A Pair of Empty Lungs and A Heavy Heart

“I feel like I have a pair of empty lungs and a heavy heart.

I feel as if my organs are striking hard against each other with every pulse.

I don’t think I have ever felt my emotions so physically before.

It reminds me that what I’m feeling is real, though I wish it weren’t.”

To be old…

Oh, my poor neglected boring blog. How I have abandoned you so.

Today I feel the need to express again.

It feels a bit strange to live alone. I am glad I have Legolas around for company. He forces me to go on afternoon walks in the park and take a break from my life. I feel sometimes we are so selfish and so indulged in our  own lives that we forget to take a breath and a moment to realise that we are not the only ones living in this world. I watch the seniors at the park and sometimes they seem lonely. What if one day, I outgrow all of my friends and I am left with nothing but family who lives too far away to visit me frequently. I would be left in a quiet home, all by myself. I would drink tea in the morning, have some toast and jam for breakfast, maybe I would have another dog companion with me. We would grow old together. We would have nothing to look forward to. We would have done the things we wanted to. We would have lost many of our dreams and fulfilled some in becoming what we were and now turning into a quiet life. Everything would be the past. The future would be quiet. There would be nothing new.

If that is what it comes to be, I want to be as good as I can be. If I am only left with the things I have done before, I don’t want to waste any minute of it while I have the energy. I want to be good and not just for myself. I want to help make the world to be a little bit better. I don’t want to be old and cranky, thinking about all the things I could have done.

a pippi longstocking kind of adventure

yesterday morning in gwynedd, my dad got me a new friend.

he is half gray and half white.
he is six weeks old.
he is an old english sheepdog.
and his name is legolas.

this morning in london, i jumped on the bed with legolas.

it is a pippi longstocking kind of adventure.

Something Found

While I was cleaning up the guys’ messes, Leo’s notebook flipped out from underneath his blankets. Not because he was trying to hide it, but because (despite how OCD he seems for those who has ever seen his bedroom) he is sometimes messy. So for those who are wondering what’s going on in his mind, here is a little piece of something he wrote that I found I quite liked:

Sometimes I dream that I am playing a song that I know by heart on the piano. It gets frustrating because I can never seem to get the keys right, and before I can try to fix my mistakes, the piano melts away from my touch. Sometimes this is how I feel about the world. One moment the ground you step on is rock solid, and the next, you’re falling through it like Alice down the rabbit hole. Then you start to wonder: Since when did those cracks appear?

It’s worst when it happens to a person. You know how a caterpillar changes into a butterfly but with a person, you wonder what happened to the stages in between. Was there an in between? You don’t really see it until the moment that person walks out of your life. It doesn’t hurt until you realise you are left with a broken heart.

And then I can’t share the rest because he said so.

my first “thoughts on people” post.

Dear Leo,

I’m writing this because I know you’ll never read this. And I know you’ll never read this because I told you not to. And I trust you on that because I know you’d be too lazy to even come upon this page in the first place. So technically, I don’t trust you but I trust your laziness. Is it possible to trust a trait? Anyway, before I start to digress even more, I think I will just get on with it.

I am glad you came to visit me and I am also not glad that you came to visit me:

I’m glad you came to visit me because I was starting to believe you didn’t exist. I was starting to believe I’m making you up and I was starting to believe that the voice which comes out on the other end of the phone does not actually belong to you.

I’m also not glad that you came to visit me because I actually have to see you.  The fact that I don’t like seeing you is because I know for sure you’re hiding things from me. I see the scar on your back that used to be just a few faint silver lines and is now fresh and red.  I know you are hurt and that hurts me too.

Sometimes it hurts me to think that there’s nothing I can do to make you feel better but you tell me that’s not true. You tell me just knowing I’m behind you makes you feel better.

When I was stuck in the hospital, I hated myself. All I could think about was how much I didn’t want to be there. The reason I hated myself was because afterward, I would think about all those other people in the hospital who may never feel better; and there I was, miserable because I was bored.

I brought that up because I want you to know that you make me feel better too. When I was stuck in the hospital, I remembered the way you were when you were stuck in the hospital. You got up, broken bones and all, and you made others feel better. I want you to know that you inspire me, but no matter how much I want to say that to you, I would never be able to do it. Just like the time I tried to be you and tried to make others at the hospital feel better. I ended up sitting at my hospital bed, staring at the wall.

