A secret kept

There's something a bit concerning... but also, sort of comforting about Hopoe for me.

During all my illness I could not think of her. It was too stressful. It was so much. I could barely. But now that I feel better, it's back. It's still unending, still there, just... it was buried under the fight against the virus, and then the post-viral recovery. It takes perhaps a lot of energy to keep her here, but I don't mind. It's a flame that is hidden in a basement that I still tend to, and will.

For one evening or so, even looking at my tattoo triggered me. But I'd rather have the tattoo than my suicide attempt scars, and now, it's okay. I think I was just overloaded. Plus, if by any chance I were to be a little sensitive, I can wear long sleeves. I literally forget I have six tattoos when I wear long clothing lmao. And I dearly love that tattoo on my right arm. It's the way I have of keeping this story alive without ever saying a word about it.

Because yes... the concerning part is, I even have trouble writing about what happened. About her. I'm entering a phase when I cannot mention her name (guess her alias on here acts as a buffer since it puts... distance between her actual self and the memory? happens for everyone really, all those codenames are really buffers... not just Nettiquette) 

I'm becoming just like my great-grandfather, mother's side. You see, my great-grandmother died in 1945 from cancer. She was thirty-five years old. My grandfather was ten years old. I mentioned here that he lost his mom at ten. He never spoke of his mom, but I'm talking about my great-grandfather because while he did remarry and have girlfriends... he also never said her name again. He kept her tucked away, somewhere.

I can't even imagine how awful it must have been for both of them. My great-grandma is a mystery because... nobody talks about her anymore, or rather, the two people who could have are both dead now. Great-grandfather died in 1993, grandfather died in a car accident in 1988. 

Hopoe is that for me. I carry her in everything. In the unicorns in my room. In my dance practice because she's the one who led me to it, without realizing it, turning my curiosity about those roots into... into something I have become intertwined with. In some of my characters. In this blog. In my dreams, too. In many, many things. In the pearl I will never stop wearing. It's my signature necklace at this point and I think nobody would bat an eye at it. Nobody would guess that it's so loaded, charged with history. Father will brag about how the necklace HE wanted for me is around my neck all the time, but I, and Hopoe, too, know the truth.

It may have been his idea, yes, but I told her, back in the day. 

That it wasn't with him that I associated it. 

She knows. I don't know if she consciously remembers it (if anything, I expect to be a repressed memory for a little while, until I inevitably surface up because I'm just like that, y'know. I don't need to pop in and send a message nor move. I will be here). But she knows.

And I know.

We know.

And she happens to have the exact same necklace, inverted. Silver chain and black pearl.

The comforting part about me keeping silent, not ever saying her name, is that she's there, in here, never to be stolen from me. Never to die. Never having anyone to judge that. To think I'm insane, or "overly attached", or that I "cannot move on", or that she was "just a catalyst" and "not meant to stay" kind of bullshit, or whatever else I could get thrown at and that I'm used to from people who mean well but have never been in my shoes. I mean what else to expect from a world that expects you to "move forward" and "not dwell on the past" and throw people away like they never existed?

Back in the day I would've been totally accepted. What I do would've been normal.

I do what's normal.

***

But oh, Hopoe, jokes on you, you wanted to disappear by deleting everything after my attempt, and not only did you make a terrible strategic mistake when you tried to make me look like the crazy one... but little do you know, you're actually immortal. And immortal many times! On this blog, in my creativity, in my dance practice, in my goddamn arm tattoo! And you'll be even more immortal once you're dead. 

You signed up for something you had no idea about, but... you'll see in the end. ;) And that might be one of the purposes of all of it. I don't know what was intended, can't know til I'm dead... but I'll find out, I guess.

Tucked away, just like my great-gran was. I wonder how many people carry a secret like mine. Someone they still have with them, even if... externally, nothing would say it.

I don't know if I would tell someone that if she's living with me... she'll also live with someone, not someone physically present... but someone that inhabits the depths of my soul regardless.

This alone sounds like something to write about...

If I do go back to my psychiatrist, I will tell her that something traumatic caused my suicide attempts. But that I do not want to talk about it. No, I cannot, and I will not. 

Not ever.

Hopoe stays inside.

Only the tattoo speaks. Those who know the symbols... and those who know the tiare 'apetahi may realize a woman from Raiatea was involved.

My future readers may sense something. 

Hell, in my autobiography, if I ever make one... I might just... talk about it, with an alias, again. Alluding to her last name with a metaphor based on its meaning, but that's it.

Hopoe remains in what I don't say.

In this space where nothing seems to happen and yet everything does happen.

Until we meet again, that is. 

I wonder if it's the same for her. If I'm similarly tucked away, though in her case, yeah... I think I'd be sealed into an underground palace like the goddamn Shadow Queen lol.