Losing

I've always had the fear - and I'm not sure if anyone else is afraid over this in this same way - of losing myself. Part of the reason is because I feel as if I'm just the sort who'd trip over a step and drop herself somewhere and later have a hell of a time retracing her footsteps to find herself again.

Now that my 'extra-curriculum activities' have come to a close, I have a bit of time, and a few days ago I picked up some storybooks. Yes, storybooks. Books that I didn't have to read; books that could scale the heights of erudition or scrape the bottom of the trash bin, and I could read them all. Such a simple freedom, and I am floored. Which meant I spent my lunch hour at the miserable MPH near my workplace and bought 3 books. They weren't books I had been eyeing for a long time; they were just books that caught my fancy and so I dished out the hard, cold cash in a blind literature-purchasing frenzy. Doesn't matter what books they are, only that evening saw me parked in a cafe near the river with a glass of red wine, a slice of chocolate cake, a book in my hands and 2 more in my bag. Yes, when I Read I really Read. And so I Read.

And then the waiter asked me for the bill because they were closing, and I realised I had lost hours, and it was really time to be getting home. I staggered out of the cafe somewhat disoriented, with a buzzing in my head that annoyingly reminded me one should not read for hours in a dim cafe.

It was such a pleasure to read, and I was intoxicated with the seldom appreciated freedom of being able to read whatever one likes. And I thought, maybe I could keep doing this, sit through the work hours, then do this every evening - pick out a book and just read. I could do it for years, spending my time in a pleasant drowsy contentment, always letting my thoughts ride with the imagination of whichever author I happen to pick up, never being bored because I would be living so many lives through so many minds.

The thought chills me, that I might start reading one day, and look up to find that 20, 30, or even 40 years have gone by. I get scared because I think I am perfectly capable of doing that, perhaps not entirely literally, but close. I have never had a good memory, and now that I do so many things at work everyday, I would not be able to tell you, at the end of the day, what I had done in the morning. It would be as if my day got stolen from me, and I was alienated from my time.

I have always feared the madness within. It would be so easy for me to go mad, for me to forget who I am. All I have to do is to let go.

When I speak of madness - well, I don't know if a psychiatrist would call that mad. But I can't think of a better word to describe the feeling of not being in one's own mind, of letting the body do what it likes while the mind huddles in a corner or flies out and scatters in the rain. Of being unthinking, unable to form a coherent thought, unaware of myself and lost, suspended, in some fake, fictional world while my life drains away.

My erhu teacher always tells me that I need to make sure my qi is located low in my body, and I always give him my trademarked glazed eyes look. But I know exactly what he means.