post-birthday

a friend brought me to s.wine at publika and bought lunch. it was a porky day. 

good food again? good ambiance and good friends. by the 3rd day, i wonder if there is any other better way to celebrate rather than marking it with food. still, for lack of a better idea, one's got to eat - so eat with gusto one shall.

nature's gift to me for my 41st birthday - hyperopia.........long-sightedness *_*

another year

another year older. more regrets. more time wasted. more searching. for what exactly? for my lost soul? for the meaning of life? for the passion that is supposed to grip me so tight that my days will be re-energised and i will jump out of bed everyday? i'm no longer 21. or even 30. what do i want from life? i still don't have the answers. will we be able to find our answer at the end of our days, or will we realise that this is all there is. what do i want? what do i like? what makes me tingle?

i'm a very simple person, with the most basic of needs. i need human interaction. or how should i put it? not just any human interaction. some drains me. i was talking to someone this morning who plainly drained all my energy. simply because her insincerity blankets everything she says or do. she talks, but she doesn't listen. she doesn't even hear. to see the two at action, it's like a battle of the words. one is talking about something and the other something else totally different. and not just simple short sentences at that; each launching into their own long tales, pulling every cell of your body poles apart with the calling of their voices. everybody's talking, no one's listening. what a din you can imagine it is, regardless of the volume of the conversation, if you can call it that.

most days i find myself yearning to reach out to another soul. sadly, there isn't any that will listen with the purest of heart. one with no agenda. one with an open ear and a friendly shoulder. i need inspiration, i need warmth, i need friendship and i need love. not that of a man and a woman but love for everything and everyone. but life is so ugly and human is so ugly. it drains me so.

lifeline

"tell me a joke", she texted.

there was no reply. only deafening silence.

5 hours later came the reply, "are you alright?" as if he knew that something was not quite right.

those 3 words in itself was a balm to the pain, a lifeline to her that was drowning. she doesn't know how much longer she can hang on to her sanity. it gets harder and harder each time to return to status quo.

"better. don't need the joke anymore". who knows that retail therapy really does work, eventhough this time it was more out of necessity rather than indulgence. still something to take the mind out of it is always good, if only for a while. "then again, wouldn't mind having something to laugh about. tell me your best joke when you have the time".

"want to talk about it?"

"nah. just climbed out, don't really want to jump back in".

"whenever you need a shoulder just let me know. though it's going to be a little hard cos i'm in europe now".

"will need a very long neck then. lol. must be feeling better, i'm making my own jokes".

some things you just want to remember. from now until eternity. simply because it's moments like these that make you feel that there is still warmth on earth. was it an automated response to a drowning soul? was it a superficial reply or a sincere concern, the harsh practical voice can't help but nag in a whisper. she can no longer tell which is which. it shouldn't matter, she scolds back angrily. why are you making yourself miserable? take it as it is. the warm voice of a warm friend. it is what you need. in life you see what you want to see, what you need to see.

the sound of a sigh

the sound of her mother's sigh reverberates within me even 24 hours on. in that quiet room where everybody just stood looking at her and stroking her arm, not knowing what to say, the quiet sigh of her mother was deafening. the single sound spoke so much. it spoke of all the unsaid nights that her mother has spent crying by her bedside. it spoke of all the heartbreak, all the broken expectations and vanished hopes. it tells of so much sadness, endurance and fortitude. it gave us a glimpse of her hopelessness, her anguish, her torment. how can anyone of us understand how crushing it is to see your child lying there so helplessly, so powerless, so bleak a future. a cruel inhumane thought flitted past my mind, and i was ashamed of it. but for her family, for her daughter, for her even..........wouldn't it be a better alternative? i do not know which path is less painful but i believe both will be as devastating. to be in a place where either path is as grievious.......how cruel the world can be sometimes.

