Resurgence

“And I won’t wait any longer
When you left me down, I got stronger
If you want to wait for lightning
I’m on the horizon
Well, I’m coming back with the thunder
Well, I’m coming back with the thunder
Well, I’m coming back with the thunder…”

The most mesmerizing thing about a caterpillar is that it lives with a potential inside of it. This potential is ridiculed and laughed off – how can a worm become something more. It’s not until they become a cocoon that these laughs are silenced and it’s not until they morph into a beautiful butterfly that the non-believers cover their mouths and start wishing they could do the same.

But, as you all might gather… I’m not talking about a butterfly here. And at the least am I talking about a physical transformation that leaves people stunned.

You see, I’m talking here about a metamorphosis on a spiritual, emotional and mental level that brings out a light in one that can only but inspire people.

So, here goes my 01:00 mind boggling and word changing musings:

I’m scared

You see, my fellow bloggers, the thing is that from since what I can remember, I’ve always been afraid of myself. If this statement raises your brow, please calm down. This is not a case of me fearing a split personality wanting to kill of people.

I’ve always been afraid of really being me.

I think this is a true curse that comes from being different. In this case my difference is my sexuality – but let’s face it, society has dictated that it’s a difference and not me. I think this has from an early age crippled me beyond a point where I spent so many years of my adolescence trying to be someone who I am not. Disassociating with the different feelings was maybe some form of survival, just as a butterfly needs to be a cocoon or caterpillar to survive. If it was not the bullies, it was from the haters out there who wanted to break me and make me conform.

Let me tell you, for a young gay child, the worst is being told to one thing when deep inside you, you die a little each day not being who you really want to be. This is a torture and hardship not many people won’t ever understand. On it’s own, this fear is mostly out of someone realising who you really are and breaking you down again or the people who love you rejecting that what you truly are.

Even after R’s suicide, I was robbed of a lot of who I was at that stage. He left, taking a huge part of me and who I was with him. This on its own has created a fear within me. I lost a lot of who I was in one untimely demise… Years of trying to become a person who can stand in the light and not be afraid…

After this, I had/have had a huge battle with trying to overcome that fear. I didn’t want to build up myself again, to just have it all be robbed from me in an unguarded moment.

Fear crippled me. I was stuck in my cocoon. I didn’t want to come out.

The tiring fight

It was not until recently that I stopped fighting the fear, everyone, society and life. 

Inside me, I became so tired of trying to walk down a road that was becoming more self destructive to what was left of me. I had not yet really stepped up to the game after R’s passing and I was still afraid of life. This was clearly evident and I think a lot of people dealing with me saw this. I don’t apologise for this at all and I’m actually thankful for this limbo I was stuck in. It gave me the appropriate time to heal and become stronger – more importantly it served as a wake up call as to the pending questions that were really left in my life: Who am I? What are my plans/goals? Where to now?

I think it was during this period of reflection that I grew tired of the cocoon. I had wings and I wanted to test them out – I was too tired of being afraid and I was too tired to really care what others think.

Life lesson: At the end of the day it is what you think of yourself that really makes the difference. You can’t expect the world to hang on every word you say if you don’t even love yourself or remotely believe in yourself.

Resurgence 

So, here goes. I’m done with the cocoon. Even though I’m scared shitless, have a million questions and emotions rushing through my head and I don’t have a clear plan in mind as to how and where to go forward from here, I do know that I’m ready to throw open my wings and do what I know I can do best. Fly.

I’ve done enough hiding, surviving and barely breathing to get sick of just barely living life. The bumps, bruises and aches are all a part of life. Will I get hurt again? Yes. But this time I’ll be able to fight back and do something I now know I’m well equipped to do with everything inside me.

The main goal in life shouldn’t be to just survive. It should be to fight back, stand tall and be an unstoppable force. Me being classified different by society is whats exactly going to make me, me and the world throwing punches my way with loss, grief and heartache is tests to see if I’m still the brave fighter I’ve always been.

Life. As scary as it is, it’s a beauty on its own and deserves to be lived.

