Barbsie Loaded

96 Hours Without Ah Ma

2012-01-26T19:19:00.001+08:00

The deed is done.

We sent Ah Ma off the way she would have wanted it to be done - with our shoulders squared, heads held high and words of praise to God on our lips.

I have yet to grief. Sure, there has been the brief spurts here and there. Tried as I may to keep it together, when memories locked away from my childhood and my adulthood come flooding back, the memory of "Ah-Bab-Bab" in Ah Ma's voice come ringing in my ear, grief could not be kept at arms' length.

I will continue to miss her, just as 13 years later, I still miss Ah Kong (grandpa).I used to think that Ben was insane to speak to his mother (God bless her soul) in the presence tense. But over the last few days, so did I of my grandparents. And I am pretty sure, when I am old and grey, I would still do the same.They were the only grandparents I had ever known. I did not have the good fortune of knowing my maternal grandparents.

96 hours later, I am holding it together till I get on the plane and get home tomorrow night.

I think if I hold on tight to the fact that both my grandparents would be damn proud of who I am today, I'll be alright.

Fourth Day without Ah Ma: Half Strength

2012-01-26T07:12:00.001+08:00

Ah Mas body will be cremated this afternoon.

I have been digging very deep in for the strength to carry through the last 3 days and 4 nights. It wavers, it breaks me, it brings me to my knees. But each time it happens, I go and sit by her body and I find solace.

Ah Ma would always tell me: Have patience, be strong. I can still hear it in my head that clear strong advice of hers. Even in the face of the worst adversity of my life, her forgiving nature never faded.

But I am drained - emotionally and mentally... And today, as my cousin already warned me last night: I have to be strong to carry the rest of the through.

I have to cast aside all my regrets - the number of New Years and Christmas that I shied away from her and the family as I hung my head in shame and disgrace: all wasted years. For never once did Ah Ma judged me nor barred me from entering the family home.

As I prepare to send her body off, I can only hope that wherever she is, looking down upon me, she would give me the grace to make good on her lifelong advice ~ for like a desperate person, even a half-strength shot of coffee would do plenty good.

Third Day without Ah Ma: Chasing Cars

2012-01-25T07:41:00.001+08:00

One day more.. one day more before Ah Ma goes the way of the Bible saying: Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

It is a bit more poignant today as I look through the social networks and blogs and find that my cousins seems to have recent pictures taken with her. While all I have of her is a picture we took together 21 years ago and the smiling face she gave me at Christmas.

I have been feeling rather left out as I was assigned the responsibility of ensuring things went smoothly and the finances are fully accounted for. I watch from my "station" as everyone else throngs at their whim and fancy to go in to sit with her at the wake.

I keep telling myself, that it is alright. That I do not need that physical closeness with her body to mourn. That I can hold on until I reach home, shut the doors, turn off the lights, stop the clock and bawl my heart out.But that is not true.

This is now know.I need my fair share of having last gazes at her face with eyes closed, trying to push my hands through the glass pane to grasp hers one last time.

I need time still to ask Ah Ma: would you still chase cars with me, even though you're not gone?

First Day without Ah Ma: Perfect Day

2012-01-23T07:34:00.001+08:00

I had finished Sebastian Barry's latest book: On Canaan's Side just last week. A book that struck me strange as each chapter was marked by "X-Day without Bill". Yet, there is a certain poignancy this morning: Our 1st Day without Ah Ma.

My grandma passed away peacefully yesterday evening - on the eve of the new Lunar calendar. She quietly slipped away as we - her children, grandchildren & great-grandchildren, surrounded her with hymns praising the Holy Mother Mary.

It was the "release" she needed, after being bed-ridden since Boxing Day 2008 when she had a fall. For if you ever wondered where I got my strength, my stubbornness and my need to be constantly independent - look no further, it was all from my elders and Ah Ma was one of them. So I can only imagine what the last few years has been like for her - not able to do anything for herself.

We have had time, plenty of time, to prepare ourselves mentally for this day - yet, no matter how many times we have said our goodbyes, the finality of it drives a certain sense of extreme loss home like a stake being driven through the heart.

Oh what I would not give to see her face light up once again when my kids call her "Lau-mah" and she recognize that it is them, that they have come home once again.

