Amongst Other Things

For more than a year, waking up after a good night’s rest has been a rarity except on Fridays and Saturdays. Sundays were the worst because of the impending thought of work the next day.

For more than a year, my relationships with people – be it for direct and indirect reasons – deteriorated. It was a clear reflection of how much I withdrew from people went things became harder to bear. A part of me has no regrets over this because it was the best coping mechanism I knew while another part is saddened over the prospect of irreparable relationships.

For more than a year, belief was in short supply. Confidence was never something I had a huge proportions but somehow, I had to find them somewhere, somehow. Almost everyday my self-belief took a beating, borne out of an extremely caustic environment.

As one chapter of my life slowly grinds to a (hopefully) peaceful end, there is now the hope that the new one would be better.

***

Our gaze met many times. The first time it happened, the look in her eyes was one of connection as her memory was jolted before it spoke of attempts to recollect.

The second time it happened – a few weeks later – there was more of calmness. Her eyes told of how the question of who I was became somewhat settled. I was someone from her past – something she might or might not acknowledge – and that was enough for her. However, there remained a hint of how she hasn’t figured everything out yet.

When our gaze met for the third time, both of us were talking. No, it wasn’t a conversation between old friends. As we were both at work, there wasn’t much time to do any reminiscing or even pose questions to ascertain the guesses she had about the small role I played in her past. We lingered in each other’s presence for a few minutes, standing next to each other and observing people in the meeting room.

As she left to chat with a couple of business associates, I knew some things are worth the memories but not the words.

The silence that filled the past two months is not an indication of the uneventful nature of my life. Everything happens in a day and it is merely a matter of how one chooses to stop to smell the roses, observe the little nuances in body language of a young couple in love whom you passed or watch the elderly woman lovingly but painstakingly wipe the perspiration off the brow of her grandson’s.

Everything in life happens (or does not happen) for a reason.

***

On the request of colleagues after a hearty dinner last week, we trawled the back alleys of Geylang where women barely into their adulthoods lined the streets, cajoling men who ogled at them openly by touching their arms. A younger version of me would have entertained all thoughts about the story behind each face, each tale about an unreasonable client or the kind of dreams of the life each of them would rather lead.

In between the bits of trivia supplied by colleagues, I nodded, smiled and walked on, avoiding any eye contact with any of the girls and ready to squirm the moment my arms receive a gentle but tempting brush from their hands. It is a trade between two parties with nary an emotion involved or that it only satisfies needs albeit differently.

***

From here:

“But there’s something I really need to know cos it’s been bugging me. Have you ever liked me before, in a special way?”

The answer came to mind pretty quickly. But it wasn’t one easy to send out.

Yup, I think I did.

And it prompted another message from me, as if it had to be said. That was, when I sent the quote of the day.

Before I could send it out, his reply below reached me.

“Do you still? Cos lately whenever I think of you I’d wish I could be a jumper(sidenote: the movie, geddit? Uhm… Yah… I know… Er), and just teleport to be beside you both.”

“At what point really?”

I thought hard. Though it was easy to say at which point it was, but I think it all boiled down to how every element just fell into place and made things irreversible.

Too many things had happened. Bad timing, people. All are contributing factors there isn’t really much point going into it.

“Can I have a chance of you liking me again?”

I honestly can’t answer the question. I think some things are just too late.

“I don’t like to be pressured, so I won’t give you pressure. In the past I always thought you didn’t like me enough, so I wasn’t honest with my feelings. Guess I was dumb on my part. Oh well, gonna miss those times we talked and laughed… It was good while it lasted.”

So I guess, this was the closure we both needed.

I believe those times can still happen between us as friends. It was nice, indeed.

We have the stories of our lives, which raise more questions about “what should have been” and conjure fantasies of perhaps a different life.

So is it a case of capre diem to ward off a season or even a lifetime of regrets?

很久以前，我认识一个人。
他从不批判我，只是接受我的本性。
我好像又感觉到小时候，风在抱我的安慰。
他看着我离群独居，看着我因为不愿妥协而掉眼泪，看着我挣扎扮一个大人，看着我朋友不多，看着我孤僻。
这些，他只是静静微笑，从不认为是一种人格的缺陷。
他也从不要求我变成一个社会认可的大人，遵循社会的游戏规则，怎么配合生存。
他看着我跌倒，也看着我任性和悲伤。
好像，我又变回那个在风里跟上帝讲话的小孩子

- Lixie, from “和风拥抱的孩子”

“With every new day, another part of me fades away and dies.”

