lost in communication

what does the passing of time gives you? besides wrinkles and slower metabolism, confidence. or is it simply that you don't really give a damn anymore? i find my tongue looser with age, that i have a higher tendency to say what is at the top of my mind, without care of consequences or deliberation, without bothering how it will be interpreted. i have been misunderstood more than once, more than twice, so many times that i have lost count. but i seem to be less perturbed by it. and i marvel at why that is so.

perhaps it is the art of communication that i am lacking. maybe it's in literal presentation that something is misinterpreted. the only place i seem to be able to express myself is here, in my blog. elsewhere, out of this imaginative world, i am at a lost - to explain myself, to express myself, to portray what i am. it is too much effort. i am too lazy. or is it because i simply do not see why i need to try so hard. just to be myself. if others can't see who i am, am i at the losing end, or are they?

on reflection, i have people mistaking my loose tongue for ulterior motives in friendship, my seemingly sudden enthusiasm for closeness as a scheming maneuver for their privileged lifestyle. i should have been hurt perhaps, especially when a friend of many years whom i have lost contact with also shares the same opinion, but the absurdity of such suggestion only makes me chuckle inwards. if only they knew. and so i let it be.

sometimes, i ask myself. perhaps it's me? sigh. in this world where walls are high and compassions are low, people read into situations with a lot more caution. self protection. who can blame? that is the way this world has evolved. perhaps i am also guilty of as much defence. who bothers to answer one question with a hundred words anymore? who will look up lost friends with such enthusiasm? unless one has ulterior motives. when the phone rings, i pick it up and wait for the caller to go through the usual niceties of 'good morning', 'how have you been?', 'how are the children?', 'how are your parents?', 'have you been on holiday recently?' and a whole multitude of polite mannerism before they embark on their purpose for calling. i am weary. so i understand. yet i do not attempt in any way to change; who i am, how i communicate or how others see me.

age has made me less concerned about the opinions of others. time has taught me that friendship is not the meeting of two people. it is a collision of fate. fate that we will meet. fate that we will become friends, against all odds. fate that we have remained friends. i have lost too many friends that i value through the cruelties that we call life. i do not seem to have the strength to foster new ties. let fate play its card.