Week 38: Pieces of what?

ok, i'm not going to lie. lately, i've been wondering about the person i've become, and on rare occasions, i don't even feel like myself anymore (having no fingerprints helps HAHAHA oh i love my fingers). the other day when i had some spare time, i started thinking about random shit and i came to the conclusion that it is very easy to lose one's self. i'm not talking about feeling 'lost' per se, rather, the disintegration of one's self. however, if you want to read an article about feeling lost, please head over to stephen's blog - he wrote an EXCELLENT post regarding that topic to which i highly recommend you read because it made me feel super emo after i read it =( and i'm generally a rather emo individual already but his post managed to amplify that feeling in me. i even added a 'sad face' emoticon up there so you know that i, and his post, mean business.

anyway, i'm not sure if this extends to the general public, and most often than not i find that i'm the only one feeling this way because when i tell someone about it they look at me all weird and go, err..are you ok, mel? but enough of that.

as i was saying, i'm beginning to feel that i'm losing little bits that are ME. i often find that every time i meet someone new (male and female ahem), i give a little piece of myself away to that person and in the process, adopt a little piece of themself into me. as the bond between me and each person that enters my life strengthens, i lose more of myself because it is channeled into said person, and i take upon myself more of what is them.

does this mean that i am weak-willed and easily influenced by people? i'd like to think not. it is not difficult to absorb the person to whom you have a close relationship with. i listen to their secrets, i know their stories, i become familiar with their past, i am here in their present and i hope for their future. and since i have so willingly exposed and opened myself to who they have been, what they are now and what they will become, i'd like to think that they're doing the same for me. and that is how i lose myself, because i give myself away to them; my secrets, my fears, my longings - and also how i become them; a recipient to all of the above.

i am a conglomerate of little pieces of everyone i meet.

yet, as long as i am with them, i feel like i am still whole. an apple tree is only an apple tree when its branches are laden with fruit. the moment it is stripped bare from its yield, it is no longer identified as an apple tree; rather, it is a tree just like any other as there is nothing to indicate what it was before. i am like that apple tree. my friends are the apples with which i have invested growth hormones, enzymes, nutrients, energy and sunlight in the form of my joys, my fears, my sadness and my secrets. and when they go away or disappear from my life, i lose a small piece of what makes me me - and i am only left with what they have passed on to me.

there is only so much growth hormones, enzymes, nutrients, and energy i can invest in new apples after which i become completely spent. and that is when i stop bearing fruit and i become, just simply a tree riddled with scars on the branches which the apple stems have left behind. and this is what is happening right now. i feel as though autumn's around the corner even though it is very nearly summer now.

as easily as i can make new friends, i have come to realise that i can lose or let go of them as easily too. when that happens, pieces of me get lost in the undercurrents of the lives in which we lead. and when every single piece of me is dispersed and gone, i will become no more; just a conglomerate of everything that has been.

and so to end this rather 'WTF?!' post, i present to you a picture of a bruise.



i got this baby at Little Bay after i fell unceremoniously and embarassingly on the rocks. i can't help that i bruise easily.