New Life 64: Ume Gaiden, Love is Blind, Love Hurts 💔🖤

Acceptance (Episode 3)

At this point, Ume had begun to accept that everything was over and that there was nothing she could do, though it felt more like surrendering. She was holding up her end of the breakup because she had to, not because she wanted to. Michi had taken everything away from her, her style of hair, beauty pageants, talent shows, her ex-friends, and finally, her boyfriend. Michi had won, but rather, she won the battle, but the war wasn't over yet. Adonis was Michi's problem now, Ume was free. Ume had developed enough awareness and control at this point to recognize that she was not meant to be with a jerk like Adonis, or rather in her language, an sǐ pì yǎn. Over time, this initial, tenuous acceptance became more substantive, as Ume began to recognize, independently, that there are boundaries that she must maintain in order for the breakup to stick because it had to. She was finally grasping that it's just not good for her to keep trying anymore.

(Sǐ pì yǎn means "asshole" in Chinese, Ume is half Chinese.)

Ume was leveled by the breakup and has had difficulty letting go, in part because it shattered her relationship with hope. As acceptance deepens, Ume redirecting her feelings of hope-from the belief that she could singlehandedly save a failing relationship to the possibility that she just might be okay without her ex. It was jarring when Ume was forced to redirect her hope from the known entity of the relationship into the abyss of the unknown. But this was an opportunity to redirect the life force of hope. Regardless, hope was somewhere in Ume's reserves and she will access it again as she continues to allow some meaningful distance between her and her ex.

Days and nights had passed, about 2 days at most. Ume's suspension only lasts for two weeks. Ume felt alien to herself and cut off from the world. However, like any emotional amputation, she knew continuing on in life meant learning to live without that part of her and finding ways to compensate for its loss. As the grieving process progressed Ume began to see her way through to a point at which she can let go in a more proactive and self-protective way-a way that she may eventually come to understand as a new beginning.

Later around night, someone knocked on her door, Ume ignored it, hoping the person will go away. But she heard Adonis' voice, she reluctantly got up and opened it. The door had been unlocked by Adonis since he had an extra key card to her room that had been in his possession. Adonis was trying his hardest to apologize, Ume then began having hope again, but her hope was false, she didn't trust him, she slammed the door, Adonis stood at the door knocking repeatedly, Ume, now mentally going insane at this point, grabbed a gun and pointed it at him. She aimed it at his heart as to say You destroyed my heart so I'll destroy yours. Without a word, Adonis took it as a threat if he didn't leave she'd shoot him, so he left. Ume closed the door again. Due to seeing his face again, Ume went through the entire phase all over again, except worse this time. The gun wasn't loaded, she wasn't packing any ammo either, it was just merely meant to scare Adonis into leaving. If anything, she would have used it to put herself out of her misery.

Ume had serious trust issues at that point. She wanted to hug him so badly but at the same time, it would've felt like hugging a cactus. She knew using her brain was the best instead of using her heart. This was a very depressing state for Ume, this could leave her depressed for days, months, years even. All she could do was sleep and be miserable, not even moving much. Listening to the sounds of her clock tick-tocking and later, the sounds of rain pouring outside her window. One thing she did was grab her old mp3 player, sit up on her bed in the corner of the wall, hug her stuffed elephant, Phan-Phan, and listen to an album of songs from her childhood, her current favorite being "Be Your Girl" from Elfen Lied. This helped her cope until she slept, hadn't eaten or drank for days, her body still aching and feeling weighed down, she hadn't bathed and her horsehair went so wild that she ended up looking like a hedgehog. Ume had one key essential missing from her grieving process-a friend.

つづく

"Next Episode: Rena..."