the frustrating thing about life is not knowing the ending. not the final goodbye, which is inevitable, but the endings of certain stories. like whatever happened to certain friends in your distant past. or what happened to certain things that you have misplaced. it's not like a fiction story which has a proper beginning, and a proper ending to tie up loose ends. whether the good guy wins in the end, or the bad guy triumphs, such is the satisfaction of losing oneself in novel. there is an ending.

i was most frustrated for months when things started to disappear. besides being shovelled with all the blame which i had no way to prove one way or the other, it was most frustrating (there is no other word in thesaurus that can substitute frustrating because frustrating is ........well, so frustrating. be prepared to hear this word over and over and over again :-p) to not know what happened. where did the car key go? what happened to the document? where is our wedding tapes? yes. i am someone who can lose my wedding video tapes. so sue me :-p it's frustrating enough without that shocked look on your face, so let's swiftly proceed.

it's not like i'm leaving things in the most inappropriate of places. no phones in the shower cubicle, no wallet in the rice bins and no car keys in the freezer. i don't have alzheimer....yet. i leave them where they should be.....usually. but they disappear. that's the frustration that i am talking about. when you just want to hit your head against the wall because you will never know what ever happened to it. not for your entire lifetime. doesn't that just gnaw at you somewhere?

well, life is usually fair. even for us hardcore cynic. over time, after months of knocking your head on the wall, baring impossible circumstances, things that disappear will turn up .....one day. maybe's it's just me, maybe life likes to play with me like that, but my stories do sometimes have endings. like the document that was slipped between other documents. and like last night, the car key that was found between the gaps of the car seat. and with that my long-lost innocence is uncovered. justice pao would have glowed with pride. i can hear all the ooooooo and ahhhhhhhhh from his court. i can finally discard my scapegoat skin. and yes, i am broadcasting with glee. the satisfaction of having an ending AND having my innocence restored. so that i can rub it in for decades to come. :-p :-p life is sometimes good.

now, i just need to know where the damn video tapes went.

just when you think you know it all, just when you believe you can scatter a few seeds of wisdom to others, you have to go right back to the very first rung of the ladder and begin again. such is life.

i forgot how to eat. i forgot how to drink.

i'm re-learning how to live my life again, from the very basic steps of eating and drinking. something that i've taken for granted that i know from the very moment i took my first breath outside the womb, but over time i've done it all wrong. a basic instinct for survival yet i don't know how to do it, and i'm paying the price now. i know if i don't reject all i know now and learn from scratch all over again, the price will be much dearer years from now.

it's a lifestyle that i've picked up from nobody knows when. i don't know when my clock started to tick faster than others, and time is that much limited for me. i don't know when i started to pour food into my mouth, not stopping to chew, nor waiting for it to cool. it feels like i'm always on a race against time. i don't know when i stopped having time to take a break for a sip of water. i've dispensed with all that i thought were time-consuming.

with a new page everyday, i have to remind and re-remind myself. to be aware of each mouthful i put in. to be aware of every hour that i'm not drinking any water. perhaps the knocking in my heart serves as a reminder. who would have known that the heart is not related to my heart skipping a beat, but my digestive system. i'm abusing my body and i know it. i know it but i suck at it. each meal is a test, each test is a failure. it's harder than i thought to unlearn 40 years of habit.

one day at a time.

one bite at a time.

a lull of silence. the sound of absence. a sign not of inertia, nor of turbulence, but of convenience. sometimes when you switch your brain off, and live each day as it comes, one motion after the next, one chore after another, and you collapse in exhaustion at the end of the day on the sofa, with nary a thought that passes your mind, it's the simplest way to live. the days pass so fast, and so easily. life is uncomplicated.

is it the way to live though? to not think, to not stop for a moment and deliberate about life? at even any point in time? to just let life pass you by? it cannot be right, to let apathy grip you within its claws. as the words pour out, i can feel the warmth coursing through my veins once more. i am slowly relaxed by the therapy that is my writing. i never stopped to think that words could have such appeasing effects on my soul.

but for now, this is enough.

an almost muted music playing in the air. my stomach satieted from a simple breakfast. a book about tales from nowhere in my hand, as i chewed and read about the adventures of a man to journeys far into the middle of nowhere. i can't help but wish i am more courageous, that i am more spontaneous. more of a lot of things actually, of which i am none. it's human nature to wish for things that you have not and are not. for me, i wish i am less afraid, of trying new things, of being unprepared and unsure, of not having a firm grasp on things. would life have been very different if i had let my heart rule my head? would i have been a better example to my kids to love more, to laugh more and to live more? sometimes i feel ashamed. for being a friend, a mother, a partner who lives so structuredly. i look on with envy at people who laugh the loudest, who danced with the most abandonment, whol lived the fullest. and i understand that it will never be me. i will not be happy living that life. i need my deafening peace and loud silence to survive. i need my quiet melancholic moments and everything to fall perfectly into place to be at ease. i need to be me. but still, every once in a while, i look at others and i wonder what it will be like to not be me.