Swinging or staggering
I’d never really thought about the word, ‘stagger’ until recently. Yes, it rhymes with the effervescent ‘swagger’ but that’s where my interest ended. But I did think about the word the other day when I was on a child’s swing that was much too small for me. It sounds weird but stay with me. As I swung with thighs contorted, I took comfort in the surety of a swing. No matter how far back I went, I could count on swinging back the other way. And I’ve been told that’s how life works you know. The good and bad, the yin and yang, the Cosmo and Wanda. I was told I could always start over and bad situations don’t last forever. I was told I could jump on a metaphorical swing and be better than I was yesterday. I don’t necessarily believe that though. It’s a nice sentiment but personally, my life has not swung in measured balance but instead staggered between phases. You see, with a swing there is implied ease and assurance. But with the sudden nature of a stagger, you never know if it’s going to get better or stop you in your tracks. It feels like the powers that be should check whatever mechanism that’s supposed to transfer me between phases cause it looks like it has sputtered, staggered and stopped. Like a kid waiting at school for my mum to pick me up, I’m in what seems like an eternal waiting room.
I’ve been feeling like this for a long time. But like most everything in the world, the pandemic did a good job of emphasizing life’s deficiencies. In April 2020, I moved to Ottawa to be with my sister and mother for an indefinite amount of time. Now in August 2021, I’m returning to Vancouver, a place where I spent most of my time being clinically unhappy. Amidst all the fear, heartbreak and therapy of the past year, I became a different person, a better one, cross your fingers. It just took 2000 miles of space and a few staggers to do that.
First, I staggered into a relationship, a long-distance dream that I later found many indulged in during this pandemic. We all needed that space of companionship, a partner to say, “It’s all going to be okay.” In my case, it was a partner I had never met in real life and yet I fell like rocks were attached to my limbs. I can sit here and simplify it for you as nothing but a global fluke but that’d be bullshit. I felt the most loved and accepted in that relationship and I regret nothing. And oh, what dreams and aspirations we had! Hope shun as bright as a primary colour. But where is the line between loving reassurance and codependence? Let me know when you find it because we both crossed it. If you add in the travails of a long-distance relationship, it makes ‘sense’ why he broke us apart. Completely blindsided, I skulked to the next phase.
I do not advise staggering into heartbreak. Between thinking it was a cruel prank and planning my ‘ultimate glow up’, I didn’t register what was going on. Predictably, I crashed headfirst into a deeper depression after that stage of denial. Did I mention that I had started content creation when the pandemic started and my ex was my main source of loving support and feedback? Oh I didn’t, did I? Well, he was and after nine months of that dependence, making content became viscerally painfully for me. They were my ideas and I pulled them off all by myself but for some reason, I still couldn’t cope without him as a crutch. Without the distraction of work or the company of friends, I had to sit in those feelings — a dangerous task when my PMDD already threatened to take me out every month under normal circumstances. And these were hardly normal circumstances. I also found out that heartache is not just an expression, it's an actual physical reaction that captures your breath and doesn’t let it go. This feeling was literally choking me so much that I was desperate to be rid of it. But at the same time, I was petrified of what I would do to myself if I couldn’t relieve it. And who could help? I had just lost the bulk of my support system. The cherry on top? I was in school during all of this. At first, I wished for fantastical solutions like COVID magically disappearing and affordable therapy for both of us. But no, we had very real challenges in our relationship and I accepted that. The only thing I wondered about is why it had to be that painful and sudden. What is the point of being cut open by love like that and then being asked to stop the bleeding on your own? I am yet to find a reason for this societally accepted masochism.
In came that weird middle period where I was healing but still completely wrought with emotion. I started therapy. I started creating again (in painful staggers naturally). I even started dating again. I had the fortune of meeting some very deluded men who wouldn’t know healthy communication if it was a game on their Playstation. They hurt me and wasted my time which is the standard agenda for most men. But the intensity of my breakup prepared me for those uncomfortable feelings. Day by day, I get closer and closer every day to not blaming myself for other people’s shitty behaviour.
Now I’m heading to Vancouver which for me is a land of almosts, of insecurities and of hiding places. I came there a sprightly 17-year-old with big dreams and I left as someone who made myself the bad guy every day. But I feel different or at least I pray I am. I just needed space. Space to realize that I just want to feel loved. I’m desperate for it. Space to realize that I am not a bad person. Multiple things can be true at the same time: I did the best I could with what I had AND I have also let this desperation get the best of me in so many ways. The jealousy, the self-righteousness, the pulling away and the holding on too tight — they helped me survive and one day I’ll be able to forgive myself for that.
There will be life beyond my sadness. Life will swing me round once more.
