caresses by the wind

she grumbles when there is no one to pay a little kind attention to her. she grumbles when someone does enquire after her. she is a tough lady to please. that's what people will say. usually the easy version, the one that judges a person in an instant is the one that people can't wait to leap at.

growing up, people seldom pay attention to me. being the youngest and the girl in the family, which was not the most desired sexual preference for a child in that era,  i was left to my own devices a lot. too busy. no time. i hear that a lot, but i know that they were just not really interested. then again, there is no hard and fast rule that family members must hold a genuine interest in each other's lives. perhaps they don't need that from me and thus, will never understand the need to bestow that. and so i learnt to amuse myself and talk to myself a lot in my head. i'm not crazy, just introvertish. i still do that all the time, talk to myself in my head, as i am doing now and typing down that wonderful monologue. with the invention of blogging, suddenly i don't sound so crazy. i'm just preparing mentally for my blogging material. :p

anyway, the same has pretty much applied to the rest of my life. nobody has been really interested to hear, to listen to my story. perhaps that is why i never had someone i called a best friend. close perhaps, but not a best friend. someone who knows everything about me. someone who knows what i am going to say before i even finish my sentence. someone who knows how i will think, say or do because they have heard all those stories about me, because they know me. maybe that is why i appear standoffish. because i realise very long ago that people are not genuinely interested to listen. people like to talk, usually about themselves. few really listen. and so i started to build walls, one brick a day.

i thought that it would be different when i find my soul mate, maybe i hoped that it would be different, like some kind of fairy tale happily ever after, but then i realise that it isn't necessarily so. is it because we have been together for too long? is it because we are not in the courtship phase anymore? actually, i don't think that he ever listened. i think nobody listens. people who read blogs want to be entertained. they do not want to listen. it doesn't mean that they do not love you, so don't go jumping off the highest building in the neighbourhood. does it equate to them not being interested? or that they find other things more interesting and of a higher priority? for now, i don't know the answer to that. i will like to think that it is not so, that their listening is not equitable to their interest or priorities, but i will leave that topic for my next session of introspection and deliberation.

well, after this extremely long monologue, i should probably provide some data to relate to. today, she asked if i had booked a doctor to look into my gastrointestinal problems. she had heard it from the grapevines. i am actually quite shocked about the number of grapevines around me; i am beginning to think that i am actually a grape, but that is a grievance for another day. it caught me by surprise, in a nice sort of way, because we do not chat on a regular basis and she has never shown any interest in my personal well-being. and it touched me enough that i wanted to write about it. once again i will proclaim my geeky and all-assuming quote; we are the lives that we touch. a sentence, a memory, a moment, a warm feeling; that is who we are when dust returns to dust. i remember when she was lying comatose in the hospital, he texted me several times and enquired how i was coping. not my family. not the close friends that i met with weekly. not those who knew me best. not those who knew me the longest. not those who professed they love me. not those who professed they love her. not those that i wish will want to know a little bit more about me. but someone who is a little more distant. almost 10 years down the road, and i still remember.

life is a very lonely road. thank you for your gentle caresses.