The Beating of a (new) Heart

We were dancing in the club. It was a normal night out for me and my three dearest friend. Laughs were exchanged, smiles wide on our faces. Fun was the order of the night and for once I was offering to be designated driver. I didn’t mind – the company was excellent enough for me to have a good time without a drink.

Later the evening Mienke (my best friend and nothing short of a sibling to me), and I were dancing on the dance floor. It wasn’t particularly packed, but the drunk youngsters around me were in their own universes. In our universe, Mienke and I were dancing and letting go after a stressful week.

It was as if we both combusted into a thousand stars when one of our favourite, and probably meaningful songs came on.

This song, Pumping Blood, was originally done by NoNoNo and was covered by Lea Michele in Glee. [Side note: I prefer the Glee-version]. Mienke and I stumbled across this song during a time last year where R had just passed away and I was looking for some form of hope. We both agreed that this song would play again one day when I was okay and every lyric would make perfect sense.

Music is an important element to my life. When the creative side of me is taking over a great span of my head, music calms me, quiets me, or silences me for a few minutes. When I need help, or a pick-me-up, music has always been the magical cure.

So, when this song came on, we danced like there was no end to the world.

In one part of this song, the lyrics go something like:

“‘Cause it’s your heart,
it’s alive, it’s pumping blood,
And the whole wide world is whistling.”

For some time now, these lyrics has signified the new chapter I’ve begun writing on in my life. After a depressing, troublesome and heartbreaking year, I’ve now come back to a point of familiarity. From here, I’ve now realised that my broken heart has been mended and that I’m standing taller than ever.

My blog over the past year has contained many entries about my struggle and continuous feelings regarding R’s suicide and how it’s hurt me in many ways. It’s been a journey that took me to where I am now and I’ve always tried to share the lighter side of every struggle with you all. I really hope I have.

Today, I want to tell you, that even in the darkest times, believe. In it’s purest form, belief keeps your broken heartstrings and pieces alive. When you heal and glue your heart back together and one day find yourself at the dawn of a new day, then you will pat yourself on the back for believing in yourself – even in the darkest of times.

There is nothing more rewarding than standing tall with your new beating heart after a punch that life threw your way. It’s satisfying and oddly cocky to stare at life and let it know you made it up that steep mountain.

I still remember putting my hand on my chest on 27 May 2014 and not feeling my heart beat. It was devastating and soul crushing at the least. But as I was dancing away in the club with Mienke, I felt my new heart beating faster than a speeding train.

The beating of my (new) heart has confirmed what I have suspected for some time now: I’m a survivor of Life’s dark side. And with that being said, I’m ready to start venturing into this new chapter of my life and share it with all of my fellow bloggers.

A huge thanks to each and every person who has commented on a post with kind words and encouraging messages. You all made me stronger and made me realise my full worth and potential.

Now.

Upwards, onwards and onto a new journey.

[My friend Mienke and I – It takes 23 years of friendship for someone to tell you: “I’m glad you’re finally smiling like the rays of the sun, my love.” ]

*365 days later*

Denial. Bargaining. Anger. Depression.

The four friends I have come to known in the span of year’s time. Sucking the life out of me at times, infuriating me beyond compare, driving me beyond the edge of sanity and letting me dwell in the darkness…

It was the four friends I have now come to say goodbye to. I no longer need their company. They have become strangers – isolated from my life.

These “friends” are also four of the five stages of Grief.

Elizabeth Kübler-Ross created a model for grief years ago. We all know the story – she was surrounded by patients in a hospice who were terminally ill and she noticed how everyone had these four “friends” by their side. These stages were also noted in people touched by death.

Now, a few hours shy of the anniversary or my former boyfriend’s suicide, I have come to terms with four of the five stages of grief. After a troublesome, tumultuous and sorrow ridden year, I am now at a space in time where calamity seems to be surrounding me more and more.

If you ask me if I knew this day would arrive… I will blankly stare at you and say: Nope. I gave up on that hope the day I stood beside his casket.

