Aida's Ramblings of a Random Mind

You wonder what it feels like.

It feels like blackness.

Like the dark side of darkness.

It feels as if my body’s a shell, and the entirety of my strength is pushed into putting on this face, this farce to the world, where the strong, resilient person that I used to be still exists – not the weak excuse that I have become. It feels as if I am split in two, where a small part of my still rages with the ineffectualness of my other self, while the other me sits wrapped in this blanket of apathy, not even managing to muster the strength to respond to the rage within.

The feeling is enveloping, and only manage to cope by putting my energy into this facade, and by forcing my mind to deal with one thing at a time – one thing at a time.

It feels like a struggle for the most menial of things.

To wake up.

To take a shower.

To have breakfast.

It feels as if enjoyment has been sapped from every aspect of my life, from the simple, beautiful joy I used to get from the pleasures of food, to the enjoyment of seeing friends.

It feels like life is a dead zone.

I force myself to do things that seem normal, but I no longer receive the satisfaction that I usually get from my interpersonal relationships. I’ve shunned writing because my words drip poison, and the very act of saying what lies within seems melodramatic, torturous – like the melancholic, repeated excess of a person walking that fine line between reality and their own version of normality.

What is normal anymore?

It feels like a dead zone.

He tells me it feels like a fantasy and I feel exactly the same way, wrapped in this beautiful bubble of bliss and ignorance, suspended in a reality of my own choosing.

I want to tell him it is my fantasy, not his, for he still has one foot planted firmly in life, whereas I am just hiding within my own fears, wanting life to pass me by in this exact moment, wanting to lose myself and hide behind this wall of insecurities. I want to tell him that I like the moment, because it makes me feel safe, because I know when the idyll is over I will have to face myself once again.

I cannot say the words.

The world seems so bleak at times, from the dull skies to the cold morning fog. It drains my mood before I even have a chance. The way I feel is not abnormal, it is seasonal, and comes and goes with the cycle of the four seasons, and I can anticipate the beginning of the blunting of my emotions, and withdrawal,

I want to be Rip Van Winkle, and sleep for a hundred years and let the world pass me by, because at times, it feels exactly like that; as if I have lost track of time, and months have passed in the blink of an eye. It feels like a struggle trying to remember when I have last spoken to the ones I love most, and a struggle trying to keep that momentum.

This too shall pass.

We all have our challenges, and this is mine.

And for the moment, I look at him and smile, knowing he will be my anchor in these tough times.

I thought I was unflappable. It usually takes a lot to shock me.

However, I found myself blown away a month ago when a stranger called me up to ask me out. It wasn’t the first time I’d been asked out by a stranger. It didn’t faze me at all that I barely knew this guy, considering my habit of talking to strangers.

What really fazed me was the fact that I’d met him the day before. With his wife and children.

I knew he was married.

He knew I knew he was married.

And he still had the cheek to ask me out.

I accepted at first, not realizing it was a date, not thinking his wife wouldn't be there, not until he said, “Oh, we’d better keep this quiet.”

I faltered on my side. “So your wife’s not coming?”

“Oh.. I don’t think so. She’s the jealous type.”

…

Of course she’s jealous idiot, if you’re the type of person to go off and hit on strange women!

I’ve had too many friends whose homes have been broken apart due to infidelity, and it is one of the things that I would never put someone consciously through. As he spoke to me the images of his sons flashed through my head, children so young they probably wouldn’t understand the pain their mother was being put through, and I had to choke back the wave of revulsion.

I couldn’t believe he had the cheek to call up a person and ask them out without any disregard for his wife or children.

Guys like that make me want to throw up.

The writing came hard and fast, dripping of the point of a pen that was struggling hard to keep up with her thoughts and she cursed the inability of her physical self.

There were too many words, too many thoughts, and she felt burdened by the responsibility to pen them down and shout them off rooftops, her thoughts of revolution and change, of morality and vice, and it had been eons since this passion had overtaken her, but it had awakened with the ferocity of a slumbering beast who had awakened hungry and wanting, and with it was the crushing need to feed.

To feed on the minds of others, but with it, to cry their messages across the lands, to the ends of the earth and back.

Her pen was her sword, and she would be the Mistress of Salvation.

She would enlighten those who cowered in their ignorance, who turned their backs on the advancement of the ages, who feigned their lack of knowledge, and she would not rest, not willfully, while she still held her pen in her hand.

The pages stare emptily back at me.

Silent.

Lonely.

The empty, forgotten pages once filled with words that mattered to me.

It now lies silent, like so many blogs out there in the cyber world, websites once filled with the passionate words of others, but like so many others, forgotten once people go on with their daily lives. It has been oft too many a time I click on a link I once used to read, only to see the same entry I’d seen months ago.

Sometimes I wonder what happened to those who used to write, those nameless, faceless individuals who I knew, and yet didn’t.

I wonder if they have moved on with their lives.

Where they are now.

What they’re doing now.

It’s strange how you can feel so connected to strangers, to people you’ve never met, strange that .

Perhaps one day this blog too will lie forgotten. Unwritten.

But for the moment, I wonder – and thank those out there, for the many times I have been immersed in your words, for the many times I would escape through your lives. The voyeur in me thanks you, albeit, with a sense of wistfulness.

There’s a lot I have to talk about, but it seems so rare that I actually manage to write something about the things that truly matter.

It’s the things that touch me every day in my life; the thought of family and friends.

Being so far away from the city, travelling so much for university and this sense of being uprooted has brought unwanted changes, a slow distancing typical of all of us being caught up in our own lives; something that reminds me too painfully of the time when we will all start work, and inevitably lose the same relationship we held in our carefree days of pre-work.

I feel as if I barely kept in touch with the people who were once so important in my life; that sometimes it felt like I was reaching out to strangers to people who lived but a stone’s throw away.

It felt strange, that in times of need, I refrained from nearby friends, because I felt I had no right to infringe on their lives any longer due to my long absences, instead choosing to call those who lived an ocean away.

I suppose it’s a lesson learnt.

Time needs to be put in, and I only have myself to blame for the distance I feel.

To those who were once so essential in my life, I apologize – I’m not entirely sure what for. Like the rocks eroded by the sea, sometimes, the only that does happen is time, but for some reason, I feel like I should be apologizing, that I am somehow in the wrong.

For those who were there in those darkest hours of my life, I am truly humbled and amazed by the support you’ve given me; despite most of you being so physically far away.

To my sister, the strongest link I had to home, thank you; and I can’t believe it took us all these years to finally share with each other the details of our lives. This is the type of relationship I have always wanted, and I count myself lucky that I finally have had it.

Thank you for holding my hand throughout 2008.

I can only hope I’ll be able to do for you what you have done for me.

Now usher in 2009 – with a vengeance!