Javert

I once put a scenario like this:  Someone posted your photographs before your nose job and you breaking out in hysterics untagged yourself seconds after they hit FBs news page. In between gasps, you sweat and wait for other 'blasts of the pasts' to show up. And only if you can untag those other friends or unfriend those in the tag especially the culprit.

But the truth is you cannot run away from the past and the truth that grips your heart. Including facing people we want forgiveness from and people we should set free by our forgiveness.

It’s an inarguable truth in our lives: we will always have a Javert in our lives who will feel like a ‘stone inside our socks’ - giving us discomfort every time we walk and constantly reminding us of its presence while we’re on rest. One who reminds us of our ‘sinful’ days, good years that ended ugly, a shameful event or simply an episode in our lives that we just want to edit out. One who kicks us up from sleep at wee hours of the morning so hard that we will not be able to get back to bed again. Constantly popping up on our favourite restaurants and spoiling our dinner until we are empowered to invite them to share our meal.  

But as a good teacher of mine has put it, we at some of point in our lives, is also a Javert to others… and guiltily, cradle and nurture our own Javerts into our own embrace to torture our own selves. 

Or worse, we are sometimes gripped by hypocrisy that we strut around saying we have easily forgiven the other party who has caused us pain but pin them down with blame to free ourselves from hurt and own guilt.

Should forgiveness be dictated by pride? Decreed by the law? Redeemed by time? Held and decided by age or gender? The blunder to be outshined by good deeds before we set free our own prisoners from judgment and captivity?

Why do we sometimes choose to stuff our backpacks with strings of hurts, hatred, guilt, blame that cause us not to forgive when it so much easier to shake our bags of the unnecessary loads? Why do we choose to carry them around when it doesn’t require too much muscle to lift it up and throw outside the window?

Because even if we always know what is the right thing to do or what self-help books dictate, or the fact that it is commanded, the power to completely forgive others and ourselves can only come from the grace of God. And by the truth that at the end of the day, the sinful us, are always forgiven repeatedly and unconditionally by our gracious God. So who are we to hold others so tightly by our own judgments and verdicts before we finally say: I forgive you?  

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mickey mouse

The pain still grips my heart in silence and leaves it lifeless in darkness. My tears still run and stop on cue as if remote-controlled. I still wear and rip the masks in a flash. The whole being of me is still trampled on the same spot on the floor where it slumped 21 months ago. Not even an inch it moved.

It's like keeping the death at bay by cheating. Scraping off the disease layer by layer, filling the empty space with lies to be able to sleep at night. And watch the sun peeps through the window to realize I slept only a blink. 

I am as broken as I say and don’t say I am – saved and sustained only by the grace of the almighty God. 

You asked if I ever thought of you on that specific time? Yes you were in my sight the whole time, because you never left my mind. I still know exactly how your fingers wrap an iced tea glass. I still remember exactly how your lips slowly curve a smile. Whenever you type in ‘haaayyyy’ in the chat window, I still remember how it sounds – frustrated or not. There was not a time I never thought of us. There was never a time I dreamed of Disneyland that you were not Mickey Mouse. And there was never a night that I don’t remember how I would like to be wrapped in your arms. 

You feel mad. You may feel that your ego was crushed, but you did not die. 

I hide during the storm because I never wanted to look up where and when the ‘us’ stopped. 

Every time you pop and say ‘hi’. Again and again I’m feeling the last time it hurt.

I wouldn’t know how have I stayed alive, because when I said goodbye, I was only hoping for once you will let go of your pride and ask me ‘Why?’. Because you know I’m crazy, because you know I was ripped by distance, because you know how much I wanted for us to take that step and you were holding the reign too tight. 

I’m not selfish because from time to time it was a struggle to stay alive, because from then until now I love you very much.

I am writing this, hoping that for the first time, sleep will come.

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