Prose before hos

 If you tell your friends that you miss me

Or that if they ask you to stop and focus on your work, your job

than my boss and me combined on what caused it— I wish I could go back in time and bottle that concern

I lost 2.3 kilos in a week. No, I didn't starve myself. I was even waiting to binge with you on your birthday but about that...

I'm down with a bad tummy, I should stop eating mushrooms for dinner daily

I finally felt cold today in the cab, the AC was getting to me. The fan in my room is running at 3 now

I'm PMS-ing and want to kill someone and my period is late by 3 days

I cried because my cab driver took the other route I don't like— going to work yesterday and coming back today. I think I also cried cause I know I am mad at you but I'd rather just cry and be angry than find a way to unpack my emotions

I cried cause I know I have to tell you this isn't working for me and I'm sure for you too

I really need to get off these medicines, it's driving me insane

I am deeply fucking disappointed in your empty promises and I don't know how you don't see you're hurting me

It took all my willpower to not lose my cool at you yesterday, I don't think you'll know or ever realise. It's my fault, I keep taking things because I don't have the bandwidth to fight

I don't like the fact that we swept our last two arguments under the rug, without a thought. It was just easy to brush it out and parking it for another day

I think you're taking me for granted

 I am having a nervous breakdown. Does it last for over 48 hours?

At least it feels like it. Or if my therapist is to be believed, it's a great sign that I'm crying and not shutting down because it means my brain is trying to process grief and emotions. 

To be fair, this won't be the first or the last but in a way, it's huge and significant and oh my god I can't breathe well. 

I think I need a sage cleanse. A tarot card reader, someone to blame for my problems would be good. 

One day you're writing in your journal how you are your own priority and everything has to happen according to you and the next you're breaking apart cause someone's son realises you might be a handful for him and he might have to pull the cord. 

For the most part, this is on me for not communicating and completely shutting down, dumping it inwards like it's great and fun and games. The fact that I am driving myself sick is probably known to 3-4 people in the whole world and besides my therapist, nobody really knows why it's driving me insane. 

A lot of it takes me back to my childhood, of keeping things to myself and going in over my head because the only reality that mattered was the one I was living; it didn't matter what was happening. 

However, this gets translated to a whole fucking anxiety attack as an adult, where you are second guessing things that may or may not matter—a good night text without an emoji, a morning without cuddles, side hug at the airport. I spoke to someone I trust with my life and they asked me to shut the fuck up and stop overthinking (as I should) but it's also good to pad yourself with a reality that nothing should be taken for granted and people can rescind affection for no rhyme or reason and that they don't owe you anything. 

Ah fuck, Roman Roy at Logan's funeral. Fuck. 

Also, I don't recommend Juggy D's Instagram in the middle of the night between a breakdown. It's insanely positive and you'll begin to wonder if there's meaning to life besides eating donuts and drinking water. 

What a Summer. 

Something about the poetic justice of experiencing the lowest lows with incredible highs. This time, it was all too personal. A loss on one end is a gain on the other. 

I recall telling myself through most part of last year that perhaps I have a person in my life to teach me more about myself but it's also, in some ways, compensation from the universe in the absence of a desk job. 

Guess, who's got one again? 

A part of me is relieved that I can stop the sporadic job hunt but at the same time, the luxuries that come with being a freelancer are all traded to accommodate travel to a different city, in formals and putting 12 hours of your day, every day, even when your brain is begging you to take a break. 

Then there was that other thing. Grief. It hits you when you least expect it. If the last two weeks were the highest highs and feeling extremely motivated, today just hit me like a brick in my face. Something about the last two days the way they were building up, made me feel like howling and writing, while I could do neither. The grief of losing people comes at you like waves when you're on an island alone. If the waves carry you into the sea, there's no one to rescue you. You're on your own to get out and stand up and make your way to the sand. I'm currently trying my best to hold on to the sand but it's slipping between my palms. All the distractions, presents, and love can't help you if your mind decides to torment you with reminders of life as it once was. 

This has always been the case, something that a character I disliked articulated well; how we don't know we are in the good days until they become the good old days. This sense is carrying like a burden on my shoulders. Is this a good time and if this is it, then why am I reminded of the other good days? 

Someone recently told me that the wheel of life turns for people and perhaps mine is advancing and making a move to an upward slope cause I ended a toxic relationship, closed channels of communication and decided to move ahead, and thus the universe decided it was the right time to make the other move upwards. I don't know if that's the case or that I am going to be burnt out so bad that I will need a whole lot of therapy or for once everything will be a-okay and there will be road blocks but nothing that I can't handle. 

I've been privileged to be able to do what I did for the past two years and several times during the last decade. I'm probably the first generation kid who has a therapist to help me regulate my emotions and help with coping mechanisms for my nervous system to work as best as it can in the given circumstances, I had the luxury to pursue a research degree while making no money and then I had the luxury to be a freelancer for over two years in an economy where businesses shut and people had to find alternative careers. I fully understand and acknowledge that no generation in my family had such luxury of time and space to pursue the things I did and yet, there's a part of me that wonders if the decisions I made in the past and today are all co-relating or am I going to regret them all. 

