Of family values, the dearly departed and happiness

Came home yesterday to a surprising, bad news: my uncle passed away in the morning. Surprising because, all that happened was he did not feel well, went down to the clinic to get himself checked, collapsed while waiting and.... never got up again.
I cannot imagine how my aunt must be feeling right now.

Sudden death. No time for preparation, no time for that last moment together, no time to say thank you.. for being someone I could love, for loving me, for all the years we've been together, the good times and the bad, for the brief, elusive glimpse of our future that I can no longer see, of us being together forever. No time to say that final goodbye. I'm thinking about my grandmother right now.

I cannot say that I am grieving, but there is a deep regret I feel inside my heart. For he was my uncle, but we did not have a close relationship. He was my aunt's husband, I knew him to be family, I called him 'uncle'. And that's it. We rarely saw each other, spoke even less. 

There was never an opportunity for us to have spoken closely, or to have spoken about anything of great importance, really. He was there on some weekends that I go back to visit my grandmother, and all those times, all we ever did was exchanged normal greetings.

And then I started wondering, isn't it strange how my default religion always spoke of family values, the importance placed in upholding said values and yet here I am, with an uncle.. or uncles.. I barely knew or spoke to.

I grew up thinking I had the best family in the world. There were so many of us, every gathering was fun and loud and crazy and I looked forward to every single one of them. I thought my family was literally my BFFs for life. People I could call when I have no one to eat dinner with, when I need help or just call for the heck of it.

I don't know when it started.... What happened? What changed? I think we all changed. Some became selfish, some became competitive and suddenly, it wasn't so fun anymore.

Every sentence said was carefully thought out, filled with hidden meanings. Every joke was meant to hurt, not to laugh over. And then I began dreading the gatherings, even as I looked forward to seeing everyone.

Now I'm just numb. It doesn't matter to me anymore... if we meet every month, or if we ever meet at all. 

It doesn't make a difference if it doesn't come from the heart. If your family doesn't want to be your family.. there really isn't anything else you can do.

There are days when I still wonder where it went wrong.

We've tried to give it go, don't say we haven't. We turned up for family gatherings when we're supposed to, because we wanted to give this a go, work all the kinks out. But then it just gets worse.

Money IS the root of all evil. As you gain more money, you lose your humanity. At least, that's what I think. Who knows what's going on the other side of the grass?

Maybe they think they saw these 'bad' sides in us too. And maybe they were wrong. Who knows? I was never selfish. I was never competitive. I don't need more of anything, more than anyone, to prove any point. If everyone had voiced out their fears and their worries, I could have told them they were wrong. Maybe we could all clear our misunderstandings, our wrong assumptions and our misinterpretations of each other's actions.

But the time for that has passed. When your heart closes, your eyes and mind become blind as well.

If it was as easy as saying what's on our minds, there wouldn't be all these cruel, unfathomable, heart-wrenching events happening all over the world every single day.

No, we all need to move on with our lives, without each other.

How sad is that? To be living in the same world, the same place, but forever separated by the differences of our thoughts and minds. What was the saying again? United we stand, divided we fall.

I don't really know what's the point of this long-ass post.

All I know is that I'm feeling too much right now and I need an outlet to escape.

As always, when death comes a little too close for comfort, you start seeing your life in a whole new light.

What's new there? You start questioning things you're doing, why you're doing it and how to move on from it.

And I really, really just want to say, I honestly do not want to be stuck doing something I didn't feel passionate about, because of that feeling of stability, or the security it provides. But what can I do?

No, seriously. What CAN I do? Change? Yes. How? Don't I need some sort of direction to change to? What makes me happy? What am I passionate about? And then.. it struck me.. You know what?

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT MAKES ME HAPPY.

And doesn't that just suck?

I'd like to get past that fear of wanting to change, yet feeling like I'm unable to accept it if changes do happen.

I want to get off the road everyone is traveling on, I want to go on that "oh-my-god-there's-a-screw-loose-on-the-track" kind of exhilarating ride that makes me believe that there's something worth living for.

If genies exist, and one of them decides to grant me a wish, I'd say "I want 'change'!". And genie would say, "Okay, you got it. How do you want your 'change'?"

"Surprise me, genie."