I didn’t actually feel like writing today, but I’m worried if I don’t write I would forget the feelings and thoughts I have at this point in time. It doesn’t seem right to write about my friend who had just passed away – worried it will turn into some form of theatre, yet it also doesn’t feel right to not write about such a significant event in my life.
She is a somewhat private person, so I wouldn’t be sharing too many details about her here. But she wasn’t afraid to be public about what she believed in: turning up year after year at Singapore’s version of the pride event, even becoming a sponsor with her small business.
I have known her for 18 years. She knew me at a time when I was young, foolish, immature, unaccomplished. We shared some difficult times together, times we wouldn’t mention to each other henceforth, things that I can never write about. It only occurred to me after her passing that I’ve lost the only person I can talk to about that past.
When she decided to become a tattoo artist I encouraged her at a time when not many people would (singapore has a highly pragmatic society). She had to work as an apprentice with very little or almost no pay for a long while. I watched with pride and satisfaction as her skills got better and better, eventually running her own studio and being a mentor to other artists. She inked my semi-colon tattoo, and I often joked she wasted her skills on me. Her art is now on hundreds of people.
We’ve drifted apart in the last few years. But even prior we were never the sort of friends who would hang out frequently together. Yet she was one of the few people I would definitely meet each time I was back in singapore during those days I lived or spent a lot of time overseas. There were long exchanges through text and emails, though I am afraid to look at them now.
I’ve become increasingly isolated in the past few years: a large part of it is due to the pandemic, and the depression caused by the pandemic. I was also going through a prolonged existential crisis (which is still on-going) that made me unable to relate to myself or other people. Or you could call it a long transition period of slowly becoming my un-masked self. I found it difficult to navigate relationships because they were all founded upon my masked self. I found myself automatically masking with people and it exhausts me, so I gradually avoided most interactions.
So I have not seen my friend much for the past few years. Even as I found out she was dying I took a really long time to pluck up the strength and courage to arrange for a meetup. I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t be a walking wet blanket around her. The week we were supposed to meet, she was hospitalised. And then she was gone.
Even though she was on a timeline, nobody thought it would be this soon. I had mistakenly assumed I would have more time. Don’t be like me. Don’t ever think there would be more time. I cannot even begin to describe my regret.
But thankfully she didn’t need me because she was and had been surrounded by a ton of love and people. She was just that sort of person, like a ray of sunshine. It was very evident when the tributes started pouring in.
We don’t realise the full meaning of what a person means to us until we feel their permanent absence. It is difficult to accept that she wouldn’t be replying my texts anymore. I liked sending her photos of interesting tattoos. I feel a hole in my soul, missing a part of me that existed because my friend mirrored it. I am reminded of this quote by Salman Rushdie:
“Whenever someone who knows you disappears, you lose one version of yourself. Yourself as you were seen, as you were judged to be. Lover or enemy, mother or friend, those who know us construct us, and their several knowings slant the different facets of our characters like diamond-cutter’s tools. Each such loss is a step leading to the grave, where all versions blend and end.” – source
Grief for me doesn’t come out in one big rush (it may especially seem so for autistic people). It slowly drips. Since her passing I haven’t had the chance to fully break down in tears, afraid to know what I may find if I do so. The last time something like this happened, my eyes lost their ability to tear for years (diagnosed with blocked oil glands). So it is a matter of time that I have to meet my grief somewhere, somewhen. But I think of her when I wake up, when I fall asleep, when I shower, whenever my mind quietens. There is a constant dull ache somewhere in me. I seem to be always on the verge of tears, but never really crying. I guess it would be like this for a long while.