what I learned I rejected but I believe again

I know it's hard to tell how mixed up you feel
Hoping what you need is behind every door
Each time you get hurt, I don't want you to change
Because everyone has hopes, you're human after all

There are moments we experience, moments that are set aside from the rest of our lives, defining moments. They vary in intensity--the birth of a child; the death of a friend; lovers leaving, learning new languages...signposts of a life. Moments we can point to--here, I was here, when it happened--

Whatever it was.

The feeling sometimes, wishing you were someone else
Feeling as though you never belong
This feeling is not sadness, this feeling is not joy
I truly understand, Please, don't cry now

Signposts of a life. Moments of definition. Moments we look back on later, and say here, here is where I saw the change. Here is where I noticed. Here is where I had to act.

Protests. Songs. Celebrations. Vigils. Hoping to hear good news, waiting for bad news. Raising voices in anger. Trying to understand.

Here. Here I was. Here I was when it first happened. Right here. This moment.

Please don't go, I want you to stay
I'm begging you please, please don't leave here
I don't want you to hate for all the hurt that you feel
The world is just illusion trying to change you

The one I was a year ago, even one year ago, would have watched me in this moment, watched what I did, understand to my ability to understand, when I lost everything I loved again. Because I knew that pattern. I knew what would happen. It had happened before.

Signposts. Moments in a life. Moments of confusion. Moments of understanding.

Please don't go, I want you to stay
I'm begging you please, please don't leave here
I don't want you to hate for all the hurt that you feel
The world is just illusion trying to change you

The woman I am now, could not do that. I could not stand by. I couldn't watch love die again. And I'd never fought for any love before, I never thought I had the right, I never thought I could.

All of my life. All of my signposts. Everyone I've loved.

But not this time. Not this time.

Being like you are
Well this is something else, who would comprehend?
But some that do, lay claim that
Divine purpose blesses them
That's not what I believe, and it doesn't matter anyway

Sometimes, the hardest thing is not suffering pain. Pain can be endured, pain can be accepted, pain can become familiar, after a while, known, quantified and categorized. Sometimes, the hardest thing is speaking about that pain. Sometimes, the hardest thing...ever...is simply...being honest.

This hurts. This hurts more than I want it to. And reaching out--to friends, to lovers, to the ones closest to the heart. How can we fix this?

Asking for help. It's something I have been, am, will be...very, very bad at doing.

Signposts. Moments of change. This was mine. Knowing I had to reach out. Knowing I had to speak of my pain. Knowing it would cost me--and cost me high--but...knowing the alternative was worse.

A part of your soul ties you to the next world
Or maybe to the last, but I'm still not sure
But what I do know, is to us the world is different
As we are to the world but, I guess you would know that

Fragments of the nightmare stay with me. Most of it's left. I'm blissfully grateful that I don't have every element perfectly concretized, because I'm having that one nightmare over, and over, and over again.

I just had the one. The one moment of heart-fluttering panic, and...then talking. Talking and talking and talking. Reinterpreting and explaining and nature of language and definitions.

--wandering around with a parboiled daisy dripping with spring water, through emerald grasses, knowing my friends were dying out of sight. Being walked back into the house past the corpse of a love, slowly being parted out on the butcher-block kitchen table. Led to a chair, curiously dispassionate, while they sat me down and took the flower and replaced it with knitting needles through my eyes--

And the thing is? That wasn't the part where I started really wishing I could stop dreaming.

Please don't go, I want you to stay
I'm begging you please, please don't leave here
I don't want you to hate for all the hurt that you feel
The world is just illusion trying to change you

Defining language. This is what it means when I say this. This is what I say when I feel this. This is what I say when I'm hiding. This is how I hide from you. Giving away my secrets, my heart's long-held defenses, giving entry points away. No way to change the locks and go on now.

This is me. And what you've done has hurt me. Just saying it, just saying that, instead of claiming all pain was my fault, and hoarding the rest. Just...speaking. Openly. Honestly.

Learning. Learning to speak. Learning to share. Learning to understand.

Learning to fight.

This moment. Right here. This signpost. Here, we begin to change. Here we change again.

Right here.

Please don't go, I want you to stay
I'm begging you please, oh please don't leave here
I don't want you to hate for all the hurt that you feel
The world is just illusion always trying to change you

They say the ultimate sacrifice is to die for love. They're wrong. The ultimate sacrifice is to live for it.

Now I can. Let's find the next signpost.

(Lyrics are from VNV Nation's Illusion. The link is not to one of their videos, but to a fan's tribute video, pairing that song to part of Andy Huang's Doll Face short film.)