Page 39 of Status Undefined
It was too much. I put my head in my hands and cried.
Lying in bed late that night, I tried some meditation techniques to help me fall asleep but I couldn’t quiet my mind. My thoughts swirled around one thing – the inevitable parting from Daniel. We tried so hard not to think about the future, to live in themoment, to love like there was no tomorrow. But that’s like finding out that a tsunami is forecast but still walking towards it because the weather is currently great. I’m not a masochist. I’m programmed to avoid pain. I can’t manage to live in the moment when a tsunami of pain is coming right at me, and fast. The tears sprang up again. I tried to ignore them, but they intensified until they were pouring down – like Phuket’s over-the-top rain. My chest ached as if something dark was trying to burst out of it. I sobbed into my pillow in frustration and punched the bed. It made no difference. Daniel would still be heading to his next destination. Why had I let myself fall in love, be sucked into this magical bubble that was about to burst? But, at the same time, a voice in my head said: the pain will come anyway, so why not try to relax and enjoy it for as long as the bubble lasts? That’s not how it works, said another voice in my head. The stronger the relationship gets, the worse the pain will be. I wondered if anyone had researched this dilemma. I tried desperately to focus on my breathing and travel to that dreamlike place where there is no future and no rational thought. But the dreams turned into nightmares, and I woke up fatigued. Strange how love can morph from something magical to something so threatening.
January 7
(visa expires in 7 days)
For the first time in years I logged into the email account I’d used when I was still at school. It took me a while to remember the password, but I eventually got it. And there they were: the emails my mother had sent me. The first one was dated about a month after I got to Thailand. It turned out that Dalia, the old lady who lived next door to us, had been giving her updates about me, so she was aware that I had gone. When my mother told me this, I understood why Dalia had suddenly taken an interest in me from the vantage point of her front porch. I’d thought she was concerned for me because my mom had left, but she’d had ulterior motives. When Dalia told her I’d taken off, gone to Thailand and not returned with the rest of the group, my mother decided to reach out to me. But my phone number was not in service and I wasn’t on social media. So she emailed, unaware that she wasn’t using my current address, and never received a reply. She tried again every few days and, later, every few months, hoping I would eventually see her messages. I didn’t ask whether she’d suspected me of seeing them and deciding not to respond. I cried as I read the emails, wracked with guilt. I’d convinced myself that she’d decided to cut ties and I shouldn’t impose myself on her. When I disconnected my old phone number, I’d told myself that if she had wanted to contact me she would already have done so. I never resented her for leaving or let myself blame her. I knew why she’d done it – it just hurt that I wasn’t important enough for her to stay or, at least, keep in touch somehow. I had a vague notion in the back of my mind that I might go to New York to look for her when I got out of the army. But I never considered it seriously. I didn’t know how to contact her aunt, and an internet search didn’t help. It seemed so complicated. I didn’t know where to begin.
She told me that the day she left was the worst day of her life. There had been some frightening incidents with my father that she wouldn’t elaborate on – she was still protecting me. When the drinking got really bad, she started fearing for her life, but didn’t go to the police, or even friends, because she loved him and remembered him as he’d been before. She planned to run away once I was in the army and not at home much, so that it would have less of an impact on my daily life. She believed I’d be safe because my father had never raised a hand to me, and she didn’t contact me for fear that would change. Now that I understood her motives, a wave of longing that had been suppressed for years swept through me and I daydreamed about living with her again. Maybe I was too old for that, but I needed to make up for all the lost years. But how could I do that without losing Daniel?
Life had once been easy. The boundaries were clear, if not authentic. I’d never been rebellious until I came out and took off for Thailand. No arguments with parents or teachers, no bad behavior or academic problems. I knew the world wouldn’t take kindly to me if I were to rebel. But maybe pleasing the world matters less than loving it. I was always afraid that people would stop loving me if I did things they didn’t like. I knew my mother would still love me if I chose to stay in Thailand. But what about Daniel? Would he keep loving me if I decided to live in New York?
My mind raced: I’m complicated. I have hangups. I’m hard to understand. I don’t understand myself. I’m trying to figure out what is right and what is wrong, what the truth is and why nobody seems to know. I want to be wild and I want to calm down. I want everything and nothing. I want to leave and I want to stay. God, why am I so filled with contradictions? What do I really want, and should I want that? Maybe it’s not in my best interests. But what are my best interests? I don’t want my past,but I’m afraid of the future. I love the present, but I also don’t. Is that how it’s meant to be? Does anyone else love the present completely, without wanting even the smallest change? But the fear of change ruining the present paralyzes me. I was taught long ago that our fate is predetermined. So why is everything still so crazy? Whoever can answer that question deserves a Nobel Prize. I can’t imagine all the things I’ve missed out on in life because I was afraid, because I didn’t want to cause anyone pain. Can anybody help me?
January 10
(visa expires in 4 days)
I was watching a movie on Netflix, sort of. Actually, I was lost in thought. The silence in my apartment made me feel like I was going insane, so I had gone over to the Arielis. Eli was out running some errands for the tourism business he and Naama owned. Keren was out with friends (or with Sean, she wouldn’t say). So it was just Naama and me at home. She’d been on the phone with Liam the whole time I was there.
“Liam says hi.”
I think so much and never manage to…
“Amit? Hello? Amit!” Naama interrupted my reverie.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Didn’t you hear me tell you that Liam says hi?”
“Oh sorry, my head was completely in the movie. I didn’t hear you.”
Do you know that feeling when your parents come into your room at the worst possible moment during a movie? Some character had his head chopped clean off just as she glanced at the screen.
“Okay, well maybe I shouldn’t have put it like that.” We looked at each other and cracked up. Naama eventually took the remote and turned off the TV. I didn’t object. She knew that kind of movie wasn’t my thing. She’d tried often enough to talk me into watching one.
“Have you decided whether to go and see your mother?” I had told them about my conversation with her and had never seen them so pleased.
“I want to, but I can’t stand the thought of leaving what I’ve had with Daniel over the last month. It’s like this,” I started to tell her about the thoughts plaguing me. “On one hand, I know that he’ll leave Thailand soon anyhow. I don’t know when he’llcome back, and I don’t know if I could ever live the way he does. On the other hand, I want to give my mother another chance. Daniel will never go there though, to New York. It’s so freakin’ complicated. Is love supposed to be like this? I’m aware of what will eventually happen, but it’s too painful to actually make that call. My heart breaks just thinking about it. It’s like a giant hole in my gut that will swallow me whole when I decide. I don’t know what to do.”
Naama was silent for a few moments and then she said, “I can’t tell you what to do. You’ll have to be brave. I know you are, even if you don’t believe so. But maybe it’ll be helpful for you if I tell you about Liam’s dilemma last year. You know he really struggled with whether to go back to Israel and do his army service, or stay in Thailand – not because of us – but because he’d found love.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Do you know what helped him decide?”
“No, only that he decided to go to the army, and he broke up with his boyfriend because of it.” I’d never seen Liam so crushed.
“He never told you this, but he really looks up to you as a big brother and a role model and it was thanks to you that he found his truth and made the decision. He said he was going to the army to make sure that what happened to you never happens to anyone else, that if he could stop even one terrorist from destroying a family, his own sacrifice would be worth it.”
Tears rolled down my cheeks. The worst part was seeing how hard it was for Naama.
“It wasn’t easy for him. I know how much he wanted to be near us. He misses us, but he knew he’d regret it his whole life if he didn’t do it.”
I hugged her tight. Being far away from her son, worrying if he was alright, was so hard for her. I missed him too, but she must have been in agony.
We let each other go and wiped our eyes.