friendship

a friend i have lost. and sometimes i wonder, is it another that i have found? eventhough we have been friends since primary 5, more than 20 years ago, i don't think of him as more than an acquaintance. if we were to sit down, i doubt we have much to talk about. definitely not that which is closest and deepest in our hearts. such is the distance that has come between us. once we have been very close but i guess as with all friendship, we have to work hard merely to maintain it. life and everything else just got it the way and neither of us bothered.

anyway, when i lost my friend so suddenly, his first reaction was to ask me how i was. i don't know how he knew (that her death will mean so much to me) or was it because he never knew (that she and i never had a chance to be closer). i was hit bad, and it was touching that someone knew. someone asked.

life is weird like that. for the second time in my life, sympathy wasn't forthcoming where you wanted it, where you expected it. someone somewhere, when you were least expecting it, hands you a life line and tells you that you are not alone. is it real or just a mirage in my dire thirst for empathy and warmth, frankly i don't care. even if i'm imagining the sentiment behind it, i'll still continue forth deluding myself......because i need it.

another 365

yet another year. another 365 says without hearing her voice. that familiar sound calling me bitch, in the most endearing way that only she could with a profanity.

time past so fast, but perhaps not so for those closest to her. last year her father gave me hope. i saw in my mind's eye her slowly talking to me and acknowledging my presence the next time i visit. but 365 says later there she still lies, sometimes tensing her limbs and shaking uncontrollably, as if in frustration at being unable to verbally interact with us.

i look at her and i have so much i want to tell her. what exactly? my mind draws a blank. why is it that i have this pressing feeling of having so much to say to her.....but not knowing what is it that i really have to tell? i just know that i miss her so much and i just want to talk to her.

this year isn't the best of years. another close friend has been taken away. perhaps not the closest but still she was a bright star in my life. someone who had brought a smile to my lips many times, someone different from others and someone who had meant something to me. i'm still trying to get use to the vacuum she left behind, to her absence from now and ever after. the only way i've learnt to handle all this sadness in my life is to put it in an air-tight box and hide it in a deep dark corner of my heart, never to take it out, never to look at it. sometimes something will remind me of my loss and like today, the emotion overcomes me and blanket me with sadness. but tomorrow, i will return it back into the box and keep it in that dark corner again and i will be alright again.

lost

why is it that i seem to have lost the endless flow of words, sometimes romantic in its eloquence, sometimes melancholic in its depths? my fingers hover uncertainly over the keyboard, words stutter as they form in my brain. i am now no longer able to write as beautifully as before, perhaps because i have ceased to reflect. what good has come of the moaning, the whining, the stopping in my track and turning back.....life pays no attention. i can be happy, ecstatic even. i can be miserable, unsure and self-questioning. life doesn't even blink an eye. i've thought it best to just rush headlong into life, throwing myself at her....or is it him.....and just living in the moment. i don't dare to look back. my heart hurts at all the people who has left me behind. the hardest part of growing old..er is trying to accept the fact that some people are no longer in your life. the mourning for the living is as deep as for the dead. i don't dare to look into the future, i know what's waiting for me and i grow cold at the thought. i live in the present.

is it me or it is them?

what is it with singapore and friendships? this is the third friend that i am losing to that little dot down south. is it the island or is it me? does it have a bermuda triangle-like emanation that cuts off all communication along with melancholic whim of affection?

friendships are so hard to come by, what more good ones. the older i get the more they are slipping through my fingers. friendships build over a long period of time, trust built over layers of communication. when i look at what they have given up, without so much as the bat of an eye, all our history and past, i feel the tugging at my heart. but i am the only one mourning. for what then? if it is only one-sided, was there ever a friendship in place? why do they not feel this way, i ask myself so many times.

it's not the distance, what with modern technology like facebook, twitter, whatsapp and whatever. there are more choices to ignore people by now as compared to the snail mail days. and yet the friendships survived the golden age. perhaps it's because of these vast modern distractions that people no longer feel the need to connect, to reach out and touch each other anymore. who needs friendship, i have a 24 hour idiot-entertainment-box.

i've wondered so many times that it's like a broken record in my head. is it me? what is wrong with me? is there something wrong with the core of my very being. am i not enough of a friend? or am i a dinosaur who treasures friendship amongst the space-age inhabitants?