“There’s no right or wrong to love. There’s only joy or pain.”

I did not wish for sadness

But it plagued me

I did not wish for despair

But it enveloped me

I did not wish for pain

But it struck me

I did not wish for loneliness

But it found me

I did not wish for death

But it lived in me

 ***

Life is now all about letting go

Letting go of ideals

Letting go of principles

Letting go of sense

Letting go of logic

Letting go of injustice

Letting go of dreams

Letting go of joy

Letting go of desires

Letting go of integrity

Letting go of reasoning

Letting go of ethics

Letting go of self-belief

Letting go of love

Letting go of images

Letting go of possibilities (or even to think about them)

Letting go of trust

Letting go of normality

Letting go of friendships

Letting go of truths

Letting go of words

And. Slowly. Perhaps.

Letting go of myself

It’s ok if you forget. We all forget things from time to time – faces, voices, images, emotions … and words. We even forget the words we speak. No doubt they can be fleeting, but it is dependent on the listener to take them in, if he so chooses.

In my time, I have been the recipient of many words, more spoken than written. Some of them I chose to listen. Others I discard because they either don’t sit well with me or I don’t think they are valid. I’ll let them slide, fade and fleet away into oblivion.

Then there are others I hold dear to my heart.

They exist mostly on cards – things that don’t require much to jolt memories. Well-wishes, birthday wishes, words of encouragement, bits of note, letters – yellowed with time, etc; all kept in a box which I rarely open, except when I have to stuff in more cards. Altogether, the box contained close to two decades of words and could roughly chronicle that same amount of time of my life. The nice thing about growing up in a non-PC age was the fact that most of those words were handwritten – as neat as the author wanted them to be.

Encased in time, those words could mean a lot and shores up my heart on a bad day. I could even well be saving them for a rainy day, when I would open them up – like a child on Christmas morning surrounded by his presents – at my dream home, a cup of tea beside me, soft jazz music and dimmed yellow lights, and then read every word, try to remember every author’s face, and if life permits, smile to myself.

Then again, these words were written at a particular time when friendships have yet to be separated – some more prematurely than others – and lives entwined in thick yarns of those adolescent years of sunshine, rock music, sand and cycling at East Coast Park. Reading them twenty years later would mean little now because they no longer stand the test of time or perhaps they would not be relevant anymore.

Words, how they wreck the sweetness of life!

There are also those spoken words, which can be easily forgotten and tossed to the wind almost carelessly. An indication of how my life has been lately would be how all the words I can remember recently were those that lead me to a downward spiral – to the extent that I could no longer question their validity or if they are objective. Would it be true that life stops once I stop remembering?

Over the weekend I was asked by someone I met (but not conversed) for the first time how I deal with silence if I don’t speak, I don’t share, I don’t reveal and I don’t pour my heart out. I gave a simple reply, either I delve deeper into the meaningless white noise that comes with living in a crowded city or I embrace the silence.

I no longer share as freely because at a young age, I was taught a hard lesson by life about the judgmental nature of humans.

I no longer reveal much about my private life because nothing from it will make the world a better place.

I no longer pour my heart out, even to those deemed close to me, because empathy is like a forty-year-old whore standing with a cigarette in her mouth and touting for businesses from elderly men with huge beer bellies and body odour.

As a friend lay on a hospital bed after a botched suicide attempt – a result of trying hard to derive meaning in her life, I think about words and the meaning they bring to life.

親愛的讀者,

新年就快到了. 有些人覺得過新年很麻煩, 要去拜訪一些自己不想拜訪的親戚. 又有一些不喜歡被追問一些(雖然)跟終生大事有關的無聊問題.

十年前的我, 接近新年的時候, 一聽到新年歌, 就會感受到一陣心酸. 尤其是當小妹吃了幾口團年飯後, 就匆匆忙忙地”飛”過去男朋友那兒吃第二道團年飯的時候, 會幻想一下 – 若和另一半一起過年的話, 年初一, 二, 三 – 這幾天的大日子, 會比較好過嗎?

年到三十三的我, 什麼也不管了. 有就有. 沒有就沒有. 隨緣吧. 盡量過了年初一, 就有幾天的公共假期. 也沒有什麼節目. 那就關(或躲)在家裡, 隨電腦陪伴, 過個清靜的新年.

孤獨了一生, 對生命莫些論點也看化了.

隨著漫長的歲月, 莫些心境也慢慢的雕謝了.

(現在沒什麼期待的… 除了三月許冠傑的演唱會. 所以不需要問我生活過地好還是不好.)