Oh what I would not give to cook another roast chicken meal for her to enjoy.

As I watch my aunt, my dad, my uncles - we're all holding on so tightly to the fact that she had slipped away, after all her pains and sufferings of the last couple of days. And how that it was with holy choirs of angels that she left our side.

So while it was a day of deep, deep loss for all of us, it was also a perfect day.

Ah Ma is now free.

Ah Ma is now gone...

Return to the Beginning

2011-12-31T20:40:00.000+08:00

Another year is soon upon us.

They are strange times; times of beginning and endings.
Dangerous and powerful.
And we feel it even if we don’t know what it is.
These times are not necessarily good, and
not necessarily bad.
In fact, what they are depends on what we are.

As I sit here on my balcony (yes – a balcony after2 New Year’s Eve!), with my vino by my side and the view of the city in frontof me, I cannot help but heave a sigh of relief that 2011 is almost over. Forif I had to sum it all up – it has been a physically, emotionally andspiritually tiring year.

To set this year’s capping blog in motion, I haveto go back to the beginning – where my resolution 365 days ago was to “alwaysfind salt” in all that I do this year. It was for that resolution that I sat atthe J&R downstairs of the office and told my buddy Simon, my big hairyaudacious dreams for 2011. A tall order at that time. But hey – it has all beendone!

In many ways, 2011 will go down as a somewhat surreal time of living.For while achieving's one's dreams are important, surpassing them is ablessing. And that is what this year has been. For who was to say a year ago,that I would have gone on one of the most important journey of my life -walking the Camino de Santiago de Compostella. 118 kilometres and 4 1/2 days -funny how little it takes to change your life.

It is important that we know where we come from,
because if you do not know where you come from,
then you don’t know where you are,
and if you don’t know where you are,
then you don’t know where you’re going.
And if you don’t know where you’re going,
you’re probably going wrong.

As I reflect on the days past, I cannot defineexactly what it is that has changed, but changed indeed has taken place. And Ican only write it down to the fact that it wasn’t so much the trail I took, butthe process of being myself and the subsequent continuous emptying that tookplace.

Again – we have to return to the beginning.

And it is when we continuous take each step as a beginningthat each moment is a salt-filled one. For if anything else that I learnt in my118 km, it is that while it is easy to keep goingone-foot-in-front-of-the-other, the monotony of it will eventually drive yourfeet over the edge. And before you realise it, you’ve strayed so far offand did it subconsciously, that you don’t even know where to start getting theright way back.

I count myself fortunate, extremely blessed – for Iam always surrounded by folks (or fairies if I wanted to be Irish about it),who will hold my hand and gently guide me back to the road I have to travel.

And I pray that 2012 will continue to be the same –that my life will continue to have the presence and blessings of angels (again,or fairies) especially those who are only meant to be there for the moment. Andthat I am in turn, seen as a blessing to their lives as well, serving them theway I am meant to serve.

We pride ourselves on
making a good history of our lives –
a good story to be told.

And yes, though I close 2011 with a gazillion ionof pride bursting out of me, I also look towards 2012 with an equal amount ofhumility. For at the end of this year and at the turn of the New Year – I ambut a foundling. A foundling with much to learn, much to experience and inreturn – as most foundlings go – much to share.

Here’s wishing you a very happy 2012. May each moment in the year to come be areturn to the beginning for you – so that joys can be relived a thousand foldsover, and wrongs be righted.

And Then There's Only 2

2011-12-19T04:44:00.000+08:00

After a half bottle of vino all by myself, here was how it went:

Barbsie: Here's the keys to the apartment and the room.
Monday: Okay. (Takes keys in hand)... but why when you're just a text away?
Barbsie: Just take them.
Monday: Okay - this is incase you lose your keys, right?
Barbsie: Yeah - of course! Just put them in pouch, whatever. Use them when you feel like it.
Monday: Okay (and puts then in pouch)

So that wasn't so bad.

And the only thought that comes to mind in this hazy state of La Luna is this: It's not perfect but it works.