Life has since passed and time has not stood still for me. Time seems to be the only constant that has moved on with me for now – other things are still to come. Change is on the horizon. Peace is knocking at my door. A new me is dawning and acceptance seems to be introducing himself to me.

Confession: I have been afraid of this day for some time now.

Would I be ready? Would I be equipped to face acceptance and feel strong enough to pursue it? Was it worth all the tears, pain and broken pieces of my heart to come to this point and not leave this chapter of my life satisfied?

Well. Guess what. Not ready. Far from ready.

I still hate him with a fiery passion. People seldom try to understand it all, but they rarely understand why I am so quick to hate him while all his other loved ones still scrape together love for him.

I hate him for calling quits on his life, friends, future, loved ones, family, soul mate and…me. No one ever expected anything from him, but only to live and share his sorrow with other’s. He never did. He kept it hidden, like many other secret lives he led. The secrets upon secrets that tore him apart has tore me apart. And not just me… Everyone else who gave a damn about him.

I’ve fallen out of love with him and this hatred has grown to become an overpowering emotion to help me through each day.

Where I thought it wouldn’t be possible to even remotely survive, hatred has powered me through a day with the constant reminded that I can’t give up hope or call it quits, even if I wanted to. I wanted to prove to him that it’s possible to go above and beyond pain, without giving up.

You might stop me in my tracks and reprimand me that I’m far from acceptance. Right so. I won’t fight you on that.

I am however going to challenge you on the points that I am ready to step into the dawn of a new light.

As this sullen day passes, I’m no more the boy who’s boyfriend killed himself. I’m no more the widow. I’m no more the grieving son, the friend with a bag of sorrow on his shoulders. I am a new person to take on the world by storm. A new dawn is waiting for me and as far as I’m concerned, I’m ready to embrace that.

I might not have come to terms with most of R’s death, but I have come to terms that we are not longer an “us”. It’s only me now.

Me.

Only I can move on now and make my world a fantastic place to live in. In this lies the acceptance I speak of. I have accepted the pieces of my broken heart, the lies that tore me apart, the hole and huge gap left in my life with R’s passing and the sadness that has taught me how to live closer to my own fractured pieces of my heart.

Acceptance. It comes in different forms and as grief has different stages, I’m ready to close this chapter in my life.

Stepping into the light of this new dawn, I’m ready to say goodbye to him and hopefully, soon enough, drop the hatred and keep him in a special place within my heart.

Curate those words carefully

It’s one of those lessons in life that I had to learn the hard way. You know, those lessons that leave you so drained and wrecked that you literally question every moral fiber of your existence. A lesson that I certainly would never forget.

Words are the building blocks of history, society, people, relationships and evolution. So much as words and actions go hand in hand, words are still those powerful weapons in your arsenal that you have to look after carefully. While your mind is filled with thoughts, it’s words that make up these thoughts and hold more than enough power to devastate a small country at most… (Ed note: maybe I was being a bit too dramatic there… At least maybe a small community?!)

I had to steadily learn that in life you can’t drop words like hot potatoes and expect people not to run and hide for cover or hold out their hands to scoop them up like ice cream. First problem being that you shouldn’t drop them like hot potatoes, second problem being that you should always carefully think what you want to achieve with words.

It was the night before R committed suicide that I came to realise what purpose words really play in our lives.

We were out for dinner with someone he knew. (ed note: I refrain from calling her a friend, as the lesson of this tale is that you should curate your words properly and she is not worthy of being called a friend.) At some point during the evening he asked us both what method of suicide do we think would be faster: carbon monoxide poising via a hosepipe through a car window in a shut garage or a makeshift barbecue an enclosed space. I really didn’t think much of this, but didn’t answer his question. Our companion at dinner went on to elaborate her theory. I just sat there.

I waited till she left for the bathroom before I turned to him. He rubbed his face in the familiar way he use to when he was stressed. I was half dreading to hear what was eating at him, as I had been expecting for a few weeks now that he was ready to end our relationship. But, the comment he made seconds ago was picking at me and I dropped the words like hot potatoes.