i feel like shouting, i feel like screaming, i feel like taking a cast iron pan and knocking them on their head. hey! what happened to our friendship?, i want to yell. why do i not matter to you anymore? remember the times we talked? remember the laughter we shared? my fingers are itching to reach out and ask them why. with just a few taps of the keyboard, it won't be a weight at the bottom of my heart anymore. but what is the point? what will their answer matter? for whatever reason they have given up on our friendships, that friendship has now dissipated into thin air and carried away by the wind.

unloading

life is tiring enough handling all the senseless chaos and mundane fire-fighting day in day out without the hordes of selfish, greedy and rumour-mongering people to bring further stress into life. sometimes i wonder if it is possible that others also live the life that i do or is it just me and my over-sensitivity that is finding it difficult to digest. life will be so much more beautiful with a little more sprinkle of tolerance and a dash more of love. yesterday i listened to sis-in-law rambled incoherently at the dinner table a little too wildly and a little too loud about her 'future daughter-in-law'. how the latter hid in the toilet when she came home to see her. only thing is her son is 16, the girl is not in a relationship with him and doesn't reciprocate his feelings, he is right next to him and humans do go to toilet at one point in their lives or another. i guess all mothers are insanely jealous when their sons have replaced their girl on the pedestal but with all our years of wisdom and experience, we probably can dish out a little subtlety and tolerance. i do agree that she is not worth it, but still respect will not be lost. a little respect for someone else's daughter and for her son. yesterday i lived through another day of mother harping on my back, nagging and grumbling on how i was cooking it wrong, despite the fact that she was the one asking me to cook it, despite the fact that i was the one who taught her how to cook it and despite the fact that i was not cooking it any differently from the other hundred times, despite the fact that it was the not the first, nor the last, that she was harping on me. it's just getting worse with the days. but it's all part of life, of growing old, of how things are meant to be. i understand and know right down to the bottom of my soul all the preachings about how it's a blessing to be able to cook for her or help her, how it's wonderful that i have this time with her and i do feel it whole heartedly. doesn't stop it from driving me up the wall though. yesterday the rumour monger was hard at work spreading more chaos and tales from deep inside the crypt of her mind. how much more can i take, someone who turns tales around, who tries to poison others with her lies, i don't know. i believe i can always live another day. and then another day after that. and then another day after that. life goes on, despite how tiring it sometimes can be. yesterday i battled with the usual fires, putting out problems that sap at my energy. the stupid handphone just kept ringing, incessantly whining, bringing me more chaos that i care for. how i hate that thing that mankind call a modern convenience. to whom indeed? yesterday the hubs made an off-handed remark that showed how little he appreciated how much i am doing, and how tired i am. wasn't the first time, nor will it be the last. when we return home, and both daughter and i collapsed on the sofa side-by-side, exhausted from the day's flow of events, the question 'you look so tired' floated in the air, but it was directed only at my daughter. how a single simple sentence can sound so sweet, if directed at the right person. how one word that acknowledges you is all that it takes to make everything alright. how it floated to the ears of the wrong person and did not become the balm that it could have been. i can only put it down to men and that's how men are, rather than harping on it, rather than letting it wedge a splinter into my heart. i'm pretty good at that. letting things flow over me whilst i remain still like a statue, unhearing, unfeeling, unhearing, unseeing. yesterday i sat and listened for the longest time to father share a part of his thoughts. by that time of the day, i was so tired it was all i could do to stop myself from yawning, but i nearly lost the fight against my eyes closing. nearly. it was something that he doesn't do very often, share the big picture with us. being with us heart and soul was also not something he does often, unless the talk turns to business. it wasn't so much that he was passing his knowledge, as hubs seem to see it, and definitely now why i was listening. but a man sometimes need to share, sometimes need to talk and let out all that is inside, and few can be in the position to listen. especially when that man is a head of many corporations and have the big picture in his head that others are not privy to know. i think of it as theraphy session for the health of his soul.

