# 56 || Petrichor (n.) the smell of the earth after rain.

I.

Hypocrisy has forever been one of my biggest fears. The idea that I could potentially pass judgement onto another soul for a sin that I too am guilty of committing — that terrifies me. Which is why, unless my emotions get the better of me, I contemplate just about everything, I turn every thought and notion inside out until there is no way it couldn’t possibly not make no sense (triple negative???!!!). But within those twisted thoughts, there hides the devil in the details. And now something that was completely coherent at the beginning, through over-rumination, is now complete lunacy. There is my second worst nightmare — misinterpretation and feeling wholly misunderstood. I think psychological solitude is one of the most terrible sensations I have ever experienced. When I was a very little girl, I realised I had the tendency (albeit infrequent) to become moronically obsessed with certain possessions, places and / or persons. This habit would only ever delicately reveal its madness, and being a child, people would often think it darling that I would beg to see the same film at the cinema several times, bringing a different doll with me every time. Her name would often convert to whoever my favourite heroine was at the time. Between make-believe friends and infinite stories about a petite fille with long hair, ten brothers and sisters, three cats, two dogs, a bird and a rose garden, I never had a lot of time for reality and the untimely blow that is real life and the inconvenient truths that accompany growing up and figuring out the world that we live in.

II.

I’ve now come to realise that it’s not so darling to convolute one’s dreams to the point of self-destruction. Growing up only refined my imagination to a somewhat gluttonous manner of fantasising which fed my faith that everything really would be okay in the end. Which is why I’m left so desolately confused at why lately my heart feels so heavy I can hardly retrieve the bravery I need to remember why it is we wake up every morning with the courage to love and learn and locate the light that is supposed to make everything worthwhile. Maybe this is just another one of my existential crises but I just can’t find the light. The strangest thing is that I remember where I left it but when I went back to find it, it was no longer there. When the void seems infinite and insatiable, I don’t know what else to do, or where-else to turn. There is no band-aid, there is no kiss-it-better. Because when all the tender emotions melt away, all that’s left is an indescribable hollow ache of not feeling so distressed anymore but in its place is some kind of sinister sea filled with something dark and forbidding. Every morning, I wish the monster would swallow me whole.

III.

x

# 55 || IL Y A UNE LIMITE À TON AMOUR

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Dear _ _ _ _,

Retrospect won’t help you here.

Once upon a time I thought that there were so many billions of people on this earth that there was no way the emotions vibrating through my head and my heart could possibly be unique. For all the books that I’ve read and the songs I’ve listened to and the films I’ve watched that illustrate love and loss and tears and joy — they all spoke of that void ( and the infinite pursuit to fill it ) so eloquently, I really believed that I wasn’t riding alone in this carriage on board this train of thought. The limits of just about everything will never cease to impress me. I always believed anything and everything magical would trump all things scary, sad and solitary. The notion that happiness isn’t infinite, has been the most acute wake-up-this-is-reality call that I have ever experienced. In what world is there a limit to love and time and nights that made you so happy you thought you could fly? I don’t believe you can lose that kind of perspective - for every broken heart, for every winter night, for every nightmare, they would never have to re-occur for me to take the indescribable love, the summer days and the jogging gorgeous daydreams for granted. 

All the wisdom and well-wishes in the world couldn’t possibly take this ache away. If anything, the copious distraction leaves a trembling sensation of apprehension in the pit of my stomach. Diversion is unsustainable, but when even the truth can’t save you - what will? Maybe it’s the fleeting kindness of strangers, your to-do lists and all their neutral purpose, the sunshine peaking in between the clouds and thoughts from across the sea. If it’s not enough to convince you that life is worth falling in love with, perhaps it can help you keep even one thread of faith that it isn’t all as bad as it seems.

Isn’t it bizarre that at the centre of the world, emotions are more powerful than the truth, than reality, than the tangible sensation of the sun, the air and the skin of somebody brave enough to conquer your made-up-mind? Indeed there are things that you’ll never be able to let go of, and perhaps the memories of what was will always make you cry. But if what you crave doesn’t even exist anymore, then what? If you ache for a memory, then even when the nostalgia becomes too much to bear, there isn’t much else to do other than write about it and make yourself a cup of steaming hot tea. Isolate yourself, listen to some lullabies and make-believe that who you were before this happened is worth becoming once more. And like always, it’s easier said than done.

( “ i know you’re tired of loving, of loving, with nobody to love,

nobody, nobody !” )

Love,

A.

PS. There are no words of gratitude powerful enough for me to articulate my thank-you to the priceless company and the ceaseless surprise that despite not deserving the time of day, I’ve been given hours of love that I hope one day I am powerful enough to reciprocate. Merci, merci, merci.

PPS. "'The real hell of this,' he told her, 'is that you're going to get through it.'" -- G. Caldwell.       

~~~

XOXO