Glass

I no longer dream of that day. As the years flies past, it seemed to have disappeared too. I would like to think of it that way but actually it has only just been buried, deep inside but never gone. Like a transparent glass that is still around even if you cannot see it.

The day when I came home to the smell of blood. Well I did not know it was blood at first - it just smelled rancid and metal-like. It was only when I opened the door, I was confronted with an ominous sight of dark red puddle. She was lying there on the floor, a shard of glass at her side.

I could not remember the exact details now, but it definitely felt like an eternity with thousands of thoughts running through, so fast that I felt as if nothing was getting through. I walked in, carefully avoiding the blood puddles to her side. She was still conscious. When she saw me, she started weeping out loud, and in between the tears, struggled to get up. She wrapped her clammy arms around me, sobbing. "I am sorry... I cannot do this anymore... Forgive me... This is too hard for me." I felt sick, I could not breathe, the world felt like it was spinning and closing in on me, taking my breath away. "You promised you wouldn't do this again!" I felt these words escape through my mouth like an exploding fire that cannot be contained. Then, I ran off.

What do you call someone who wasn't strong enough to handle someone's else sufferings? Coward.

What do you call someone who ran away because it was too hard to look at someone in pain? Guilty.

What do you call someone who refused to share the pain of family members despite societal norms dictating so? Detached.

That was me: coward, guilty, detached. I ran away from my mum who just self-harmed for the Nth time. Part of me felt furious. She was never around whenever I needed her. Those sleepless nights. Those tears-stained pillows. Those moments wishing I was dead. Just like how she walked away from my life, I walked away from hers. Part of me felt guilty. How could you do this to your mum? How could you be so weak? Part of me felt rejected. With a huge opaque piece of glass between her and me. I could see her but I couldn't reach her no matter how hard I tried to knock on it.

Now, the teenage volatile pool of emotions had settled. Perhaps that was how I could see things more clearly now. We all have dreams. Sometimes life doesn't give us what we want. Perhaps that was an understatement. Sometimes life crush our dreams. And in feeble efforts to try to get closer to them again, we made mistakes. Bad ones. That we regret for the rest of our lives. She just wanted to be happy but she did not know how. All she knew was self-harm, seeking solace through numbing herself. I just wanted to have a normal family but I did not know how to fix mine.

Now we look like a normal family. She goes for therapy. Got a job. Goes for groceries shopping. Only uses the knife for chopping vegetables. The house gets cleaned up daily.

But we don't talk anymore, nothing deeper than "what did you have for dinner?". Some things just don't go back to the original no matter how much you try. There is still that glass in between us.

But is it necessary to remove the glass? Can it even be removed?Would doing so open up room for more possible hurts? What if that glass serves to protect us because we are still not strong enough to handle the hurts?

I used to feel envious of others. Been able to enjoy a heart-to-heart talk with their parents, to be able to seek advice from them, to be able to just be themselves. I felt broken. Like something gone wrong. Forsaken by God.

Can you move on with life even if you have not amended for your past mistakes?

Can you move on with life even if you have not received amendments for the hurts that others' mistakes had inflicted on you?

I wrested with these questions on the dark of the nights when it was too quiet. People say you need to fix your mistakes, make peace, then you can move on in life. But what if there was just too many knots?

Now, even though we aren't like normal mothers and daughters, I still feel comforted by her presence. Of having a nonchalant life. A simple one with just simple pleasures of being able to eat and drink as God gifts us.

I now believe it is totally fine to move on with life even if the mistakes have not been totally fixed. What does it mean to be fixed anyway? Do you really need all this to move on? Can you get closure just with time?

None of us talked about that day ever again. None of us apologized. For her weakness in giving in to the temptation to take that glass and harmed herself yet again. For wanting to run away from life. For my weakness in not wanting to be involved as I witnessed all that. For wanting to run away from pain.

What do you call someone who is happy with life now? Contented.

What do you call someone who have accepted themselves for who they are and were? At peace.

What do you call someone who have found ways to live a new life the way they have dreamed of? Blissful.

That was us now: contented, at peace, blissful. We have moved on. There is no need to look at our mistakes again because doing so will throw us into a bitter culprit-victim relationship again. That glass, which I once hated, I now believe serves to protect us from our scars. A reminder to not make the same mistake again. To stop running away from pain, but to look at it in the eye, face it squarely and overcome it.