an ode to a long lost make-belief.

 diminished was an era of brittle beliefs— and daydreams. dozens of them at a time, accompanying soft melodies and radiant sunshine. it took me years to envelope the suffocation and make pine-air out of a savage stench. this is what I realise now, being on the other side, all the things I loved, despite being so real and so mesmerisingly beautiful, were not at all alive.

I spent my days and bus rides making up those stories, writing about them, pretending I was someone else. someone who knew the light, someone whose darkness could be embraced, tightened into a charming little ribbon pinned on a flowery, bohemian dress. ribbons that kept my heart alive were certainly chimerical and phantom-like.

I befriended flowers , birds and passing clouds. I wrote songs , poetry and photographed ethereal views, sank in meadows and grassy fields collecting pine cones and wild grasses. those memories to me are sacred, but as much as they are beautiful, they were unhinged like spider webs that easily gave way to the infinite sky.

I made love up. I made it an idea, obsessed over it for years. I read books and taught myself how it feels like, imposing it on every chance I could take. but love in those dreams and figments of reality are very different from what is right now. love is not as effortless as I thought it was; it requires a courage and bravery I never trained myself to possess. it involves living through the ordinariness of dreary weekend days and unplanned days off, and every moment is not always so enchantingly romantic. 

I thought love would be all about rituals and celebrations; but love is also the events that come to throw them off. I thought love would be given in health and vibrancy, but love is also there to give when weak and ill. and when those days are there, love is not felt and it is commonly replaced with endurance, patience, faith and discipline. love is more like the sum of its parts— the parts that make it what it is, especially when you can’t see it.

God blessed me with a love that is secretive, a jewel protected underneath a story of ordinary days. the hardship made us realise we could endure the worst of it. the acceptance and forgiveness, now made real, made a woman out of me— hopeful and expectant of the days and memories to come.

still, I am a dreamer. we both dream of a farm with horses, cattle and a land of plantations. we dream of educating children. we dream of adventures and the outdoors, with a delicate balance of my gentle contemplation and your chase of adrenaline and suspense. we both know we make two parts of a beautiful whole.

I am ever so grateful to be where I am. the ordinariness is still crippling, that’s for sure. it was far more whimsical where I was, in my head. but still, I pick flowers, clutter my home with pine cones, flowers, photographs and dreamcatchers. still, I roam around meadows ‘neath the sunshine, a little bit oblivious..

because it’s real.