I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

Lord Alfred Tennyson ” In Memoriam A.H.H.”

I was once told, that the theme of my life is looking for a “caring partner“. There are two parts in that term:

You will not stop, you will keep on going to search for that one caring partner that you think you deserved. Because within you, my dear is a gentle heart, that felt deeply for others, the heart that is always yearning for love. In my most recent meeting with my therapist, he told me so, in the utmost honesty. Well, I think anh Duc is no longer my therapist, I’d like to start calling him my teacher from now on. The visits that I have with him nowadays is mostly about me asking him many questions in order to fast forward and straightening my walk of life.

I stumble upon my notes that was written thirteen years ago, while I was living in New York. I’m so grateful that Facebook has helped me hold these thoughts so that I can actually look back at my younger self, comparing notes like I do right now.

Floating

It’s just this afternoon when I walked along riverside all by myself for 4 hours, I came across this image: A duck floating all by itself along the river, without thinking, just floating

Suddenly, I just wish if there is any miracle that can make me as peaceful as this creature, I would trade anything I could. Life is getting tighter and tighter for me, I was pressed and pushed and fast-forwarded. If I stopped I will be left behind, if I tried hard, I would come forward but in exchange for any means of good, it’s always been a cat-and-mice game for me.

I’m just 20, but part of me saying that I’m started to feel tired, and alone, and tired. Just like last night, I felt so unsafe and so unsecured all of sudden without no reason.

Every day is a good day for me, but somehow I just wish I can be a floating duck 🙂

New York 16/07/2009
Mai

To give you a context, I was in my 3rd year of college, enrolled in a program called ” Work & Travel” in New York for 6 months. I was working for 1 week, and then my father said, do not work anymore, go travel. I quit my job and then started enjoying life in Manhattan, New York. I lived on the Upper West side of New York, W96th and Amsterdam Ave. I traveled, went from museums to Botanical gardens, went to Canada, Las Vegas, Florida, Boston …

In short, I was having the best life possible. Yet, “unsafe” and “unsecured” appeared in my thoughts. I think it was the essence of my previous part of life ( season 1). This was the first trip of a series of a medium-long trip out of my mother’s house. I no longer feel unsafe, my decision-making process is not based on fear anymore. But sometimes, just sometimes, I will feel a sudden melancholy of life. It’s like something is missing, a lover, somebody that I can talk with, laugh with and learn with.

Like today, I was coughing my lung out. I was coughing till my brain shaking, coughing is a very tiring action. Isn’t it a little bit more comforting if someone is there, stroking their hand behind your back trying to calm your cough? I’m very comfortable being alone, I’d like to just be. It’s a different kind of peace and wholeness. It’s also nice to have someone and share that bowl of hot soup that you cannot eat much because of the cough.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m perfectly content with myself. I really like this newer version of me. I feel at peace, every day. But so much peace can be boring as well. The perfect kind of boredom is when you know that you are going to have a full weekend staying at home and not meeting anyone. If I have give a mark to my current life right now, I would give it a 9.75/10. There’s still that 0.25 missing, and that makes life worth living. It’s a small number, but it’s so very important that doesn’t let my soul stop. I think that 0.25 is love. Slavoj Zizek, makes a comment on love, which is my most favorite.

As I said in my many notes before, I am forever a patient. I am a hopeless romantic who enjoy caring, who feel her life will not be complete if there’s no love, if there’s no special someone that I care deeply and love deeply.

In one of the recent interview, Khanh Ly – gave the best possible comments on love: “Tôi nói thật, ông Sơn ông chẳng yêu ai đâu. Chắc chắn là như vậy. Ông ấy chỉ yêu tình yêu của ông ấy thôi. Đừng lầm là ông ấy yêu ai đó.” In this statement, there are 2 layers of love, the love of love, and the love of others. I think, in order to love others, you have to have the love of love, the love of falling in love. We know that TCS loved love, I think that’s enough.

Whenever a friend visits my apartment, I often receive the question: don’t you want to share your life with someone? My answer was always: Yes, so much so you couldn’t believe it. But I also love my life so much, I’m so happy on my own as well, so whoever comes into my life must top it, no exception. That means I’m not willing to be less happy, less content, or less peaceful just to have someone in my life. Because otherwise, I could live just fine alone, though lacking a tiny bit of something.

To sum up, I’d like to quote the letter from Captain Wentworth to Anne in Persuasion. Forgive my foolish heart, but this is the kind of love I’m looking for. The kind of love that we are so in tune with, our hearts no longer ours. The kind of love that gave butterflies to my stomach whenever I think of it. I would like to be able to say: ” I offer myself to you with a loving heart as much yours as mine.”