After Decades
It is rather obvious that I used to experience profound hunger for affection and attention, especially after almost two and a half decades of living in a different kind of loneliness.
This particular hunger, something that is shared by many but misunderstood by the people around you, eats away at you. It whispers to you in your sleep, questioning your self-worth by trying to find a reason why there's a huge gap next to you where a warm body is supposed to be. It talks to you when you are trying to concentrate performing a certain task, questioning your self-worth by trying to find a reason why you are executing it on your own. It terrifies the living shit out of you by implying that you would never be able to feel fulfilled in your life without having anyone that could soothe your soul. And this hunger taught you one thing and one thing only: you have to do and be everything for yourself—even after years of convincing yourself that one day a saviour would come. Someone that would lift me up from my knees, after dragging myself and scraping every inch of sanity off of myself.
Yet, after almost two decades, I was still alone and I could not accept the fact that I am, indeed and in fact, my own saviour? That for years upon years this little girl with wild hair and wide eyes were once the only person in her life that saved her. That her overflowing tears and blood-shedding wounds were tended by her own nimble fingers. That she was simultaneously the knight in gold-plated armor and the damsel in distress. That she was apart from herself. That she planted her own seed for growth and cultivate the environment that surround it so that at the very least (God please be it) the seed could nurture. That she fanned herself while sipping iced black coffee and also she donned layers upon layers of clothing while cupping a sizzling hot tea. That she got herself to so many elsewhere in which more often than not the locals looked after her as if she was their own, caring her in the ways that people in her life back home couldn’t possibly do. That she structured her life based on a wild thought of “what if I am more loved elsewhere”. That she preferred to stroll in a concreted sidewalk that’s wide enough to fit a bus rather than getting on said bus. That she once was brave enough to breathe in different kind of air—crispier and cleaner than anything she had taken in back in the wilderness that is her home country. That she took her time to read, everything within reach was devoured without anything left to satisfy her ever-growing palate.
And that finally, she doesn’t need to do all that alone for she had found the only one person that would fight alongside her and that she doesn’t have to take care of things on her own anymore. That she has her own saviour now. she no longer needs to be everything all at once.
And she needs to learn how to accept that.
Yet, after almost two decades, I was still alone and I could not accept the fact that I am, indeed and in fact, my own saviour? That for years upon years this little girl with wild hair and wide eyes were once the only person in her life that saved her. That her overflowing tears and blood-shedding wounds were tended by her own nimble fingers. That she was simultaneously the knight in gold-plated armor and the damsel in distress. That she was apart from herself. That she planted her own seed for growth and cultivate the environment that surround it so that at the very least (God please be it) the seed could nurture. That she fanned herself while sipping iced black coffee and also she donned layers upon layers of clothing while cupping a sizzling hot tea. That she got herself to so many elsewhere in which more often than not the locals looked after her as if she was their own, caring her in the ways that people in her life back home couldn’t possibly do. That she structured her life based on a wild thought of “what if I am more loved elsewhere”. That she preferred to stroll in a concreted sidewalk that’s wide enough to fit a bus rather than getting on said bus. That she once was brave enough to breathe in different kind of air—crispier and cleaner than anything she had taken in back in the wilderness that is her home country. That she took her time to read, everything within reach was devoured without anything left to satisfy her ever-growing palate.
And that finally, she doesn’t need to do all that alone for she had found the only one person that would fight alongside her and that she doesn’t have to take care of things on her own anymore. That she has her own saviour now. she no longer needs to be everything all at once.
And she needs to learn how to accept that.