when i think about it, there are so many things wrong with my family. and i wonder if others have families like that, or am i living in an episode of a prime-time drama. i wonder if others have parents who love the son more than the daughter. i wonder if others never listened to their children. i wonder if other parents never spent time with their children whilst growing up. sometimes i forget how my childhood was like, but the pictures that i remember in my mind are all me being by myself, of them rushing here and there, or relaxing, it doesn't really make a difference, by themselves, whilst i am alone. how my childhood differs from that of my children. yesterday i had more than a fair share of chaos. but here i am today. and today is another new day.

puppy

many many years ago, never in my wildest dream will i dare to imagine that i will one day be able to have lunch with him. just that hand's length away from him, talking about casual things in life, chatting, joking and laughing. once upon a time, my dream was just to be able to find him again and know how life has been for him, if he went on to become the doctor of his ambition and whether his eyes still twinkled like so. that dream came true, someone found his contacts and i thought that was where the story ended. but sometimes the powers that be smile kindly down at me.

that day, that lunch was more than i could ever ask for. actually, it was the second lunch. the first, some years back, was too awkward, too forced, too unreal. it left me with many regrets. this time round, maybe because i was caught off-guard by his eleventh-hour invitation, i had no time whatsoever to run it through my head. i'm usually better when i don't use my over-analytical brain :-p

lunch was simple, the conversation casual. we talked about our lives, past and present. perhaps it was age that mellowed me. what struck me was that he seemed to understand. that it was easy talking to him. i guess some things never change, no matter how many years in between. i can't even remember clearly the things that happened, many memories have been erased with time. i doubt he can remember too. we were both too young. whilst he was my first puppy love, sweet and memorable, i was nothing more than a passing fancy. still, it was alright. it didn't really matter. life is about our memories, our feelings. just because it was not earth-shattering and deeply etched in the heart for him, it does not make the memory any less sweeter.

what that one and me had was sweet memory, in my mind at the very least. and now, a casual friendship. neither wants anything more. i have a word of thanks, but only in my heart. thank you for staying so pure and good. thank you for staying you.

hope

i thought things like that only happens in movies and make belief. the story of a boy being taken against his will brings the nation, the world even, together as one. in every corner of the world, voices unheard murmuring, praying, hoping for the safe return of one boy. a boy that they have never even met. nayati "is a story about compassion, about friendship, about unity and love". it is the story about how one boy brought the whole world together, regardless of race, culture and their differences. that is how the world should be. the world will be so much better if we all just concentrate on that love.

last night, i think many people all over slept a little better, knowing that the world is alright again. that an innocent 12 year old is once again back in the arms of his family. that there is indeed justice and hope in this world and moral degradation has not crept into every nook and crevice. that moments of hope and inspiration like this do happens once in a while. just as long as you believe.

yesterday, i learnt not to give up hope. when i heard the news of nayati's kidnapping, that night i had a dream. i mean the actual one when you go to sleep and not the martin luther king's type. i dreamt that i found the little boy as he was walking home and i brought him to his family. the dream reflected my inner longings, my hope or perhaps it was my brain consoling me that everything will be alright. i read the updates faithfully, clicking on the refresh button every few hours. i thought i knew deep in my heart that the parents were in negotiation with the kidnappers. perhaps it was the way the father worded his updates, or rather the way he chose not to reveal too much suddenly. i thought i knew, and i was hopeful. however, days passed and every day i counted. one 24 hours, two 24 hours, three 24 hours...........as it grew nearer to 168 hours, the light of my hope slowly dimmed. surely if they had been contacted, they wouldn't have left the boy out there for so long. my daughter kept on to her faith. she believed, but perhaps it was because if her innocence, her naivety. then again, perhaps it's because of my cynicism that i gave up so easily. yesterday, nayati finally came home, and the world rejoiced with him. yesterday it was a beautiful day again. because of one boy. a boy who taught us it was alright to hope, and that sometimes wishes do come true. a boy who taught us not to give up on the world and to continue loving.