Crossing the frame

This past week has been an emotional see-saw, due in no small part to my cousin's impending departure. It's an odd feeling. Almost as if I'm mad at him for leaving. Angry that I can't spend more time with him. Anger which stems from a separation anxiety of sorts. It's a childish, selfish anger, like that of a kid who feels wronged and wants to lash out in revenge, regardless of the consequences or whether he's right in feeling the way he does. Of course, social and Christian norms mean I should obviously let go of this maddening irritability I feel. Everything I've learnt about normal socially beneficial behaviour dictates that I must relax and let it go, lest I do or say something I will regret. I'm supposed to just deal with it.

But I'm angry. Or maybe that's too strong a word. Rather, I'm just irritable; I've never been a hot-tempered person, and I rarely get angry. But I've also always been someone who holds onto emotional attachments, and it has never been easy for me to let them go, regardless of any sort of facade of well-being that I may put up. Over the years I've learnt to loosen my grip on my attachments, if only because it's healthier and for fear that my stranglehold meant losing them. But that does not mean I ever let go.

And it's not that I'm tearing apart at the seams or that my world is falling down around me. Far from it; I'm actually fine. But I cannot shake this feeling of affective malaise that seems to have settled in the pit of my stomach, like a hand has reached in and grabbed my heartstrings and it's tugging them slowly but surely, to an inexorable conclusion that I can't see just yet. Plus it's not helping my mood much.

If you're lost at this point and have no idea what I'm yammering on about, it's alright. I've never been an easy person to understand. God has blessed me so much, but as happy a person as I am, I can be kind of intense at times and even emotionally fractured and needlessly complicated every now and then (though I suspect it's more often than not to do with my vocabulary than my personality). You see, all these big words I've used thus far are basically the expression of a realization I've had in the past few days--

I hate goodbyes.

By Chester with 4 comments