It’s 2:30 AM and I just finished watching Dunkirk.
Yesterday was a horrible day. The nth this year. 2019 is a horrible year. Ah, scratch that. There’s already too much negativity around without me adding onto it.
Rephrase.
2019 was not as wonderful as 2018. Yesterday was one of the many days this year that I felt so tired of life. I wanted to cry even though I cannot cry anymore. I think I’ve used up my quota of tears shed for this year even before the sixth month was up. Haha. 2019 is a year drowned in tears. There were heartbreaks, disappointments, and frustrations. On the other hand, it is also a year of reckoning. Of knowing new things, reinforcing long-held beliefs, and struggling to remember and relive what I have learned the year before.
The latter was an afterthought earlier today as I tried to cheer myself up. It worked for a few hours with the help of a sushi dinner. And then the gnawing negative feeling came back late in the evening. The feeling is not new to me—wanting to share your burden and also holding back at the same time—but this time, it felt strange. I’m no longer as used to it as I was five years ago. 2017 to 2018 made it so. Those were good years. If before, I struggle with sharing my misery, meeting the friends that I made in 2017 made me realize that there is no shame in reaching out to others.
So, reached out I did. I finally replied to some messages sent by friends from weeks and days ago with one same line: “I’m so tired with life”. Not the ideal conversation starter, I know. It took a while for some to respond. After all, not everyone is online at the same time as me.
And then something funny happened. Someone replied right away. Someone who rarely goes online and probably responds to WhatsApp conversations thrice a year.
Brishan.
I found it funny because Brishan almost never responds to anything. He usually lurks and reads messages in the chat group but never replies. Then again, he is always willing to lend an ear and share his thoughts every time we have the chance to talk.
I just think it is amusing that he popped out just as I finished watching World War II Oversimplified on YouTube and was about to start watching Dunkirk (y’know, for continuity. Hehe.) Mere coincidence but then I took it as a sign.
A lot of things happened in 2019. In a way, there are experiences that made me move forward only to find my place exactly where I was before in 2017. But then, remembering the goodness of 2018 and the place where it all happened sparked a tiny ray of hope. All I have to do now is to fan it so that it grows.
When I told Brishan that everything seems futile, he said that "everything can and will feel like that sometimes." But it isn’t and that we should look at the wonderful moments or times in life. He also told me to write my frustrations.
Which brings me here. And to mention Dunkirk again.
The film is a two-hour spectacle of reliving the frustrations that the soldiers have felt during that time. Its theme revolves around one thing: going home. Home. A place of comfort and security.
At the end of the film, the soldiers are inside a moving train. I felt a small tug in my heart seeing the checkered dark blue seat cover of the train and a fresh wave of nostalgia came rolling in. What really is home? To someone like me who had lived in different places and have never stayed in one place for more than five years ever since I turned sixteen, what is home? How is it that Manila felt more like home than Cotabato City like how the UK felt more like it than the Philippines? It also made me think: how would I feel if ever I return to England? Will I be happy? Will I be sad? Will it bring the excitement I felt when I first arrived or will it drown me with loneliness as I remember things that once were?
Whatever it may be, I have to keep going so I’d get to the day when I can answer those questions.
All these realizations and uncanny timing… of watching a war movie about a British historical event that is both a defeat and victory… of talking to a British friend with Irish-Spanish ancestry and drinks from a horrendously ugly England Football Team mug… reminded me of the paradoxes of life. And a gentle reminder to take it easy.
2019 is a year of giving up, letting go, and moving on. Yes, 2019 is a struggle. But so is every year. 2017 and 2018 were the exceptions. 2020 could be harder but it’s nothing I can’t handle. I just have to take it one day at a time.
I am probably not making sense right now. But here’s to writing your frustrations and attempting to make sense of things at dawn.
It’s 3 AM and my brain is half-dead.
I shall go to sleep now.
No comments:
Post a Comment