I have died everyday
waiting for you
Darlin' don't be afraid
I have loved you for a
Thousand years
I'll love you for a
Thousand more

"Going Home" more often

2011-12-15T18:11:00.000+08:00

Many years ago (about 10) in another life and another job, I was interviewed at a Tech Fair. Back then, GPRS was just coming out - 3G was a distant dream. And I remember saying "I would like to see technology help me check up on my kid(s) as I drive home from work, not just hearing them but also seeing them."

3G has been out on the marketplace for so many years now. But I never made good on that goal, that vision. Like everything else in life, I took it for granted. Until...

I bought 2 iPods today - one for our ancestral home in JB and one for my parents' house in Subang. Spent hours setting them up before sending them back down south with my brother. For the amount of money spent, I could easily have gotten myself a fancy-smanchy branded bag. But you know what, the thought didn't even cross my mind until I saw an ad online promoting luxury goods.

I think everyone comes to a certain point in their life when they realise that the bag that hangs behind the door, the big-arse tv that sits in front of the couch, the posh car with its leather-seats and all kinds of navigational tool in ti - they are all things that would mean something for a couple of days, weeks, at most a month and then fade into nothingness.

I wish I had thought of doing this sooner. That way I wouldn't have been walking "alone" in Spain last June. That way my kids perhaps could have said good-bye in person to their grandfather. That way my cousin sister could have seen her mum on the bed for the last time, and not in a box at the wake.

As Ben likes to always remind - Make the most of each and every moment! Because life is such, we cannot always be as near as we would like to. So here's keeping my fingers, ears and toes crossed that with technology - we could at least be as close as circumstances allow us.

Let's all "go home" that little bit more often.

2011-12-08T21:23:00.001+08:00

It's not always easy to speak your mind,
sometimes you need to be forced to do it.
Sometimes, it's better to just keep things to yourself,
play dumb, even when your whole body is
aching to come clean.

I stumbled across a song on the radio that has been on repeat loop on my mp3 player since I got home an hour ago. The lights in the house are all off, save the Christmas tree. And in the distance, the skies are so clear I can see Genting Highlands from where I am.

We're going to be waking up in Paris on February 14, 2012. Ask me if I started 2011 thinking that was ever going to happen and I will cheerfully tell you - NEVER! I barely started the year with great faith as it was - Dublin, London and Barcelona in a whirl-wind of 10 days. I stood at the departure gate in June, texting - You're going to show up right? So yes, the city of lights and love barely 9 months after? With only 2 months of planning? God forbid!

So much has happen, I am finally allowing myself to take stock and well, hopefully at the end of all this - come to my senses and do what I need to do ~ reduce one item less from my desk drawer. Yes, the keys are still there - right at the back of the drawer to boot.

I am lame, I know. Using each and every excuse in the book, throwing logic; left, right, front, back and center. And I accused a friend of the same not too long ago - shame on me!

It is only because of the vino that I am admitting this - I am afraid. Of anything and everything when it comes down to it.

Heart beats fast
Colors and promises
How to be brave
How can I love when I'm afraid to fall

One part of me (added of course by reading past posts) is nagging at me that I have failed him. That he hinted, he waited and I have let him down. Simply because I am afraid. I can say ~ he'll understand. After all, aren't I the famous one for coming round to my senses, in my own time?

And another part is driving home - we do not have a thousand years Barbsie. If anything else, I have been taught that lesson very well in the last few weeks - life doesn't go on forever as we assume it would.

I will be brave
I will not let anything take away
What's standing in front of me
Every breath
Every hour has come to this

The year ends is a little over 20 days. I do not know what next year may bring me but if I do not give it a chance to show me, I'd never know.

He may not have said it all, but he has said enough for me to do this...

One step closer

Guilt

2011-11-24T12:48:00.000+08:00

My children's paternal grandfather had a fall Monday of last week. I was informed of it on Wednesday. I had the whole weekend to do something - drive and visit by myself, take the kids on a pseudo-outing to visit - a whole bunch of stuff I could have done.

This morning, the text came in to alert that he has passed on. And the whole bunch of stuff I could have done became as it is - stuff that I could have done BUT DID NOT!

As I got ready to leave the house, I was washed with grief - funny considering I was never close to him. Yet, in my heart at that moment in time, and even now, I knew him to be a man who tried and gave his best. He never wronged me, nor did he ever fault me for keeping his grandchildren away from him. Even in the last 2 years, despite me promising that I would take them to visit and not fulfill it, never once did he chastise me on it.

