17 December 2012

Prologue of Monotony

A daily life could never be more boring than mine. Waking up just in time to get to work, staying in the office for 8 hours and going back home to sleep. Days off from work are spent either by oversleeping or going online. It was a dull life, if it can be considered life at all.

I can't remember how I was back then, when my world seemed full of happiness, and in it were all things I loved. Back then sounded so far away from now. It was obviously a life that was once mine. It was unmistakably my past but not an inch of that happiness can be traced from my current self. Now, I'm simply a living mass of emptiness.

Three years had passed since then. Time keeps on flowing through the gaps of my fingers though I tried to hold it firmly in my hands. It was unstoppable but at the same time implacable. It goes with its own pace, uncaring and unmoved by my agony.  Time runs undisturbed. I, on the other hand, stopped my own time, froze my own world.

I had felt loneliness and helplessness before. I felt pain every single day and  it was too much that I grew used to it.  Feeling pain and sadness became the norm for me. Now, I have become numb to various emotions. Anger, sadness and happiness - they all seemed worthless to me now. I have no more reason and cause to feel them. I'm satisfied with my empty self.

I lived the same lifestyle for three years. The first year was the worst. I isolated myself and even refused the heartfelt concern of my friends. I didn't care even about the most important or stupid things in my surrounding. The laughter and quarrels of the people around me doesn't even strung a single strand of emotion inside me. Words of encouragement, rumors, acts of kindness, jokes, and violence all seemed to pass through me as if my physical existence was immaterial.  It was like I was there but I wasn't at the same time.

One day, a year and a half from that time, I arrived home straight from school. I find my mother on the dining table - crying. She was holding the only family picture  we have in our house. In the picture was the 6-year-old me, my mother, my father and my 8-year-old brother. All of us were smiling happily in that picture. However, all that cheerfulness in that single picture were taken away in an instant. It was now the complete opposite of the present. Our house only has 3 people now. My brother passed away in an accident.

I can never forget the sorrow our family had suffered that time. I was alive but my mother was suffering just like that time of my brother's death. Terror surged inside of me upon remembering the horrible thing my mother had been through. I felt guilty. My selfishness caused grief to my mother. I did not even noticed it.

I left the house without a sound, while tears are flowing out of my eyes. After a long time, I felt several emotions bursting out as if they have piled up from all the pain I have endured alone the whole time. The pain that I thought was a norm for me failed me. I was angry at myself. I felt guilty. I am afraid of what will happen. I am scared to lose another beloved. I felt helpless.

I called my closest friend. I know that she never expected me to call her. I figured that from the tone of her voice - shocked, happy, excited, confused, and worried. I told her that I badly needed someone at that moment. She invited me over to her house. She had called my place to inform my parents that I will be home late to do a school project in her's. That evening, I told her my fears and worries while crying my heart out. I had not cried for a long time that I thought my tears had already dried up.

I know how Isa had been worried about me since that time. I know but I refused even her kindness. I refused to let anyone know about what I feel and think, including my mother and father. I refused to accept anyone's kindness for me. Most of them got annoyed at my attitude but I did not care. They left me alone afterwards, but not Isa. She stayed with me despite my refusal to be involved with her. She gives me my personal space but I know that she's always looking out for me. I realized how terrible a person I became. I felt even more guilty.

That day, I decided to change little by little. I did not wish to worry other people over my matters, not even my mother or father or Isa. But still, I refused to be deeply involved with anyone. I learned to go with the flow of things but I never opened my heart to anyone, besides Isa. I started to smile but only at home - a fake smile I forced n my facial muscle. I rejected emotions that deals with other people - compassion, sympathy and empathy - but I try to understand theirs. I never find anything interesting in this world after that time and that remain unchanged. I became indifferent.

Time was passing by slowly in my stagnant way of living. It feels like everything around me was a monochrome of grey. I did the same things almost every single day. I was like a machine programmed to perform the same tasks over and over again. I graduated from school, and managed to find a job. Before I knew it, another year and a half have passed by again but my days of inner isolation are yet to pass.

No comments: