| name | value |
| location | Melbourne |
| date | 2026-07-31 |
| dateFormat | dd-mmm-yyyy |
| slug | 2026July |
七月四日
來到柏林火車總站，恍然，上一次在這裡，痛苦，焦慮，不知結果將會如何地給L打電話。信號極差，但還是想辦法通上話，他積極地開始我卻消極，我終於積極起來的時候他忽然消極，斷崖式結束了電話。我被這突如其來的轉變震動得不知如何是好。我的不安和絕望從此刻開始。這一切已是一年有餘之前的事情了，本是一段從沒返過的回憶，卻在這一刻不受我控制，只因物似，便全湧上心頭，歷歷在目。好在手機信號還是一如既往極差，我因此慌亂也被轉移一些注意力。
Never once did it occur to me to keep a record of my London days for it always seemed like just a weekend routine. Somehow Berlin days rang a similar tone. Except there was nothing routine about it, and I much regret not having tried to keep track of my Berlin trips. I wonder how many days I’ve accumulated. Has it been a month yet?
What invoked such desire to know might be that when I arrived at Berlin Hbf today flashbacks from last time rushed over me. Fortunately enough, I have a lot more memories in Berlin that different memories soon took over. Then I started to marvel at my ability to recognise routes, signs, things that has frozen in time and things that have disappeared and changed.
七月五日
Today Catriona made me feel judged again and I really don't like it. Feeling this way always makes me want to escape. I also hate that what they want is rather opposite to what I want and I can't just be myself. Rather, me being myself seems to make them uncomfortable, and this really makes me anxious. At one point as they kept pushing the conversation, I felt worse and worse that I could physically get sick.
七月七日
I don't think this is working. I don't think this is working. I don't think I am who you want in your life and I don't think you are who I want in my life. I don't like feeling this way and certainly don't like to feel this way with someone I am supposed to feel close and safe with.
Think of the time you walked away from me in Busan, you didn't tell me how long you would need, you didn't tell me how far you would go, all I had was just faith, or hope, that you would eventually come back. All I am asking right now is what I did back then from you, just let me be.
You don't understand me because we are different and you never will. You understand momentarily when I am able to explain myself, but I hate having to explain myself constantly, and you seem to want me to do it over and over again even, at least to me, it's about the same things always.
I don't think this is working. What you need is fundamentally different from what I need, and what is worse is that to accommodate what you need I have to compromise, even sacrifice what I need, and this is not working. We are fundamentally incompatible. I can accept our differences and deal with it in my ways so I can still remain myself, but can you? Can you accept our differences? Can you accept my ways of dealing with them? As time goes past, it has become more and more clear to me that you can't accept either of them.
What I want is never understanding, but acceptance. To survive this world full of others I constantly have to explain and justify myself seeking for barely just enough understanding. That is extremely exhausting. The fact that I hate having to do it so much is either a cause or consequence, which doesn't really matter, of me being introverted or autistic. All I want from a close relationship or friendship is a safe haven where I can just be and not have to explain or justify myself and just be accepted. With very few people in this world I do have the privilege of that and that is how I have survived this world thus far. They are the people and places I turn to when things become too hard and I need to recharge.
I don't want to have to escape from my lover to hide and recharge. That is not what I want from my lover. But currently that is the reality. I have to run away from your endless interrogation in order to return to my peace. This is soul crushing.
七月八日
Do you even like me? If your decision on whether to like or even just accept me has to be based on your so-called understanding, then it is quite unfortunate because the thing I find least joy in is having to explain myself in order to be understood. I find no satisfaction in being understood.
I don't think this is working. I don't want to be together anymore. I don't think we should. I don't like feeling judged for how I live my life by the person whose opinions I care about. I don't like being forced to justify my being. I don't like being questioned and pushed to explain myself. I don't need to be understood and it brings me no joy by explaining myself just to be understood. I want to just be. I don't think this is working and I think we are fundamentally incompatible in what we want and our approaches to achieve what we want. It is probably objectively unfair to say this but subjectively this is how I currently feel: I have been trying to accommodate your needs but it ends up being detrimental to myself, and when that happens, that is, when my needs take over and have to become my priority, you are not accommodating my needs. Then we enter this vicious cycle, where my needs for basic survival is to return to normal routines and day-to-day small things, but you cannot engage with those as per normal because you need to "understand" in your way, but your way of seeking that is by endlessly interrogating me, which stresses me out to ever more extreme extent. I have said this before more than once but I say it again: I cannot talk about what stresses me out when I am still stressed, and whenever I try I just get more stressed. I can only recover from the stress by engaging with things that are far away from the stressors. It seems like no matter how explicitly I have expressed this and how many times I have, you still need to hear it again when it happens, and that just inflicts a million negative emotions in me. And I think the same is happening to you even though the vicious cycle doesn't look exactly the same on your end. But I am audacious to think I have had your wellbeing in mind when I didn't exit the conversation abruptly even though that was what I needed and would have been the best for myself. What about my wellbeing then? Let alone listening to my explicit requests you didn't even allow me to do what you had done in similar situations before.
Why are you allowed to just physically leave me abruptly without any further explanation, why are you allowed to tell me to stop expressing an important opinion when you are stressed by it, why are you allowed to call me forceful when I was confused and asking for clarification, why are you allowed to not tell me your plans even though they also affect me? I am not really asking these questions because they are the wrong questions to ask; you are entitled to do all of these things and I accept that this is what you need or was what you needed in those moments. What bothers me is that I am not allowed to do any of these in our relationship, and you have a lot of double standards. More specifically, you have a lot of standards and expectations and rules for me that you don't even follow yourself. And it is not fair that you dictate what is important and what is not.
七月十一日
An old guy who worked at Gropius Bau approached me and commented on my manual-focus camera. I was seeing the Marina Abramovic exhibition. He told me he’s British but currently based in Germany. He told me about his cameras and some stories about the exhibition.
A student from three years ago messaged me to tell me that he’s finally finished his degree at Warwick and thanked me for those supervision sessions, which played an important part of his studies hence he wanted to share this news with me.
On such a beautiful Europe summer day, so much, so much sadness welled up in me.
七月十二日
You told me that you are going because you see your place there. I am very happy for you that you can find your place. Yet it also makes me feel very sad for myself—I haven’t felt like there’s a place for me for a long time. I can’t tell whether it is just sadness or more complex such like jealousy.
Same kind of sadness welled up in me and spilled all over when you told me that you felt showered with love and affection at the dinner party your friends threw for you. But that one was definitely a bit more than just sad for myself because I didn’t feel loved and much love deficient, but also I felt inadequate. You and your friends are such different people than me and my friends and the way you need and express love is so different from mine. I will never be enough for you.
How does one overcome fear?
If the fear is real and impeding, how does one overcome it?
I can run away from fear, I can live with fear and feel every pain and stress it brings, but how can I overcome fear?
People don’t tell me to overcome sadness, but tell me to overcome fear. But how does one overcome fear?
Let’s go for a walk Let’s go for a walk onto the moon And gaze and gaze And gaze at distance and gaze at lines
七月二十日
I am very sure that I’m not the person you want, Catriona. And I’m sure you will find the person you want. You are open minded and you are excited to know new people, I am sure you will have no trouble finding the right person for you. I am sorry I am not, and I can’t be them. I have so little and I am already drained. It is not worthwhile anymore. It’s barely sustainable.
七月二十三日
In my head we are already doomed, even though we haven’t broken up. I want to still give you the birthday gifts I had prepared for you. I don’t know what’s gonna happen to us after that. August will be busy. Maybe it’s a good excuse to let the distance between us grow naturally.
Sadness fills my heart as I adjust myself to this prospect. It is sad but there does not seem to be an alternative. I cannot see a future where we can be both happy. I cannot see a future of us.
I am grieving already.
七月二十七日
We broke up. We broke up. We are breaking up but we don’t break up on the phone, we are breaking up in person when I see you in three days. How can I survive?