As my mum rightfully explained to my kids last week - his blood runs in them. That is a fact that we cannot avoid nor deny.

I always pride myself for being one to do things so that when I go to my grave, I will go without any regrets. But my inaction, for whatever reasons they may have been, will cause me to take this one to my grave.

These are the things we beg for.
A root canal, an I.R.S. audit, coffee spilled on our clothes.
When the really terrible things happen,
we start begging the god we don't believe in to bring back the little horrors,
and take away this.
It seems quaint now, doesn't it?
The flood in the kitchen, the poison oak,
the fight that leaves you shaking with rage.
Would it have helped if we could see what else was coming?
Would we have known that those were the best moments of our lives?

I can only pray that God gives his soul rest and peace, and that over time, I can learn to forgive myself.

3 Sets Of

2011-11-13T23:45:00.000+08:00

I went and made duplicates of my new house keys today, weeks after moving in. And for once, I hold 3 sets of keys when it has been the traditional 2.

I have the extra set in the key-ring and all that. And then I tucked it away at the very bottom of the drawer so that I do not have to see it each time I open.

I realise something today. That there is a name to all this madness of the week past. And this name comes with its own colour ~ green. No prizes for guessing correctly. Insomuch as I said to my mother - there is no shame in saying "I'm jealous" for when a cat is a cat, no other name can be used to disguise it.

It is such a difficult feeling to admit to because it means that we are dependent on someone else. And we (my mum and I) - we never like to admit that. We have no qualms to admitting to anything else in life - I am poor, I am fat, I am angry, I am disappointed - but NEVER to being the green-eyed monster. Pride? Perhaps. Shame? Maybe to an extent. But at the end of the day, it is because we condition ourselves to never have to need someone else.

How did I come to realise this? Quite easy and out of the blue really.

I started to compare myself with this phantom figure - this person from yesterday whose name I do not even know. And I started to feel less-than I already am. Feeling of under-achieving, being inadequate... True I have dreams yet to fulfill but it doesn't lessen any of the dreams I have already reached, touch and hold in my hands.

So that was when it struck me - how could this person - this person who was allegedly successful and upcoming - put me to stand only 6 inches tall? How could this person make me feel that everything I have today is less than sufficient when Lord only knows what it took to climb out of the bottom of the devil's cauldron.

I am glad I realised this today, even though I said we need to talk about this next week. Because I will know then what I would say, and what I would do. And if I didn't reach this conclusion on my own, it would be no different from before and those are mistakes I do not want to repeat.

I am my own person. And I am God's gift to this world in my own way. I am special and I am unique. And I should not allow someone else to make me feel any less than. Or rather - I should not allow the threat and insecurity of someone else to make me feel any less than.

If Amanda were still talking to me - she would be so proud to see me come to realise this ALL ON MY OWN. So if you're reading this my dear dear friend - yes, it takes one big step forward to make me see things the way you've always been trying to tell me. But hey - you've always known me to be like this, never one really for small baby steps. And maybe that was what was holding me back from loving me, myself and I.

And as you always say - until I can love myself, I cannot love someone else.

11 Minutes

2011-11-12T23:19:00.000+08:00

I have been troubled. I have tried to brush it off, sweep it under the carpet, surrender it to the heavens. But nothing is working. When it is quiet and the wine has worn off, the maggots come back again and in gusto.

In my desperation to survive the next 7 days and night, I turned to Paulo Coelho - the one author, who God seems to have destined to be His Voice of my reasoning. It was a book that I put off reading - thinking what has a book about sex got to teach me through Mr Coelho. I was so wrong.

The person who gives him or herself wholly, the person who feels freest, is the person who loves most wholeheartedly. And the person who loves wholeheartedly feels free. That is why, regardless of what I might experience, do or learn, nothing makes sense.
For the past 5 months, I have been meandering - trying to figure out why I went all the way to the north of Spain only to come back and have my life do such a big turnaround. I had expected to come back, feeling more love than anything else - because when you have been rung of everything there is in you, there is only one way to fill it all back up - thru love. And if that is so, why have I instead been burning my bridges?

