I didn't need a reminder this year.
I've been wanting to write you for the past few months. I've been waiting to write you for the past few months.
I even considered writing you a letter and then publishing it on the 6th, so that it coincides with your birthday, but I thought that would be sort of cheating.
This year has been tough so far.
And I'm angry.
I'm angry at you for the first time I think. I'm angry for you leaving.
I miss you differently this year. It's not like you are a romantic idea anymore. It's like I want to tell you, the joke is over, it's time for you to come back now.
And the dreams only confirm this sentiment.
The dreams I've been having baba, the ones of you of course, are always the same. It's almost to a degree where the dream becomes a favoured reality. I always dream that you are away on business, or travelling, and in my dream, you have just returned. And in most dreams, I am upset because you have been away too long.
In the last dream, i'm at the airport picking you up, and I tell you that mum has not been herself, and that she's been on edge and upset and in a lousy mood since you've been away, and that you can't leave us like that anymore.
I always wake up with a sunken heart.
I always need a minute to realise that I haven't been at the the airport, that you aren't on a plane, that you are not coming back.
And so I'm angry. I'm angry at you, goddamit.
And with the anger, destructive thoughts come around. And I wonder if you fought hard enough to stay. If maybe I had battled my way into ICU to see you against your wishes, if that would have been enough to keep you fighting. To keep you here.
I wonder if you just chose to rest.
But then again, that's not the reason I'm angry. I'm just angry that you left. Not how, when, or why.
And yes, I suppose my dream was right when it portrayed me telling you about mama. Because no, she's still not ok.
And I try. I'm impatient, and sometimes I'm rude. And sometimes I'm hurtful. I even can be downright cruel. But I no longer have control of the fuses related to her. Sometime I lose it. I really do. I no longer can see the light once we get into that big black tunnel. Sometimes she strings out the words that come out of her mouth in a way she does not realise destroy me somewhere, even a small part. Sometimes the words, or more correctly the lack of them, comes out so sharp, it cannot but graze me.
Maybe it's not her fault . Maybe I've changed. Probably I've changed.
And i just need peace. I need a bit of margins to breathe in. I feel suffocated by everything in the real world, and sometimes I don't understand how mama doesn't understand that I am off battling these dragons and working hard and living hard. And at the same time, I know her fears. I know her attachment.
And I guess maybe part of my anger at you is that. You leaving caused a misbalance that she specifically either refuses to see, and is suffering the consequences of, or cannot balance out. In either case, it's not something good. I can no longer see misery. In any amount. That too, has made me angry.
The thought of moving out to my own place has more or less crystalized. I need to move out i think. Not because of anything in particular, but I think for the past couple of years I've become a whole person on my own, in every sense of the word. I want to pay my bills, I want to decorate my own space, I want to be able to wake up in the morning and fall asleep at night the way I feel I want to. And most importantly it would do wonders to my relationship with mama. I think the space would do us well. I'm sure of that in fact. I just hope she sees it that way, and not that I am running away.
it's been a stressful, tiring, thought provoking year on many a level. And still it drags on.
I am always working. I am always worried, and I am always waiting for things to turn the right side up.
I'm working 3 jobs, between the office with Rana, the freelancing and work with Saadi and other people, and the DJing, I have come to realise I can no longer breathe. I don't have weekends, I am always thinking of work even in the back of my head, and I have this weight of over responsibility, that by me stopping to watch TV for a bit, or go have dinner with friends or with Jose, it will suffer. That I'm slacking off.
That weight of induced over responsibility is so heavy...
Once again, I've reached that point that I'm sure, now more than ever, is heridetary.
That point when I feel I am not establishing myself. That i am wasting time doing what I should not be doing by working for someone. And as for what should be done, what I should be achieving, I'm not 100 percent sure I know that yet... But I see the light. I should be doing somethign that fulfills me, and I have not reached that yet. I guess I'm not destined to work in an office. I want my own space, with the etching roller, and a silkscreen area, so I can spend my life making prints of all sorts of graphics and words and worlds.
I want to sit and carve into and paint onto and print over and cut out and stitch up and all of that.
I want to draw and illustrate and design my own projects, my own products, my own ideas.
I want to write, layout, print and publish.
So why am I not doing that... I'm not sure. Fear I suppose, that I won't succeed. That I won't be able to sustain myself. That I'm over confident of what I can do. That I will procrastinate and get lazy.
So what do I do? I want you to tell me...
Anyway.
At least I've started one project hands on... The one I promised myself I'd start ever since I found those photos you had tucked away on the lower shelf in your office. That book will come out. Rain or shine. And soon. Just as soon as i can free myself from the binds of stressful work loads...
I'm sorry if this year, the letter is heavy. I'm sure you understand.
I wish you were here more and more, maybe because I feel I need you. Does that make it selfish?
I realise more and more, everyone is really, truly on their own. Whether to fight that by always being around others, or whether you succumb to it gracefully I am still to discover. But everyone somehow, is alone. And that makes the longing even harder.
Happy birthday baba. I love you very very much.
Till next year.
Please visit my dreams more often, but stay.
Bintak Karma
Birthday letter 2010
Birthday letter 2009
