The State of Things

The beauty of semi-running a blog like this? I don't know. This blog is not linked to my FaceBook account. So maybe I feel like it grants me some degree of personal freedom.

Hello new visitors! If you're here for my JaeVon FanFic, check back for the next update. This won't be of any interest to you. The next Chapter is on the works. Hang tight lang.

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Life is GREAT. Stressful, but great. I've been happy so much lately that I'm scared of what may lie ahead. I'm feeling sentimental, yes. But undeniably grateful.

Today is Septermber 12th, and around this time 10 years ago, I was emotionally battered and spent. What with the years and years of parental discord, several years of my parents being MIA due to working abroad then later rehab for my dad, and just the general sense of growing up like Princess Sarah in Miss Minchin's dorms, I was broken and disillusioned. This was when I started to believe there was no God.

But I found solace in some new friends.

Friends that I had to leave behind right away because I moved to Canada...

It hurt me more than I thought it did. Leaving and losing what little I had, I felt like I had no identity. Like I've been robbed. But I hoped for the best when I moved here. Fifteen and already disillusioned with life - but I dared to long for change. Something positive. My Dad was off the drugs, they both had good jobs, and for the first time in as long as I remembered, we were together as a family. Things were looking up! But things spiraled down so fast before I even realized I was drowning... And then I was under.

I was down so deep I didn't even want to struggle anymore.

I was young, and overwhelmed, and there was pressure from all directions to deliver things I was ill equipped to deliver. Everything was falling apart before my eyes and I blamed myself as the tirades of onlookers fell on my ears. I was told how useless I was so many times I began to believe it. I was told so many times how bad I was, that I started to tear at my core to figure out how to fix whatever was wrong with me. I found nothing... And instead I decided that nothing was right with me. I watched as my sisters suffered... And blamed myself for that. Watched as my parents got accosted by certain people, and blamed myself for that too. Every single hurtful thing anybody ever said or did to me, I accepted - fully convinced that it was my punishment. It was karma. I was just too stupid and useless to realize what I had done to earn it all, but I was sure I must have done something. For 5 years, I endured. Until I decided to move out and for 2 years it seemed like life has finally found status quo. I was perfectly content with my minimum wage job. I had a place to stay, I had a job, I could feed myself. I did not ask for more. But there was the bonus: the boyfriend. I moved to Burnaby to be with him. We were happy!

But things came crashing down again and I had to return to Calgary. And to say that I was bitter would be a huge understatement. I didn't know where I would begin. I almost didn't want to try again. My family was back in shambles, and I was tired. My boyfriend dragged me through all that mess until I could stand again. He dusted me off and held on to me. The storm passed, and the long road to recovery was ahead of me. I was optimistic - but I got screwed again. Thousands of dollars in debt, and not much of a foreseeable future. It was disheartening. The plan to eventually go back to Burnaby kept getting pushed back until I had to tearfully accept that it was never gonna happen.

He moved back to Calgary to be with me.

And we had our troubles... Specially in the more recent months... Wonderfully, the fights were never really about us. It was always something else. Other people... Certain circumstances... But never really us.

And now we're getting married in less than 2 months.

I'm happy and secure... And it's so surreal to remember how it was and compare that to how it is now. I still cry in memory of those years. Listening to the songs that were my anthem once upon a time, I cry. Joyfully now. Appreciating the contrast. Remembering the bitter taste, but relishing the absence of it.

What did I ever do to deserve this much blessings? This much love?
A part of me still worries. I wonder if some filing mistake in heaven granted me all these things that were not meant to be mine, and one day someone will realize the mistake and rectify the situation... And I will be back wherever it was that I was meant to be instead. Probably alone, nobody to take care of and love me... Miserable. Constantly abused and used... Still disillusioned with life. Void of any sense of goodness beyond fiction.

This fear is what keeps me so appreciative of everything. It's the reason I can never really worry about petty things too much. The thought of worse things etched into my brain make me see everything in a much brighter light. And I really could not ask for anything more.

If one day I wake up, and all of this, everything was gone, at the very least I could say I relished every moment of it. Atleast I had this for a time. And I will still smile.