And if I was suppose to learn patience and surrender to a higher will and being, why am I finding it so hard to accept what is in front of me? Why is the faith, the trust, so difficult and long in coming?

I've learned that waiting is the most difficult bit, and I want to get used to the feeling, knowing that you're with my, even when you're not by my side.

I have been troubled. I have been running through in my head snippets of conversation that could exist, that may exist, that could very possibly never ever take place. I have been fighting down the urge to pick up the phone and write away till my heart's content. But then I ask myself - what do I want out of doing that? And because I cannot answer that question, I refrain from doing so.

I am two women: one wants to have all the joy, passion and adventure that life can give me. The other wants to be a slave to routine, to family life, to the things that can be planned and achieved. I'm a housewife and a prostitute, both of living in the same body and doing battle with each other.

Objectivity. That has been hard to come by - burnt the bridge to my one and only objective-looking person in life. And though I have the name and number, pride stops me from asking. Shame stops me from screaming "I need you." Fear stops me from saying "tell me it is not just in my own head."

Someone told me that if I believe that what was said and what is happening is my answer from a knee-mail, then I should not let logic win. But yet, my logic has been my greatest struggle in the last 6 days. The thought of "people always say things they do not mean" has been plaguing my soul.

If you live your life intensely, you experience pleasure all the time and don't feel the need for sex. When you have sex, it's out of a sense of abundance, because the glass of wine is so full that it overflows naturally.

I should be happy. As I said in 2 posts ago. I should be overjoyed. Yet, something in me refuses to let me bask in the warmth of the joy and the "love" if you can call it that.

So tonight I pray to God - let me find withing me the capacity to love. Because if I don't - I will never believe nor deserve any of the good that comes my way. Simply because I will fail to recognise it when I should.

I have had more than 11 minutes for the last 3 1/2 years and from what I have been told - I have more than 11 minutes even when we are old and grey.

Fonts in italics are excerpts that from the book
11 Minutes by Paulo Coelho.

Patience

2011-11-10T18:46:00.000+08:00

Every once in a while, I get smacked with an earth-moving situation that requires me to sit very still and do nothing. And over the course of yesterday, after 2 days of being in a very dark place- I have come to conclude that this is another one of them.

I have no control whatsoever over how this will play out. And so, why should I spend my days fretting?

I just need to remind myself, every second, every minute, every hour, every day that this is a lesson in patience.

I Should Be...

2011-11-07T21:30:00.000+08:00

I should be happy, over-joyed, elated even that you trust me enough to tell me what may possibly exist today in your life. That you feel I should know and that to some extend my opinion on it matters.

I should be happy, over-joyed, elated even that you get along with both my children so well and how each have taken to the other so well. That Luke looks up to you and Lydia does not cut you off.

I should be happy, over-joyed, elated even that 2 years is to far ahead to make plans. That we should get away as early as we possibly could afford to.

I should be happy, over-joyed, elated that you think where I have moved to is not too close. That it is somewhere you think you could live in.

I should be happy, over-joyed, elated. But I am not.

Simply because I am always the one left-behind. And I am afraid that after all this happiness, joyfulness and elation - I would come crashing down to earth and break open into a gazillion pieces.

When we were beautiful

2011-11-05T09:10:00.000+08:00

"I think the storm has cleared. All you guys need is the opportunity, is all," Des said over a glass of wine.

To ask for her to take the first step is pure selfish and I wouldn't come to that. This is it is all at my end - there is no compromise.

If there is to be a resolution to this stalemate, I'd have to eat crow and take that first step.

In many ways, all the other things she mentioned was also true. But the fear is there. Cos at the base of it, if the one person in this world who accepted me as I was rejects me now, then that will say it all about me.

New Beginnings

2011-10-28T14:23:00.000+08:00

I move house tomorrow. And it will likely be my last time moving from one rental to another; the next move would be 2 years down the line, into my own pad.

The house is currently in a mess. I cannot remember how I managed moving homes so many time - the next stop would be my 7th place in a span of 9 1/2 years. And no matter how I keep throwing things out, I am still finding things that I have managed to hoard over the years.

As I take a moment, have a smoke and list down the things for the movers tomorrow, I am taking stock that this move was not scheduled for this year. And as the year unfolded, it became even more unthinkable to be able to afford a new rental. Yet, it is not only a new rental, but it is almost 3 times more than what I have paying now.

