an overflowing cup of love

04 Sep, 2024

blue period, yamaguchi tsubasa

i finally relented to my mother’s pleas and went with her to avail of a facial treatment plan. the previous one i talked about in an older blog post didn’t work well and left me with even more acne than before. my parents ended up paying a little over the cost of two (2) stray kids vip soundcheck tickets for the philippine leg of their tour¹. i’m thankful, really. i don’t think i have the capacity to pay for an 8-week treatment amounting to that much money.

anyways, while waiting for my appointment (the first of 8) i was reading bluets by maggie nelson. it’s an interesting read, albeit slow and maybe even boring at times. i cannot begin to fathom how it’s possible to write so much about a singular colour and relate it to different aspects of your life, but i suppose that’s what love is, isn’t it?

have i ever loved something so dearly, i wonder, that i have felt compelled to write about it for roughly 90 pages and 240 paragraphs (or is it more appropriate to call them entries)?

to begin with, how do you quantify and even begin to describe love? is it the all consuming desire to constantly be exposed and submerged in your object of affection (see: my strange need to see stray kids in my recently played section on spotify… the inexplicable need to reread one piece every year… the never ending brainworms for my friends and i’s d&d campaign)? or perhaps it is something more subtle (see: the way my father buys me bananas every weekend without me asking… the way gabby memorised my waking up schedule once my shift differed from theirs… the way my grandmother would make meals that suit my taste more than they suit hers)?

i like to joke that i have never been normal about anything in my life. it’s true, i think. i don’t know what moderation is when it comes to my hobbies and interests. i sit in a room where i have more books and manga than anything else—in my drawers and shelves, i have kpop album after kpop album, video game after video game. it has even bled into my skin in the form of tattoos (in 2021, i got a yotsuba tattoo² and in 2022, i got nami’s pinwheel and tangerine tattoo³).

but have i ever loved something so intensely, i had this itch to write about it the same way maggie nelson wrote about blue? it’s difficult to say.

maggie nelson also writes about an old lover in bluets; an unnamed individual who she misses and writes about throughout the 90-something pages of the book. i have never loved someone in that manner, i think. no, i’m sure.

sometimes i have recurring dreams of a person whose face is always obscured by shadows. they sit with me on a couch in my dream house, one with plenty of sunlight and a large stained glass window, with my dog on their lap. in my dream, my dog is even older and more feeble than he is now, but still alive well into his 20s. who’s to say whether this mystery person is truly always the same one in dreams where they supposedly appear, but the hand that holds mine in my dreams is always strangely familiar.

i can’t help but wonder if it’s a premonition of sorts; if one day, this will play out in reality (the same way some of my other dreams have) and i will realise that i had dreamt of this person long ago; that i have known them briefly, through a dream they don’t know of.

i’m always afraid that i do not love nearly as much as i claim i do.

my mother has once called me unaffectionate—that my father and i are cold and, at times, inhumane. it is a strange feeling to live with, being called as such by my own mother. we had been talking about how i used to not hold onto my grandmother when we walked and that my uncle had to point it out to me. i was 13 back then, more self absorbed than i’ve ever been in my life. my mother said it’s because you and your dad are so unaffectionate, like you don’t love at all.

but i had texted my grandmother daily in college. every morning, noon, and night to remind her to take her medicine—to eat, even if she was alone at home. as such, my grandmother bragged about me to her daughters. when she was angry and would lock herself in her room, i was the only person she’d let in. if she was upset, my father would make her laugh and forget about it all. on her deathbed, it was my father and i that carefully took off her jewelry as she was actively dying in front of us.

in a house where her daughters had grown tired of repetitive stories and nagging, only me and my father would listen to the same old stories about the postmaster general’s wife’s misua, her days as a teacher, her days in high school, and even her days during the war.

was this not affection and love, too?

i do not know how to love normally. i do not know what is “enough” or “too much” when it comes to loving. there is still a big portion of me that’s afraid of being overbearing; that clings onto a distant memory of someone i once knew calling me annoying for talking about things that interested me.

perhaps that is why i haven’t loved anything the same way maggie nelson loves the colour blue.

in stroke twenty of yamaguchi tsubasa’s blue period, ayukawa ryuji—or yuka-chan, as they refer to themselves—shared this quote from a senior they admired in junior high.

if you still worry about how other people would see you, then you can’t die yet.

i think about this line a lot.

if i let go of my restraint and my reluctance (and my embarrassment), will an all consuming love take over my body and will my pen to write something—anything, in hopes of finding a place outside of my heart to store my emotions?

i’m still afraid of how people view me. i’m afraid that my love will be seen as burdensome, as people have seen it in the past. but my life feels so short; feels as though it slips between my fingers so easily, like ribbons made from the finest of silk.

if i do not love relentlessly now, then when?

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚

a song as always.

i left this stewing in my gdocs for over a week. i just finished my second facial treatment and my acne's gotten a lot better. i have a lot of scars, though. it's not very fun.

it's been raining a lot here. i've been trying to stay in more because i just spent a huge amount of money on concert tickets. i also feel like i haven't been coming on here much aside to post word vomit. i haven't really read much blog posts (or checked my email. oops) lately. i kinda went into a reclusive mood for a little bit, but i'll try wriggling out of it and come on to read again soon.

for those who still read my blog, and to those who have just happened upon this post - thanks for reading! i miss being on here, so i'll try to be around a bit more ꒰ᐢ. .ᐢ꒱

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩

#contemplations #love