and, then, when the day of departure itself came, i was a daze. a walking cloud. refused to talk to anyone, especially those i considered closer or i cared about. barely acknowleged those i don't, those not privvy to how i was feeling. oddly enough those that weren't close or i didn't care as much about made up the bulk of those who asked about how i was. so it got to the point when, sitting in my living room for the last time, i was asked by someone i did care about and i thought was closer to me, i was too far gone to respond.
sat on the chair, walked around the apartment, laid on the bed, sat on the balcony floor, thought, listened, nothing. brought my luggage downstairs, out by the street. the last time i would be standing there, and of all things i decided to open up my suitcase to dig out the strap that was meant to be attached to the handle of my suitcase. it was meant to allow me to pull it along without having to lift up one end of the case, but what possesed me to notice it at that instant i will never know.
of course, i was the first on the bus when we could board. i couldn't take it any more, i didn't want to stand on the sidewalk and slowly contemplate the life i was leaving and the life i was headed back towards. i didn't want to buy cream puffs that would just make me miss the place more, right away. i didn't want to speak to anyone, do anything, i just wanted to sit and, as it turned out, cry my heart out.
i don't know if anyone did, but it was of no concequence if anyone noticed anyway. what could they have done, but offer their concern or lame enquires of "what's wrong?" anyway?
every-bloody-thing was wrong, dammit.
in the week before departure i decided to, against my better judgement, watch the series finale of Six Feet Under on my PowerBook, under the comforter, on the bed. it was comforting, but the ending depressingly sad, and made even more so by the excellent choice of Sia's "Breathe Me" as the soundtrack for the finale scenes, where they play out every character's death, intersped with Claire's Toyota Prius driving her away from her family, towards New York City.
Song 10: Claire leaves for New York. Everything Ends.
Sia : Breathe Me
guess which particular song i put on repeat on my iPod right after i got on the bus? i had her debut album and had already fallen in love with the song. i don't know how it happened, though, and whether it would have happened if i'd chosen something else or went without my iPod altogether, but like the clichéd dam bursting, it all came out. for the entire hour-odd ride to the airport, i let everything seep out, and bleed out, and cry out.
don't ever let it be said that you haven't seen me cry, if you weren't looking when i did.
when the airport loomed, i shut down. realizing that time wasn't going to turn itself back, the bus wasn't going to make a u-turn, i would have to get off and board the plane that was going to take me a step back towards the great nothing that was my birthplace, i switched everything off, got my luggage, collected the passports, and pushed myself on.
and that was supposed to be the end of that, but i guess i haven't yet let everything out yet, have i. right now i feel like i'm going through some weird menopause/mid-life-crisis kind of breakdown, except it's happening much slower than it's supposed to. when moods change often enough to confuse yourself, and you're paranoid, and uncomfortable in your own skin, you often anticipate a physical change to accompany that as well, and failing that you hope for something horrible to happen to compeltely devaste you and legitmize how you feel and let you show how you feel.
failing even that, you take things into your own hands.
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