We have had happy times here, in this place in the clouds in the neighbourhood of OUG. To think that I was filled with trepidation moving from that side of the valley to this side, and now to the next place being almost a stone's throw away.

To top it all off, to have you ask for an access card and if the unit came with 2 car park bays to let you have the other ~ We have come a long way, babe!

But more importantly, I have come a long way.

So thank you this lil box in the sky. We made it through without any nights staring listlessly at the moon.

Disappointing Child

2011-10-19T08:37:00.000+08:00

We have started the renovations on the house in Subang. It is now Week 2 and the workers are going head-on full-swing.

Very few would understand when I say this effort has taken the biggest toll on me. My schedule and my budget have already gone out the window. But that aside, it has wrecked me completely emotionally. And as I sit here this morning, I have never felt more alone - yes, not even my Camino beats this.

I keep thinking, maybe I jinxed my own self ~ this year at my birthday, I didn't write my usual yearly reflection on whether I make my parents proud. I assumed that after everything I had done this year, I have already proven myself. And thus, it was a given fact. *Beep* WRONG! Nothing in life is a fact except perhaps death and taxes.

If anything these last week (and it's only Wednesday!) has taught me is this: I would always be that disappointing child. The one that can never do right, no matter how hard I try.

And so today I stand and say "I'm done." 36 years of trying is a long hard time to try and to swallow it all in. When some don't even need to try, and in their not "trying" they get rewarded. So why should I bother?

If I were to not see the sun go down today, let it say on my head stone

Here lies the one who tried and failed.
The one who was always the let down.
Here lies our disappointing child.

Clarity

2011-10-15T22:01:00.000+08:00

I came to realize this evening that sometimes, you have to be cruel to be kind. And again, that money is not the "be all and end all" of life.Since the beginning of this year, I have been waking up frustrated with myself, and my life when I should be waking up feeling joyful. I have been grumpy, frumpy and behind on most things that are important. Simply because I felt obligated.I am still obligated but now there is light at the end of this tunnel. And while I know this decision will irrevocably make life a little bit harder, it is also a necessity.For I am not like you, decent as you are. My beliefs are different from yours. And frankly, I do not like your beliefs and as such, I do not like jumping when you tell me to.And so, my countdown begins. To the day life as I know it returns to normalcy and decency.

By the wall

2011-10-03T23:24:00.000+08:00

Today was a wretched day.

As I stood in the mid-day sun by the letterbox, tears streaming down my face, text messages flying back and forth with Ben, I realised in the midst of my despair, just how much I miss my friend.

How you understand

2011-09-26T16:21:00.000+08:00

Some times, some bits of my life begets a whole lot of explaining. Half the time I refrain from saying too much simply because it will likely end up with my conversation partners giving me the "raise-eye-brow-are-you-crazy?!" look.

Often Ben surprises me at his maturity - comes with the age difference I suppose. But even then, his ability to accept and understand the bits that requires the most faith still takes me by surprise.

If most other things you can understand my whys and yet, fail to see eye-to-eye with me on my faith, it is a deal breaker for sure.

Yet, it is with my faith that you stand strongest - indeed I am blessed.

The 4th

2011-09-19T11:15:00.000+08:00

For most people, arriving at a decision is a rather easy process. Take all your parameters, put it in place and the answer will more or less show itself.

For me, doing all that only serves one purpose - a process of shortlisting for the ultimate decisions. At the end of the day, I do not have the last say.

I am now coming down to the wire. By the end of this week, I would have signed over a cheque for a place. But it is not the place that I have thought I would end up with. Or rather, it is beginning to look like it is not the place.

For this, there are a lot of sacrifices that would need to come in. And I have been tossing and turning, trying to come to terms with these changes that I need to make. For instance, Rome may no longer happen! And these are hard terms to accept cos just over the weekend, I thought to myself - after 8 1/2 years, I have fought back from the brink of destitute. And this final act is more or less going to see me heading back that way.

Yet, I cannot neglect or cast aside the "joy" that is flowing from my parents with my decision. It is reflecting in every which way possible!

What does one do in this instance then? What should I do in this instance then?

