Let's talk.

I hated reading and I hated writing. But now, I find myself doing those two things quite often. 

How it is a privilege to be offered this means of communication and self-expression. 

I once visited a Headspace centre because I had too many things on my mind that I couldn't wrangle control of. The seemingly uninspiring dude suggested that I try writing my thoughts down. To slow down my mind and to process more of my emotions and feelings. He also said he would follow up with a call. He never did. 

A couple years later, I find myself in the same position but this time, I decided to write an email. (An email because I am now a new-found millennial who worked full-time and wrote emails for a living and the operating hours of a Headspace centre were mostly during the times I worked). 

How good it was to finally to put words to my emotions. Cathartic really. When you find the courage to be vulnerable and share the burden. You offload this weight that never really seemed to be such a big thing. That seemingly insignificant weight bearing down on your day on day. That exhaustion that creeps up on you without an identifiable root cause.

This time, I heard a response. Someone found time to write back (even though it's their job). To take the time to understand you sans the judgement and the preconceived view and biases of what you must be feeling. 

Loss. 

I've never really good at losing. 

No, not in the way that I'm a sore loser. It is that I would always strive hard to get what I wanted and never really understood what it meant to have lost something that was beyond my control. 

Sudden and unexplained loss. Grief ebbs and flows and no two people feel it the same. But I guess now you can put a name to these emotions - the uncontrollable tears that pay an uninvited visit far too often. 

You couldn't understand why everything you love, leaves you and everything that is good is transient. 

I wrote two letters. One that will go unread. Another, that I have already shared but will never be understood in the way it was meant to. 

I can keep searching for the answers of why, but I will be looking for answers my whole lifetime and will never be absolved. 

It is one thing to write, but it's another to be listened to and heard. 

"At the end of the day, people won't remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel" - Maya Angelou

I miss you, Minh. More than you could ever know.

- HLY