Fighting The Fear of Losing Who You Love
Last night when I went to bed at 2am, he’s already fast asleep. I was working late in the study, rushing some designs for my business.
I climbed into bed as gently as I could, trying not to wake him up. He wasn’t sleeping with his back facing me, as he usually does. Facing each other in the darkness, I could make out the slightest silhouette of his face. I leaned in and planted a kiss on his forehead.
The weathered texture of his complexion; the smell of his skin; the rise and fall of his warm body; the soft rambling of his heavy breathing… I thought to myself,
How beautiful life is…
To love and be loved. Isn’t it the most important thing in life?
I do find myself extremely lucky and fortunate to have found a person who loves me the way I want to be loved. Someone who I can love wholeheartedly and trust completely. He’s one of those genuinely good guys,— what they call, the “Unicorn Boyfriend.”
Fifteen minutes must have passed and I still wasn’t asleep. It’s one of those restless nights where sleep doesn’t come easy, you know. And I hate them. So much. It usually happens when a song or a train of thought gets stuck in my head, and it just keeps going on and on, spinning, running, over and over.
I turned back to look at him. He looked so peaceful, like a baby. My baby.
And like a tsunami, fear washed over me.
One question that I often ask him is this:
“Do you think we will last forever?”
It’s a rhetorical question of course, though he would always answer, “Of course, babe.”
Don’t judge, I can be an insecure bitch sometimes, okay? Everyone does.
The truth is, I find myself constantly fearful of the possibility of losing the people I love. It’s just something that’s at the back of my mind.
Sometimes when I get really happy, a dark thought would suddenly get into my consciousness, trying to pick a fight with me. Does it happen to you too? Like sometimes you would imagine the worst thing that could happen. As though your subconsciousness’ trying to preempt yourself a bit or something. But then in real life, nothing happened. No fucking shit happened.
I suppose you can describe me as a frightfully happy person. In my head, there seems to be only two states of mind — it’s either heaven or a fucking apocalypse. And the funny thing is, they aren’t mutually exclusive.
The thing is, I love the people I love so very deeply. I love them with so much of myself. A whole deal. So much, so much. Which is also why I fear.
Because when I lose someone I love, I’d lose a part of myself too.
Like that time when I had a fallout with this friend whom I’ve known for many years. I felt as though a part of me was ripped out and thrown away into a blackhole. It’s gone. I’ll never be able to be that version of myself whenever I was with them. Because we will never meet again.
“Have you ever loved someone so much,
you lose a part of yourself to them?”
For those of you who tell me that love shouldn’t be causing so much anxiety, you must not have truly loved before.
You know how James Morrison sings it:
Love takes hostages
And gives them pain
Gives someone the power
To hurt you again and again
It kicks so hard, it breaks your bones
Cuts so deep, it hits your soul
Tears your skin, and makes your blood flow
“It’s better that we know that love is hard.
And if it was easy, it wouldn’t mean nothing at all.”
Perhaps, the value of love isn’t calculated by the simple summation of all the happiness it may bring and subtraction of all the hurt and pain it may incur.
I suppose it’s more like demand and supply. A love would be most prized when its demand is high and its supply low. The other way is true: A love would be least treasured when its demand is low and its supply high — a situation you may call, “taking things for granted.”
I’ve never loved anyone like I love Jason, and he has never loved anyone like he loves me. So I suppose we’re even. There is no supply issues and demands can go as high as they go.
Yet, I fear.
As I laid in bed in the dark, I tried to fight off the grim thoughts that came for a bite of my happiness and bliss. It’s unfair that I can’t be happy and completely free of worries at the same time. But then I thought, perhaps everyone deals with this sort of anxiety from time to time. It’s just the way life is.
The more you love, the more love you get.
But that also means, the more you’ve got to lose.
It’s a curious thing how a revelation comes to us when we least expect it. When we aren’t looking for an answer anymore.
This morning, I went grocery shopping on my own at a nearby supermarket. I didn’t bother dressing up; I threw on a sweater and sweatpants and off I went. The supermarket would be full of expat housewives and maids and irritating running kids anyway.
I was at the vegetable section when I was joined by a thirty-something white lady who’s obviously an expat housewife. She’s pushing a pram with the cutest toddler sitting in it. The toddler has the most beautiful brown eyes I have ever seen, and when he saw me, he reached out and made squeaky baby noises. It warmed my heart greatly. I had wanted to take a picture of him, but I thought that the mother might not approve of it. So I picked my greens and left.
And as I continued to stroll through the aisles of the supermarket, picking up more groceries, I felt this feeling of happiness and bliss growing in me.
“I’m at the right place, at right time, doing the right thing.”
Supermart. Check. Mid-day. Check. Grocery shopping. Check.
Moving to Hongkong to live with the one I love. Check. Post graduation. Check. Starting my own business and being my own boss. Check.
Everything seems to have fallen right into place. And I felt thankful. So thankful. In my head, I kept saying to myself, “You see, dreams do come true.”
And with that, my heart felt much lighter.
Like every fear in me vanished.
Be thankful.
Every single day of your life.
There, you have it. That’s how you fight your fears.
Whenever you feel that your mind’s clouded with fear, close your eyes, take a deep breath in and out, and say, “Thank you.”
Remind yourself of what you have, and be thankful for each and every one of them. No fearing that one day they might be taken away from you. No what-ifs or what-could-have-been.
Make gratitude the end of the equation, and then stop.
The moment you make gratitude the finishing point of your thoughts, that’s it — no more room for worthless fears that have nothing to do with reality.
It takes practice, of course. Gratitude is a sword — the more you wield, the better you’ll be at it, and the more powerful it gets.
This is what I’ve learned:
Just as you can’t fight in a battle empty-handed,
you can’t fight your fears with an empty heart.
