there once was

I miss you, 2014. You were so trying with A levels but at least I felt okay. Perhaps I wasn't exactly the happiest, but at least I felt driven, motivated, somewhat passionate, and surely purposeful. Now it just feels like I live day to day hoping to get by, not really looking forward to anything much, feeling mostly anxious of what is to come instead. Perhaps there wasn't much that I had to look forward to either back in 2014, but at least I had little fear in me about what the future would hold. Nothing extravagant to boast or celebrate about, but at least it was a continuous okay. I could live with that.

2015-present, it is as though I just ricochet between being incandescently happy one moment to crestfallen the next. There is a certain tightening in my chest that feels all too familiar now. First comes the nightmare that knocks at my subconscious mind. Second comes the whispering from the subconscious to the conscious mind. Next comes the awakening; the awakening to fear as a reality. Then comes the crime itself where the heart seems to pulsate with terrifying vigour before it struggles and then stills. Finally come the tears that are no longer a stranger. Even getting by an entire month without crying at all seems considerably luxurious now.

Maybe I don't have to be perfectly happy, if it indefinitely comes with sorrow. They say that without the bitter the sweet won't be as sweet, but maybe I could do without sweet. I could live with just bland if it promises the absence of bitter; I could just be okay – if I could be perfectly okay. Is that settling for less? Just to be okay? Just to be simply breathing and getting by? Maybe, but at least I would be able to breathe well, consistently.

Then again, growing up, 2015-present, has been kind to me. Growing up has given me someone so, so special. I don't think I have ever enjoyed the company of someone else this much. We could spend fourteen hours together and feel like it wasn't enough. We could do absolutely nothing together and it would be the most fun I would have in that entire day. The other day you apologised for dozing off when we were watching Harry Potter, but I really don't mind. I don't even care. I love talking with you, of course, I love it when you are awake. But you could also doze off on me and it is perfectly fine. It is better than fine, because you are right there beside me. You know, you really make me feel warm, full and safe. We have agreed on this before, but you, you make me feel dichotomised and detached from the rest of the world. Whenever I am with you, it is as though everything else quietly fades into the background, then halts, and only we are left spinning on the centrepiece. You make me feel like a dream or a movie, but better, because it is a dream, a movie, a fantasy in reality. I don't have the right words to describe what you are to me, how you are to me, and what you make me feel, so I will just keep it as that. All I know so well is that you make me the happiest I have ever been in these nineteen-twenty years.

But also the saddest I have ever been. And I don't hate you for that – I can't. You make me the saddest because you mean the most to me. There is no one else I fear losing as much as you. In fact, there is nothing more I fear than watching you slip through the gaps of my fingers, and that is why I grasp on so tight and clench my fist with a grip firmer than ever. You make me feel safest when you are around, but you make me feel the most afraid when you are not. Perhaps afraid that you might forget and not return. I am happiest with you around, but I am saddest when you are gone – it is so cheesy to say but I miss you the moment we part and walk in different directions, widening the gap that sits pretty between us. Oh how I hate that gap that seems to mock right at my face. Even when it isn't there, I hear it nestled somewhere deep in my skull: I miss every moment with you even before they begin. My mind immediately rolls to the part where the moment ends and it is time for us to say goodnight. I am better at preconceived nostalgia than you think I am. You said once, 'I clearly remember there was this moment when we were hanging that I subconsciously thought to myself that I'm gonna miss hanging out with you when I go back, and true enough...... Now that I'm back home, the ACHE is real.'. I know exactly how that feels and I feel it all the time. You make me feel so sure that I am unsure. As I have said before, it bewilders me that anyone would do all that you do for me, so much so that I can't help but ruminate on the possibility that this could all be a dream, a very good dream, that would smatter to the floor one fine day. I cannot imagine a future in which you are absent. I don't doubt you, I doubt I could ever be of such importance to anyone else. And I am sorry. I am sorry because this doubt and insecurity (I hate this word) could very well be the destructor of my life's greatest gem. And I am thankful. I am thankful because you are so patient, so compliant, so gentle with me. And again, this leads me back to more doubt. How, how, how, how, how could anyone be so good to me? It is stupid, so stupid, this self-defeating cycle. I want to see how irrational it is, but for now, it seems almost as logical as it is irrational. It is stupid, I know.

So thank you, for being the very best to me, and I am sorry, for questioning, for doubting.

I know what is happening but I don't know when it will end. But I am confident that it will end some day because my Saviour, the holder of my heart, keeper of my mind, is faithful to save. Until then, I am not strong enough for the both of us, but I know that He is, and He will keep us.

And in the more short term sense, I cannot wait to see you again tomorrow, but tomorrow must never end. After a short weekend, it is another two weeks of confinement...... WHY ns, why