"Everyone of us is losing something precious to us," he says after the phone stops ringing. "Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That's part of what it means to be alive. But inside our heads -- at least that's where I imagine it -- there's a room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in a while, let in fresh air, change the water in the flower vases, in other words, you'll live forever in your own private library."
- Haruki Murakami (Kafka On The Shore)
Lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. She asks for change, for us to adopt what is new and good. I look at her with a straight face and tell her, I'm sorry but some things are already set in stone. I've stopped wishing for closeness since I was in primary school. That was the same time I stopped chasing her whenever she ran away from home. The same time I stopped crying when she threatened us. The same time I defended myself and made a home outside of these veins that only poisoned and suffocated us. I now wish for civility. For politeness. For distance. What was once a natural instinct has been reprogrammed to defend, and is now all I ever am capable of feeling. I am in little control of my body's mechanism. I still twitch when she reaches over to touch my shoulder. My body still burns up in discomfort when she touches me and I can't move away because we're in a prayer circle with others. And I continue to reject every single thing she says or does even if everyone around me tells me she's the best, the kindest, the most gentle. This is not how my body remembers her.
My heart remembers breaking so often that it will no longer allow her to enter. My mind remembers all the threats and sleepless nights trembling in fear. My skin never registered her touch and so repels her cold fingers. But don't get me wrong. I am not unfeeling, I am actually a really affectionate person. I love deep conversations, hugs, touch. But only from people my body has registered and is familiar with. I miss my guardians so much. The ones who have been protecting me and caring for me and saying all the right things because they know me so well. I text them every night. But I regret how I'm reacting towards her. It's not that I want to, it's that I can't help it. She can't help it either. She wants something she lost, but it is lost for good.
This trip made her realise that she doesn't know me at all. That I am a private person. But I am not, at all. I share everything, with people I allow. She doesn't know me, nor my friends, nor what I like, nor what I'm capable of. She doesn't know I've been cooking for myself for years, she doesn't know I love to read, she doesn't know I like to write, she doesn't even know what I like to eat. I trust my friends more to send me things I need than to tell her what I do. I'm not sad anymore, I don't feel like I lack. I feel like I've gotten so much more in return, love that overflows. But somehow this love can never be passed on to her. Politeness, yes. Kindness, yes. But not love.
Distance is good. The brother says that distance really helps toxic relationships. When I'm far away from her I think about treating her better and talking to her nicely. But when she's here, all the time, trying so hard to get close, all I want to do is repel her with every ounce of my being. Sometimes I wonder if I'm not getting better because of all this anger in me. But I don't want closeness. I want civility. Distance would help, I really believe so.
I miss my guardians, I think of them every night.