These past years, I've had more regrets than I could count. Truth be told, the wheel was at the lowest where I reflected on everything I have done for the past 15 years, since the time I started this page. Every single academic, professional and personal thing has been processed multiple times. I've been ruthless to my old self in some places and more kind than ever in a few others. In all, I feel the intentions were largely positive and that the decisions were made as best as they could have been in the given circumstances. 

In these three decades, I find myself being coddled a lot and while that's not a weakness in my case, it's proved to be a good marker of where I need to work. Even if that realization kicked late, I know where I have to push myself today basis the terrible decisions of the past and where to draw a line. I don't know all of it but I know some and hopefully, it'll be a good start to the next decade of learning and growing from it all. 

One of my favourite activities in the last few months has been a very interesting thing— I post situational questions on Google and get answers. These questions could be vague; case in point—

"narc discard"

"do narcs come back after they find a new supply"

"narcs relationship boundaries"

While the others are a tad bit detailed—

"any regrets if narc partner cheated and we broke up"

"narc discard final signs"

"can narcs have meaningful relationships with new supply"

"narc dating new supply does he think of old supply"

To an adult who grew up with the dial-up internet in the country, it may seem like an abhorring waste of time, but to me, it's working better than any other coping mechanism. You'd imagine I am researching a new book or something when in reality I am trying to make sense of a year-long relationship that was such hogwash, I couldn't see when I was being lied to, cheated on, gaslit and my favourite, stonewalled. For a year, someone did everything in their capacity to emotionally control me, manipulate me and guilt trip me into doing things I would never do and I found only love to give out. 

It's also surprising that I, a notorious commitment-phobe, once again found myself hanging on to every word of a man because he made me smile and laugh and helped me feel good for like maybe a week in my life. If I go back to recounting everything this assfaced clown put me through, the bad outweighs the good and all that I am left to ask is, do I really hate myself so much that the first person I entrusted my faith to and let my walls down for turned out to be a lying, cheating piece of shit, a whole walking narcissistic red flag who can't keep it in his pants? 

Knowing me, I would Google this question in a clearer, short format: 

"trauma bonded with narc how do I move on?"

The only good thing about this end is that Google has answers to everything. Well, most things, anyway. Google told me he's done with me for good cause I have figured out his game. Google also told me he's admitted to the infidelity cause he is done with me and he chose to tell me cause I serve no purpose. Google informed me that he is never who he says he is; he lifts his personality from other people and everyone is expendable to him and serves the purpose of making him shine. All of this is true. Even the no personality bit is true (him using her expression of disgust, yuck).

What makes me wonder about this entire situation is is he aware of what he's doing or is it a mental illness and that he sees no reason? His lies, hypocrisy, inconsistent stories, his claims of being "single" while he's sniffing the depts of her armpits virtually, it's truly a sight to watch even when I have drawn my blinders in all directions. Like a peacock would flaunt his feathers and dance, he does the same to show his mentality. "Look ma, no hands" and jumps up and down on a couch to show her love and goes out of his way to prove he can't get enough of her. 

Part of me sees nothing to blame her but the other part is clear- she knows, she knows. She, obviously, knows. It doesn't matter whether she does or not but because she does (cause nobody is that dumb, we know what's happening here; he's gaslighting her about me and he gaslit me about her; he's telling her I am unstable and that poor guy had to suffer so much and he's using that state of vulnerability to flirt with her and she flirts back cause he laughs at her jokes and likes her shit and so on). Basically, she knows it all. I've never met a woman in 30+ years who has not known when a guy is being friendly or hitting on her. I've seen him play this game with me and now he's taken the extension to her. Leftover. 

Knowing this isn't enough because somehow Google cannot help me know a relationship, especially one between them that's built on the graveyard of my memories with him:

"how soon until he makes sure she says I love you?"

"Does she know he has a massive mommy kink and that he's into her cause she's a less hot version of me?"

"Does she know that he has an old Indian woman kink and that he looks at her like his mommy?"

"Is narc's new supply better or worse? How do I get out of there"

Some questions cannot be answered by Google and only your time and experience can help you with closure. I am fully here for it. 

There's a rat caught in the rat trap in my room who is gnawing at a piece of old bread. There's noise and anger and also a sense of "what the fuck why am I here?" We share that with each other. I feel like I am trapped in a world where I have no business, I am being fed stale crumbs of news and I should just want to bite and run but no, entrapment is the life here. 

If you think the rat could Google, would it ask for the strategy to leave the rat trap to cause havoc in human life or would it ask to run in the opposite direction? I feel like a rat trapped in a cage with stale food. I hate it here.