The truth is, things work out better in my head. When I think of something that I want to do, something that I know will make someone else’s day, I don’t do it. I don’t know why. Maybe I’m not brave enough. Maybe I’m too selfish. Maybe I secretly don’t want the other person to have a better day than me. Another reason I hate myself.

Sometimes I wonder what kind of world you live in. I don’t understand you at all. I don’t understand how you are able to make others happy when you are hurting so much inside. My dad used to tell me that my mum kept everything bottled up inside, but she was good at hiding it. She pretended her problems did not exist in order to keep everyone else happy. I told my dad you were like that, but my dad said that’s not entirely true.

What my dad said about you: You are not entirely like my mother. You made sure the people you care about are happy just like she did, but you never pretended your problems did not exist. The problem with you was that you tried to take care of everything on your own.

Leo, you don’t have to prove to everyone that you are brave. We already know you are.

Impromptu

It’s five in the morning and for some reason, I just woke up and could not fall back asleep. I call Leo to see what he is up to; since he usually calls me at this time anyway, I didn’t think he would mind. He picks up the phone, out of breath and surprised.  “What are you doing?” I ask.
“Running,” he replies.
He usually runs in the mornings, not in the evenings. Something is bothering him but I don’t ask. I can hear his footsteps through the phone. I think to myself, okay.

What the heck.

“I’ll run with you,” I say.
I break his momentum. He stops running and inhales deeply. “What?” he exhales.
“Call you back when I’m ready.” I hang up the phone and get dressed. I had always wondered how Leo could get up so early in the morning to run. It has always been a mystery to me because I’m the kind of person who sleeps till noon.

I put on my sneakers, suddenly not so sure about this. I call Leo and he picks up after two rings.
“Are you sure about this?” he inquires.
“Yes, I am. Look, I’m already outside.”
He chuckles. I start running and start to get warm so I tie my jacket around my waist. The morning air embraces me as I bring my arms up. I fall in love with this immediately.

 We chat. We laugh. We run.

 His absence suddenly feels like a deep hole in my chest.

Your average day at our book store.

I think I am feeling quite nocturnal tonight. I have not slept yet. Today has been a quiet day. Dad spent a lot of time in the sun room, binding books. I spent a lot of time at the book store, reading the books he just bound. A young man came into the store. He walked right by me and went to hide behind bookshelves. I had to do a double glance because he looked a lot like Leo. He was in his early twenties (or so he seemed), he had copper-brownish hair that curled at the end – like Leo, he was tall – like Leo. He even sounded like Leo! (That may or may not have been my imagination). I also thought he was

kind of
sort of
beautiful.

I hope he doesn’t read this blog.

Yesterday, my dad contemplates on the grandfather clock.

He thinks it is too old but he does not want to get rid of it. Poor dad, he is in a dilemma. The grandfather clock means a lot to him because it used to be mom’s (her family’s) but at the same time, it is taking up a lot of space and being kind of useless because it threatens to fall apart at any moment.

I remember the clock very well. When I was little, it would sound a bell at midnight.  The clock would play music and the number twelve would disappear and reveal a young girl. In her hands she holds a harp as if it were her playing the music. After a minute of sweet melody, the young girl would disappear. At the foot of the grandfather clock, a white rabbit would appear and it would look up towards the number twelve, waiting for the stroke of midnight so she may transform, once again, into the young girl and play the music she loved.

Now the clock sits in the corner of our dining room, next to a print of David’s Death of Socrates (my dad has a strange sense of interior designing). It no longer ticks and no longer tells its tale. It is now empty and without time.

I am up at 4 am because …

Leo likes to call me at ungodly hours.
After I wake and pick up his calls, I cannot go back to sleep.

I wish he would stop pretending to be so nice because I am trying very hard to hate him forever right now.

afternoon box

There is a box waiting for me on my bed. I open it, wondering who it could be from and I see a note in messy chicken scratch. “Welcome Home,” it says (or at least that’s what I think it says). I smile to myself and flip the note over thinking there would be more. It is empty. I should have known.

I open the box and there is a pair of sock puppets. One is red and the other blue. The blue one wears a small bow on her head and the red one is wearing a top hat. I put them on and lay on my bed with my feet towards the ceiling. I examine the handiwork on the sock puppets. There are loose threads sticking out everywhere.

The socks smile at me and then at each other. They give each other a quick small kiss and disappears from my sight as I let my feet fall. I look at the clock sitting across from my bed. It is time for tea. I pull the socks off with my toes and toss them on my bed.

I look at the socks one more time.

They sit contently on my bed under the dim light of the sun.