Falling down the rabbit hole

Yesterday was the first time in a year that I cried my eyes out for no apparent reason.

Well, it wasn’t really for no reason. It just began with me not knowing what the hell I was sobbing about.

I was all ready to head out for a party. Hair done, clothes on, shoes laced up and everything. Then, all of a sudden, a huge wave of unexplainable dread and sadness swept over me like a tropical flash flood. Caught completely off guard, my tears started falling uncontrollably, and try as I might, I couldn’t stop them. I was sobbing like a baby in the middle of my room.

Instinctively, I closed my door so my parents wouldn’t hear me.

I was an absolute mess, a complete contrast to the composed version of myself just seconds before. My mind tried to make sense of it all as my body’s need to cry completely took over.

What is wrong with me?

Ever since I came back, I’d been feeling a growing emptiness in my heart. I felt lost.

I thought it was because I couldn’t adapt back to life here. I thought it was because I had fallen in love with other lands and people overseas. I even thought I had somehow become too good for this place.

I thought, I thought, and I thought.

I gave myself countless reasons to justify my inability to be happy here. And as I did, the void in my heart only grew larger.

Slowly, I changed.

I became more insecure, fearful, whiny and complacent. I also found myself indulging in unhealthy distractions, trying to fill a void that I didn’t even realise I was creating. I was going down a rabbit hole built from my own lies and excuses.

Then, in the middle of all that sobbing, it hit me.

If I really am the traveller of the world I like to think I am, shouldn’t adapting and assimilating into changing cultures be part of the journey? My own country included?

I had been lying to myself.

I had been running away.

Beneath the glammed up image of a seemingly carefree vagabond, exploring the world whenever and wherever he pleased, was a scared little boy running away from home. Running away from reality.

All the armour I had spent so long building while travelling amounted to nothing the moment I returned home.

I had been preparing for the wrong battle all along.

Perhaps I did discover something important while travelling. Perhaps it was life changing. Perhaps even inspiring.

But I realised that discovery does not equate to understanding.

I wasn’t able to fully appreciate the beauty of everything I had learnt and experienced because there was still a clot in my heart.

A clot I had never removed before I left Singapore.

I was still hurting from my previous relationship.

Not because I hadn’t gotten over the person. I had.

But I hadn’t gotten over the breakup itself.

I was still grieving the loss of all the hopes and dreams that had become inseparably tied to that relationship. I had invested so much into it. I was ready to settle down. I was ready to spend the rest of my life with it. I was ready to die with it.

When it all ended, I shut down.

I thought I had moved on, but what I had really done was lock everything away somewhere deep in my heart under the guise of false bravado.

It had been quietly simmering throughout all of 2014.

Last night, it finally came to a boil.

As my final tear fell and the streams on my face became stains, I knew what I had to do.

It was time for me to step back into the light.

“Until you get comfortable with being alone, you’ll never know if you’re choosing someone out of love or loneliness…”