The first day of 2022, I was roaming around NYC by myself like the first day of last year. But there’s J out there, far away, and I felt less alone.
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January 17, 2022: A physical record
This is how missing J feels to me physically.
There is a touch of tension in my body, a tender tightness in the chest as if there is pressure from inside. I am not entirely happy, nor sad, but feeling at the edge of liveliness. And I said to myself,
“Is this how my body tells me how much I miss J?”
I am sitting in my kitchen having the first coffee of the day. It’s deep in winter in NYC and the temperature is above zero. It’s raining outside, which is unusual for New York in January. Typically, it would be cold, icy snowy or ugly and slushy in the street.
I am amazed how I have never felt like this before, not even years ago when I first fell in love with K when I was a young college student. I was happy, light, and carefree back then. And I was able to see K every day on campus, where we lived, studied, hung out with friends, and explored each other’s bodies in dark garden corners like many young love birds in college did at the time.
J and I are now literally almost 3,000 miles apart. He is probably just waking up. It will be another 5 weeks before I can see him again in person, holding his hands, pressing my fingers into the “happiness” tattooed on his arm, and feeling him entering me gently, and deeply in the dim light of early morning hours. It is like I am taken over by a force that is completely out of my control, and I am willing to surrender.
In the morning, I boil an egg, make saffron tea, and listen to classical music…everything I keep doing now is almost like a fading background, a distraction from my longing for J.
Before I met J I thought I was incapable of feeling love again. Fearing the hurt coming along almost inevitably with love, I have kept myself from feeling it. Now, I am sitting here, missing him, and letting the happiness of love settle in me. It is such an intimate moment between me and my feelings. It is almost like whether J is physically here or not is no longer relevant.
The question is, when will the pain start entering the scene?
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February 13, 2022: the Aftermath
Just as surprising how fast and hard J and I fell for each other, I am now writing about the aftermath.
Yesterday I opened my mailbox in the lobby after forgetting to check for a week. There was a card from J. The cover of the envelope had my name in Chinese written by him, next to the English letters. The card reads “You Are My Person”. Inside the card, there is a message,
“And I want to be your person too.
With (a hand-drawn heart) from J”
A character made up by J with “融” (melt) on the top and a “心”（heart）was drawn at the bottom. It is a character known only to us: I am quite a nerd on Chinese etymology. One day at work J sent me a text message with a heart half melted in blood.
"A bloody heart?!” I cried.
"A melting heart! You are unbelievable (a face covered by a palm)!” He replied.
The card was sent on January 31. Yet, J on February 13 is no longer the J on January 31.
Neither was I.
***
On February 8, I got an email from J.
Plainly and straightforwardly as a nice and effective executive delivering bad news to a staff member, he wrote that he had concerns about the long distance facing us and wanted to talk about it. The email came just the day before our scheduled regular weekly catch-up Zoom. I wasn’t completely surprised. For two weeks before the email, J had few text messages, often with even fewer words. He had his reasons, or so I tended to believe— first he had to focus on a family matter, and then he got COVID. For a week I felt quite disconnected, anxious, even sad, for this sudden change of state between us. I knew there were more reasons than his daughter and COVID-19 for his abrupt drop in communication. My heart made a point to me already. It bloody hurt.
We quickly arranged Zoom that evening. All things considered, J on February 8 didn’t want to be “my person”, which effectively ended this short-lived love affair. I was carrying the conversation almost fine until he admitted that he had been ambivalent from the beginning.
“What does it mean, the word ‘ambivalent’?” I asked.
“It’s probably only the second word you don’t know.” J said (and internally I was like, IS THIS THE FUCKING MOMENT ENLARGING MY ENGLISH VOCABULARY? ), “It means uncommitted, hesitant…”
With that, I suddenly felt how silly, and blind, I have been all this time: subjected to the uncontrollable state of feeling love and loved, living in the illusion I created. It finally was made clear that the illusion was also for me only. I broke into tears, hurt, and embarrassed.
J looked sad when I cried. But I no longer trust what I saw.
I don’t remember what we conversed after that moment. But I remember he said in the end,
“Talk again.”
“We will see.” Those were my last words.
How fast can one change one’s heart? Was the heart there to begin with? What about the feelings, so real and so strong just a few days ago? Does feeling strongly about someone mean anything? Do words mean anything anymore? I am so lost.
I slept relatively well that night. I was exhausted for the past few sleepless nights from the frustration of J’s withdrawal and the ambivalence I felt. That night felt at least settled.
***
It was warm like spring yesterday. I put down the “You Are My Person” card and went jogging. Life came back like before I met J. And I am glad that I have a life that I am happy to return to. Under the well-managed surface, I know for a while it will be different. I would walk and jog and bike and talk to others like usual but there would be something raw and empty and wounded there, for weeks, or maybe months. But I will be fine in the end. I am indeed strong. I have no other choice but to be strong.
In the evening I read “Nothing Personal” by James Baldwin, on love in long distance,
“It is necessary, while in darkness, to know that there is a light somewhere, to know that in oneself, waiting to be found, there is light. What the light reveals is danger, and what it demands is faith.”
I am in the darkness, yet I know the light doesn’t exist outside. It’s in me. On this journey, to love is to put myself out in danger, – even for someone as strong as me, it hurts terribly. But I have to have faith in myself, that there is light in me, that it will be found, that it will not destroy me, that I shall not stop searching.
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March 11, 2022: A Eulogy
I fell in love with water this evening.
So soft and warm…I soaked myself in a bath this Friday evening, candles flickering in the corner, sea salt dissolved quietly in the small hot tub, a smell of lavender gently floating in the steamy air…I dipped my toes in the water, then my feet, tights, belly, arms, shoulder, neck, ears……until only my nose was above the water.
AHHHHH…FEEL IT. JUST FEEL IT. All my cells were screaming. It’s so incredible. How come you didn’t think of this before? I asked myself. Closed in your candle-lit bathroom, soaking into the warm water in the music you like (Multitude by Stromae), a glass of wine (Cabernet Sauvignon, DECOY 2019) on the side, the outside world disappears as the water silently dissolves all your pain. You let go of every cell of your body, allowing yourself to feel how gently the water carries your weight, floats your limbs, and hugs your skin, fingers, and arms. As you slowly sink your ears into the water, you feel the electric sensation traveling from head to toe, a sensation you’ve never noticed, and you hear your heartbeat under the water, steady, muffled, and comforting as if you encounter a long-lost old friend.
At one point my cat Xiaomi made an entrance, and walked away, indifferent to my naked body in the water.
I hear the water whispers,
“Others may say you are strong and walk away. I will carry you.”
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Isn’t love what we are here for in this very troubled world, regardless of how short-lived it is? In the moment of love, we transcend our very limited human life with the liveliness that is only fleeting, break free from time and space, and feel our existence, so much so that we don’t even ask what the meaning of life is at that very moment.
I continue walking in the darkness, fearfully and fearlessly at the same time.
Astoria, New York
11:04 PM, March 13, 2022
