but the day rolls around I am there, at Arrivals, searching for his face. Like a child who has lost her mother in the grocery store, I look and look and an anxiety creeps into my stomach with each passing minute. Once, an aunty approached me as I waited. She needed help calling her grandchildren, who were late picking her up. She didn’t know where they were, and she didn’t know how to use the telephone machine. I breathed a sigh of relief as I focused on her anxiety instead of my own. You see, there’s an abandonment that is felt when I’m in an airport. Even when I haven’t expected to meet anyone when I land, I always wish there was someone there to surprise me. To reconnect myself to this earth after being in the air, thousands of miles up. I always think that whoever I’m meeting feels it too. When we finally figured out that her grandchildren were stuck in traffic, and were on their way, there he was, looking around for me.

I almost ran to him and looking back on it, I wish I had. It would’ve given me more time with him before he left again. A few seconds, maybe. But I understand that if I did, I would’ve knocked into someone or hurt myself. I understand. I understand.