Over Breakfast

Seeing how I woke up at 5 this morning, I was in the office before 9. Thinking I should sit down, have a proper breakfast and read the papers, I chanced upon my smoking buddy from the 9th Floor - James, waiting for his coffee.

Now James is this dude that does something or other with the International Red Cross. Tall, big - he's like this teddy bear - except that he smokes - which makes him my buddy. Our usual conversations are normally about the weather, the traffic, the weather, our kids and occasionally, international humanitarian efforts and / or disasters.

As he read his portion of the New Straits Times and I read mine, conversation just drifted to why people do the things they do, even when they have no real reason to do so - 9/11, war, etc James cited that his latest pet peeve is this dude who has been on the local telly, justifying why he up and left his wife and 3 kids to marry a younger woman and calling it all in the name of fate.

What James said was this: he could never be like that dude. That while he may not be an outstanding Christian, he does understand what was said when he exchanged vows on his wedding day - for better or worse, till death do them part. And no matter how bad or noisy it gets at home, he would always be grateful for the noise cos with it comes love.

I tried to explain to James that there are people out there, who no matter what age they are at, do not and probably will not understand the meaning of the words "commitment" and "responsibility". That I should know - I've been on the receiving end of such individuals. Needless to say, it left James speechless.

The whole time it took to finish breakfast, I could not help but think that yes, there are men out there who are born, bred and built like James. That they have been there and done all that, and now know what is important and what it keeps to keep things and life going. And apart from James, I know of many other people who have done the same.

I went to Ireland for 2 weeks and came back, and life did not change. Why  one weekend is scaring the living daylights out of me utterly defies even my own twisted logic.

And when scared, I am immobilised. Everything freezes, and history tells us that the only way I get out of it is by doing something terrible or drastic, which I don't want to do - I have been said that I have grown from that - I do not want to regress.

So what do I do? Have a long continuous breakfast perhaps? I don't know and lost. So if you have a much better suggestion - please feel free to bring it on.