Say Something Loving

I think this is just going to be some sort of open journal kind of post. Apologies if things are messy with no real point to it.

In the past couple years, I've been learning what it means to be human, as stupid as it sounds. It comes from a place of antisocial behaviour, improper upbringing, and more to the point a drive to figure out what I lacked in myself to be a “good” person, whatever that means.

But lately, symbolic rituals have been of particular interest to me. Things like leaving flowers on a gravestone, doing things in honour of someone, and listening to the favourite songs of a passed loved one.

“Stupid” and “pointless” were how I described such acts back when I was a little younger, a little more cynical. Now I'm finding them increasingly powerful and meaningful, transcending the limitations of words and soothing the very depths of our emotions.

The tangibility of performing these symbolic acts externalises some of the indescribable feelings I've spent the better part of the past four years trying to contain. By creating physical manifestations of my emotions, I've been able to “let go” in a certain way. It's cathartic.

In a way, by performing these acts, I feel that it bridges the past to the present. No longer do I feel like I am to leave my memories in the past, where I would have to struggle to retain their presence in my present mind.

Despite the benefits, I do harbour a fear of these rituals overshadowing the very memories they were made to symbolise. I'm afraid the vivid recollections may go as I further enrobe myself in the comfort of these rituals as a coping method, to experience without experiencing so to speak.

For now, I'm more than happy to visit places of significance, to listen to music that makes me cry, to write letters to dead people, to express love and gratitude in funky physical representations. I'll do whatever it takes to heal, to manufacture some closure. Otherwise, I'll go mad.