Three Losses—And What I've Gained from Them

Honestly, 2016 had been a year of immense gain—and loss—for me. Those that had known me for a long time will definitely notice how much I've changed, in a better way. 

What's about to be read actually came from a very personal experience half of me is reluctant to share, though some of my writings do come from a personal experience, I never actually talked about them the way this post is going right now.

What I'm trying to share is that there were three crucially profound forms of loss I've encountered, and from the start of the year I've strongly stemmed the notion that everything follows the expansion of the universe—whatever happens is always for the best, they are always meant to expand us, and even though it hurts, in time, things will definitely get better, and we'll finally understand. So the test starts from here.

After going through losses of someone, some being by choice, some by fate, of course there was a great deal of grieving, but I don't want to linger and make a home under the shade of despair. So I went through a delicate process of taking deep breaths, pulling myself together then pulling myself away from the shade, reaching to the other side of despair to try to find the light of it all. Since "things will definitely get better", I believe the pain will dissipate and be renewed by a positive enlightenment. I believe this situation will end up making a bigger whole of me instead of leaving me empty—and this is how the poems came out. 

Through these writings, I preserved what I've gained rather than what I've lost. 


One
A Prose, September 13


Letting go is always difficult.
It's about leaving someone behind
to become part of your past; the place
that constantly moves further and further away
while the only way to keep living
is to go forward.

The pain of enjoined hands, enjoined flesh
splitting apart.
But here's what I learned:

Our past isn't merely an old skin to be shed as we grow,
it is an embodiment of our becoming.
It's a part of growth itself
because it plays a role on shaping who we are.
And this, I'd figured, is the best way to hold dear of those
that has left us.

This
is their forever place in us.


Two
A Note from my Diary, November 9


My baby Monki (my kitten), you may not be here anymore, but you've left me with something I could keep forever; a magnified ability to love unconditionally, to love without words, to love freely.


Three
A Prose, November 19


If you choose to leave, I won't stand in your way. There will be no tears, no blaming, no begging—not a sound but the air in rust and a dying luster between our distance.

Before you leave, take one last look at these hands settling on your release, these forgiving eyes on the disappearance. Take this image as the closure of everything we were once of, before you drive them away to the place of minutes where dreams die after waking up. Yet, like dreams, one memory will stay lingering in the softest, fragile parts of you: How I was never the one who walked away.