Tragic Ending

by Victoria Liu - in memeory of trip to NY 8/99

Feeling tired, edgy and extremely aware. I want to cry. I did cry. Stress, I tell myself. But there is definitely something more. Stress that would lead me to cry without any particular reason is not a good sign. I’ve been there once, when I was fourteen. I was under tremendous stress. The end of the summer. Sitting at the back deck I was crying because I thought that I’d fail. Three week later the results came back, I ranked number 1 in the class again. That very same summer, I regrouped. After grades were posted I was happy like a clam. I didn’t want to think about what I felt a few weeks before. Academic life had been my own savor in those days.

Years later, I didn’t think I’d be in the same situation again. But the stress level is indeed different, and emotions are a lot more complex.

First of all, I have come to a conclusion that to love someone at this stage of my life is a far-fetched statement. There are too many factors involved. I cannot be happy until I’ve resolved some childhood problem. I’m competitive, more than anyone else I know. I am extremely sensitive and emotional, but I hide the emotions well. I’m stretched too thin at this point in time. I am about to crash and burn.

I have only loved those whom I cannot have. I dig long distance romance, ever since I was very young. Men whom I had infatuations with had always lived in different provinces or states. It never failed. As soon as someone becomes available and nearby, I get irritated and inevitably bailed from whatever relationship I had with that person.

Some of the emotional problems, deep rooted problems cannot be solved without external help.

That means I need to see a shrink. It’s the same old problems resurfacing over and over again. I cannot continue to live my life the way it is until I completely destroy myself.  I need to figure out a way to solve these problems.

On the plane ride back, I remembered those moments where I did cry during my trip. Walking in the park didn’t help. Seeing the concert didn’t help. Visiting an old friend in the Village didn’t help. Nothing HELPED. At night when every living being was asleep, I cried. I cried because what I want I couldn’t possibly have. I had loved and lost.

On the ferry I picked up a local newspaper. He laughed. He knew why I did what I did, only very few people still remember the agonies. Ironically I stayed friend with that man, I just simply cannot face him. Still the proxies exist in my life. Like the subtle things I’ve done in exchange for the love that I cannot have. Like going to Italy, like learning Italian, like flying to New York, like dreaming about one day moving there. I can’t help what’s hurting inside of my heart. I never could deny the pain though most of the time I just tried to hide it.

Eight months passed. Four years have gone by. But love, love is not something you could simply explain or forget. It’s like the forever darkness.

“But you are brave.” He said.

Brave? I ask myself. No, not brave, simply because I can handle the pain it doesn’t mean that I’m brave. I’m heart broken. Never recovered. Never did, never will never could.

Therefore all the proxies linger in my life. Therefore I cry when I drive home from Palo Alto every night. Therefore I cannot overcome the permanent loss.

I am not happy. The higher I go, the less happy I become. Funny how two men can completely reshape my entire love life. Funny that others can not penetrate my heart like they did. My very own abandoned castle. My very own broken heart.

I had not thought about the love that was lost until I stepped into that land, seeing the yellow colored license plate.  I had felt like vomiting all over again. So what is passion? What is indeed eating me alive? I don’t know. I am not getting any younger. I am at a stage where I should be happy: a great job, a nice property, a set of close friends, an income that is more than comfortable, abundant opportunities, attractiveness.

But I’m not. I am trapped into a darkness that was so severe that my heart is broken over and over again, by the same shadows that covered my past.

I would never ask him how to say “I love you.” in Italian.  I would never tell him that night I cried, after he was sound asleep, I would never tell him when he made love to me that night furiously as my tears trailing down my face, soundlessly I see millions of stars. I see death. I couldn’t tell him that I couldn’t love another soul again because of him, and all the shadows I chased were only a bare reminder of him. I couldn’t because he would never understand. He never did.

That feeling never did go away. That feeling, that same uncontrollable passion that once destroyed me never did go away. What was buried deep last winter resurfaced like it was never in the hiding.  I couldn’t tell him, like I could never tell him before. Instead, I cried because my sense of defeat, was so unreasonable, I cried because I had managed to open the wounds, once again, and I couldn’t close them this time. I am indeed dying. Dying slowly, taking all the air out of my lung, watching me fading away.

Was it your hand that was holding me? Was it still your lips on my very own? Was it your same precariously playfulness that made me suffocating? Or was it simply my own sense of tragic. I shall never love again…

This time, I know for sure - I shall erase all memories of Boston, Cape Cod, New York, New Jersey, Key West, Napa Valley, San Francisco…

I shall go to the Mountain Tam, visiting the old Zen Center, burn the incense, as I watch myself dying.