“What’s up? Are you okay? One does not simply ask that sort of stuff and there’s not something going on. If you need to talk to me, then you should do it. I’m listening and I’ll help, but I refuse to entertain such talk.”

My words weren’t really that carefully curated. They just fell straight from my brain and I was left to just sit there and receive the backlash he was about to give me.

“Stop being such a freakin’ drama queen. Just keep quiet and stop worrying about things that aren’t really there.”

The words dropped on me like bombshells and pounded me. ‘Till this day I still don’t know if it was the icy stare or his tone of voice that hurt me, but all I do know is that both our words weren’t carefully curated at all.

So, the night went on and I was still left disturbed by the conversation.

The Monday afternoon was the last physical written talk we ever had. Our last texts were me joking about him still being alive and him joking back saying “it’s just as luck would have it”.

It’s only today that I am left to realise what importance words hold in our lives. When we do not attempt to curate them carefully, we drop hot potatoes to the floor and at the worst throw bombshells towards people we care about the most.

Words hold a powerful, significant and subconscious impact on our brains even long after they have been spoken. Not a lot of us realise this and as a result people have been left broken, hurt and shattered due to the wrongs words having been spoken.

In this day and age where hatred, sadness, hurt and pain are precursors to every day we roam this planet, we need to start finding a balance in curating the words we speak a bit more carefully. Maybe this is just me thinking wishfully, but I’d love to see us a human race curate the crap that comes out of our mouths at times…

*sigh* In a perfect world hey…

Caution – Landmine ahead

In a blur, almost 31 days of the first month of 2015 had passed by and I was still reeling and trying to hold on for dear life. This year had started with a bang and
I was probably still in perpetual bomb shock from the event. It still didn’t seem like a month later. Wasn’t it still New Year’s Eve?

Facing a stark reality, I was facing another one that was looming around the corner: Valentine’s Day. February the 14’th was less than a month away and in my current state this was even more of a shock to me. The day I had been fearing is rapidly approaching and I had no idea to cope with with might come, follow or happen on that doomed day.

A year ago I was in a relationship, happy, content and enjoying the company of the most wonderful guy. Now, I’m “widowed”, alone and partying up a storm around town. What a stark constrast and a prospect that could have anyone facing Valentine’s Day in the face think of emptying a bar just to numb the pain.

Fuck.

It’s 8 months later since R passed away and after a brief hiatus I’m back on the blogosphere to type away my feelings. Since my previous blog, lots has changed up inside my head. The emotional rollercoaster I’m still on seemed to have reached a brief pause and everything I was feeling has slipped away into thin air. The anger and resentment has now moved out momentarily and made place for a little of the Old David to just reclaim some normalcy and stability to his life. My life.

Somehow this had become my window to the world around me, magnifying it’s gaze on the empty shell that has been left to fend for itself since R comitted suicide. For the first time in a while I was asking myself: What is it you’re planning on doing now? A question with no easy answer, but one I was willing to investigate for sure.

This whole new outlook had something to do with the fact that it was a new year where I could embrace some sort of new beginning and leave a huge chunk of what had happened last year in the past and start writing off that chapter as a loss. Although I have not made much progress on adopting a new plan, New Year – New David, I had begun thinking what it is I want to get out of this new year and that alone seems good enough to me. The actual challenge was now to put this over in actions…

But why was I mortified by Valentine’s Day, you might wonder. Well… It’s not the fact that I’d be spending it alone as so much as being reminded of the fact that I was with R last year and now I’m not. It felt to me as if this reminder alone would halter the plans I was trying to put into motion to move on and reclaim a bit of my life back.

In each time period, there was a certain event or date that would seem like a landmine in my road to reclaiming myself, that would pop up and blow up in my face and also blow up any progress I’ve made. Each time I was left to just pick myself and the pieces of my heart that I had been carrying around and just try and venture on again.

You might notice why I’m scared shitless of Valentine’s Day aproaching… This progress I’ve made, that was so valuable to me, was going to be blown to smithereens and I would have to head back to the drawing board again, just to have the next big reminder and date explode in my face.

