I Used To

Something is happening to me. Internally, there is this change deepening.

I used to get sad a lot, unbearably sad. I used to cry a lot about the temporariness of life and of all of the things associated with life. I used to ponder over how fast everything moved and believed everything was fleeting. I would shed tears as if everything would change its mind and stay around forever instead (if it pitied me enough). I could only write to sort it all out. I could only write to speak to it.

I wanted to know the truth from every person I met. Thanks to my eagerness, I met many people. Luckily, most people were happy to share themselves and I received some rare, beautiful glimpses of the truth I had set out to understand. I miss those people. It’s not that they are gone. I just miss people and the moments I spend with them, though I no longer cry about this.

I used to desperately need people to love. I needed them to love more than I needed myself.

I used to spend my most favorite waking hours lost within this great appreciation of love for another and another. The more I felt, meant the more I was fulfilled. I realize now my own ability to love without details was a great force. But now, even more importantly, I realize how even greater those details can be. Still, I live and learn and love again as those things tend to happen.

I look back now and laugh at some of the ridiculousness of my own thinking. It’s true, I swooned only after finding out the best in another and another. but the longer and stronger I cared for populations beyond myself, suddenly I was the one who was empty. How did overpracticing an act that had always filled me up become what could conquer me?  I guess it was a slow becoming. Now I am finding acts to heal me, repair me to a new, better state of being.

Though through it all, I remember the times in which I would be the sole admirer of the best in another. I used to stubbornly defend what I knew to be true. I couldn’t help it. I had convinced myself. Strangely, those would be the times when I felt the least alone. Deep down I think that’s what I’ve always wanted the most.

It’s funny how your own certainty can make such pleasant company.

-Diana Tan Domantay 03/15/2012