Sleeve

For these couple of years I try to write again, and it’s not as fluid as it usually comes as when I was younger and a little bit more naive. I guess it comes with maturity, to put walls around you—or so I like to imagine my life as a video game, where we have this milestone that increases as we experience more grief. We hit that milestone from getting hurt and walls are upgraded from timbers to concrete. Pretending we’re fine. Self sufficient. Happy. As if we conform to an unwritten rule.

I wonder if we were all born as a lover and raised as a fighter. We’re told not to feel too much, to give love moderately. Why is it so embarrassing to text first, to ask people to stay, to show up the earliest to a party, or telling a family member that you love them? I wonder if we can still use the Asian household card in this day and age. I wonder if we’re all loved the way we needed to be, and if we are not, is it all the reason why being the one who loves more makes us so ashamed?

I wonder if there’s something to do with me. Was it because I was teased due to the way I carry myself, or because that one comment that struck me as a teenager, “Hey, you know what, your face looks weird.” Is that what I was doing, working on myself this hard, to discredit all the mean things that were collected in my milestones of wall upgrade?

I wonder is it because I don’t want to face the music, years trying to give others the love I want to receive. Simply because I expect them to do the work and love me back. So I give away parts of my self in hope they’d return theirs and I’ll finally feel whole. That the very milestone was necessary leading up to this day and the abundance of grief will finally make sense.

I wonder if my bravery has been diminished as my walls getting stronger. It’s so much easier to run and trip as a child, expecting you’ll waltz gracefully as an adult. Now the waltz feels more like a tip toe for me. As if I was in danger, and that I was running out of time.

If it’s not the sleeve, where do I put my heart on?