Another startling realisation: I’ve hence become scared of living. Hideaways and secret forts has become my solitude, keeping me safe and cushioning the nasty blow
each time. But, being so safe each time is what has been irritating me and pushing me to start making new plans and think of myself again. Was I being a misogynist? Was I doing this to myself and was I stuck in a viscious circle?

What I knew was: I hated being safe and hiding, making excuses and lying.

All I wanted and needed to do was to wear my scars with pride and keep my head held high. And with each landmine, I just need to keep going and leave whatever plans and progress I’ve made that’s been blow to pieces and just keep rolling with the punches.

It was maybe easier said than done, but I was done of hiding from life.

Life, with it’s drama’s, up’s, down’s and flair was something I was missing out on and the one thing I cried about really hard these last few weeks. I’ve mourned a dead boyfriend – I didn’t want to mourn the loss of my life as well.

It’s easier to hate, than to love (right now)

[29 weeks]

I hate him.

With every inch of me I hate him. He left me, he chose to do what he did and leave and hurt everyone around him. He spared no memory for one single moment as to how much we love him and would do for him.

He hurt me. He ripped every inch of me and walked away with a huge chunk of me. Without my consent. How was it not possible for me to not hate him? I mean, seriously.

It was easier for me to hate R, than to love him.

Let’s call a spade a spade and say that I might have finally moved into the “anger” stage of this grief process I’m moving through.

Crossing off Denial and Bargaining off the list, I guess Anger was my new friend.

I’ve hated a lot of people in my life and used much energy to hold a grudge, but never before have I hated someone like I’ve been hating on R lately. This was a new, surreal type of anger that filled every gaping void of pain within me and surged out at any given moment when I would hear of someone talking about R or mention him. The look I would get in my eye once ago when someone mentioned him, was now something of the past. This anger was here to stay for now.

Although I knew this was coming my way, I really didn’t anticipate how severe this hatred would be. Surely, we all know how powerful hate is above love and longing, but one can never be too certain of the power it will hold in your life once you’ve gone through something traumatic and serious as I have.

The dreams I have been getting of R, has not stopped altogether. In actual fact, it’s become worse and resembling psychological torture at best. My anger and hatred has spilled over to the dreams as well and I would often wake up in pain, finding myself punching the wall or throwing my pillow over the room. In a way, the dreams were a blessing in disguise. I could vent the anger towards him, even if it was a memory of him.

Looking at my life as well, it seemed that the hatred had started consuming me on another level as well. A portion of me still had love for everything and everyone I chose to keep close to me, but this virus was making me burst out more and attack people often. Under a careful guise of “standing up for myself” , I’m starting to fear that this hate-virus would start to take unnecessary and uncalled victims pretty soon.

I’m just glad of one back door this hatred and anger has thrown wide open: an open mind.

This has allowed me to still keep track of what I’m doing and foreseeing that this might become a problem. Luckily I can now call myself out on this problem before it consumes me.

Also, it’s easier to hate, than to love (right now).

Love required me to feel every painful reminder of what he’d done to me and that he’s not here anymore. That I miss him and everything he’s done for me and that I won’t ever get to see him again.

Hate allowed me to make room for something less painful – one emotion that could shut the door on all the others. It was in actual fact way more easier to hate than to love.

In grief, there is no easy way to follow suit.

This was a battle that I would survive, with a few more life lessons in tact.

I have to survive, right? I just have to.

Dream a little dream of me…

[26 weeks]

There was an intense stare. The words reverberated through me. My heart was racing and my fists were clenching tighter. It was a fight that had started for some absurd reason, but it seemed like it had a purpose. Like it was happening for the right reason and that whatever was being said, needed to be said. His eyes hit mine again, trying to stare me down. I remember them, the same way as they stared me down the last time we had an intense fight.

I shook violently awake. It was a dream. A nightmare? It was a dream. I tried calming myself, but it was 03:00 in the morning and the darkness, tears rolling down my cheeks and the emotions flooding over me that was far more overpowering than me seeking refuge from calamity.

This was not the first dream I had of R. But it was the first dream in which we violently fought over everything that had happened. It seemed so real to me that even as I sat in the dark room, breath racing, crying, I felt like he was there beside me. Waiting for me to retort and him to dish out the next argument.

I laid my head back down. It didn’t help to lull myself to sleep. The damage had been done. I stared at the ceiling. I suddenly longed back to the glow in the dark stars I had stuck to it when I was younger. They always calmed me down…

The next morning I hopped onto the train. I could feel the dream still rattling on my cage. I couldn’t remember what we were fighting about. It was like I knew we fought, but my brain was somehow cocooning me against the already painful experience of a ‘fight’. As I sat down in the seat, and I looked out of the window, my tired brain lost it’s grip and I got a flashback from the dream.

I wasn’t fighting at full strength. The hatred was there. Anger was plenty and the resent was flowing over the cup. But, somehow I knew it still wasn’t the full capacity at which I wanted to fight with against R’s decision to end his life. Something was keeping me back. I also saw how I let him march over me and try and pilot my feelings and arguments. I shook my head as to physically try and force the flashback to dream out of my head.

An entire day was spent on the dream. Analyzing it. Analyzing it some more. Trying to put it out of my mind. Trying to remember some more.

That night, I got home and felt like I had just ran a marathon. Plopping myself down on my bed, I started once again at the ceiling.

Before I closed my eyes I took in a deep breath, jumbled the words I wanted to say around in my head and summoned the courage to talk to R.

Surely enough, I was choking the words out.

It was like a steam engine. At some point, I was gasping for air and I felt a bit stupid that I was talking to the walls and expecting my dead boyfriend to listen and hear me. But, I powered on.

When I was done, I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

This time, I dreamt I was walking along the V&A Waterfront and browsing the stores. Soon enough I spotted R in the dream. He was sitting on the docks looking over the water. I was hesitant to go talk to him. I didn’t go talk to him. I left him on the docks…

I still feel guilty to a great extent for not being there enough for R before everything went down. That he might have been throwing so much signs my way and been crying for help and I just chose to turn a blind eye. In a way, this guilt wracks me and I don’t know how to cope with it.

I just wish I could turn back time and make more of an effort.

I miss him…

[23 weeks]

I’ll never be able to feel his arms around me. Hugging me so hard that it almost felt like he was trying to put all of the broken pieces together again.

I’ll never hear him laugh again. Never hear him jokingly calling my name or sucker punching me if I made a lame remark.

I’ll never see him again.

It may be five months late, but the pain still hasn’t lessened and it hasn’t lessened as much as when I come to realisations like these.

And to make matters worse: As much as I hated R for leaving me behind, I still love him so much. I’ve watched countless Disney movies, but none of them have ever had a curse as powerful as this: one where you could hate someone with everything in you, but at the same time be able to love them with every last shred of light in you.

Of course, the second I heard he had passed, I started missing him. It was like all the cells in my body were inching to be with his and started aching when it couldn’t find his. And about 23 weeks later, it’s still not much less of a challenge to control the surmountable pain I experience when I accidentally think of him.

What isn’t much of a challenge though, is making the words: “I miss him”, become background noise in my head. Even when I think of him and the longing to be with him flares up, it’s not as bad as when I realise that he’s not here and won’t be returning anytime soon.

23 weeks later it’s becoming more of an occurrence where I started feeling him drift into the nothingness inside of my mind. In clinging onto him and his memory for dear life, my own mind had begun fooling me by shrouding some of the memories of him into becoming vague pieces and fragments my mind couldn’t conjure up anymore.

This in it’s own was a longing I couldn’t explain. A longing to just have one good memory that wasn’t cloudy or vague.

Even though I keep building sandcastles in my mind, imagining him to be alive and living his life, there are times Life has a funny way of reminding me that he had passed away and then I was stuck with this new, all too familiar feeling, of missing him.

After 5 months, I don’t know what else to do but miss him.

Crying won’t bring him back. Being angry wouldn’t bring him back. Hating him wouldn’t help. Would missing him help me?

All I know is, I’ve never longed to touch his hand or hug him one last time more than in these last few days. And I hope he knows how much I miss him.