I suppose, nothing less than following the 4th to the T with full gusto!

So Far Ahead.. and Then?

2011-09-05T22:57:00.000+08:00

I am in the midst of searching for a property to call my own. My yardsticks for it have shifted so many times, I am still dizzy from all the spinning.

Ben asked me last week - why do you have to buy another when you already owned one? He pushed and prodded, threw every reason I came up with out the window, knowing there was something more that I was not saying. Until it came out ~ I am tired of moving from one place to another, trying to make it into a home and never succeeding cos it was never mine to begin with.

Tonight it dawned on me just how big a leap I have taken in the last 12 months. And it is overwhelming me to the extreme. If I were wiser, I'd get up and reach for the gin. But I want a clear head cos I know somewhere out there, there is a reason for all this..

This is the furthest I have ever gone in all these years of living. And tt is not just committing a large portion of my income into a piece of air in the sky.

I tell myself it could only have come this far because it is not real in the traditional sense. And after I tell myself that, I go to church and pray that if this is not what that is written, please take him away. And then what happens? He sends him to me, suggesting we start a joint investment account affectionately called "The Devil's Fund" cos it is to pay for our way to Old Trafford to catch a ManU game live in person next year. A trip that is purely holiday - no work to flank it with.

And the year after, we have the grand dame of all plans - my folks, my kids and us off to Ireland, with my folks moving on to a visit to a holy site in Europe while he tours Ireland with Lydia and Luke while I work. And after all that, they will come back and we will go to Rome.

To cap it all off, if I do buy a property, the year after that would be the year I take possession of it.

Like I said - such big leaps and I cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. Perhaps I am trying to shy away from seeing it. Perhaps it is a fuzzy dot out there in the distance but I am putting on my blinders.

I always said I'd be happier alone.
I have my work, my friends,
but someone in your life all the time?
More trouble than it's worth.
Apparently, I got over it.

Sunday

2011-08-26T20:05:00.000+08:00

My cousin Paul wrote on his blog that "ecause his "dialect" with which he communicates love is different (perhaps his is by tell her how much he loves her), these deeds she does for him didn't seem important to him, and she feels unloved."

I am quite possibly able to write this posting tonight only because I have had nothing to eat since lunch and half a bottle of vino in.

I turn 36 on Sunday. And this year, it should be something I am looking forward to. To borrow an expression from Mandy - I have "arrived" after having licked the very bottom of the devil's cauldron. But not only that, since knowing a certain someone since 2008, this is the 1st birthday of mine that we are celebrating together.

Try as I may to tell myself to not make a fuss about it - I know deep down that he has made efforts to shift his life around, so that he is around this Sunday. I knew it 4 Sundays ago. (Though at that point in time, I was miffed big time but yes, the light bulb did come on eventually).

And in order that I do not end up disappointed, I have been telling myself that it is a coincidence. That it was not intended.

BUT if I know him, like I have come to know him and as Paul wrote - I am denying myself joy. Real JOY! Fore he has made effort and I am not giving him brownie points for it. Simply because I have been left out in the rain far too many times.

I have been asking myself today, playing scenarios in my head, wondering "Who am I to you?" when I didn't have to. Wasn't it said before not too long ago?

"I shake the hands of my friends when we meet!"
"But you don't shake mine!!!"

"What nonsense are you going on about?! Please - you are miles ahead of all of them!"

I am such a fool. I shall enjoy the rest of my wine and look forward to turning 36.

Life awaits!

The Sweet Smell

2011-08-26T19:13:00.000+08:00

I am done for the operational year. My first. And we have a full house. And then some!

If you asked me a year ago, could I see myself in the position I am in today? I would have told you NO. In fact, I DID say NO, it won't happen! Yet it did.

I have had to work my arse off. But you know what - it was what I had to do that makes this day, this moment so much sweeter than it would have been!

Some would say, I didn't aim high enough. And in all honesty, it may have started out as such. But towards the middle - it wasn't enough anymore.

I shot for the gold and got it.

I must remember this day. And this smell. And this smile. Baby I'm a firework and they are going Oh-oh-oh!

Breaking Habits

2011-08-25T17:58:00.000+08:00

After my last posting, I went back to read how I felt last August. And I realised something - I have been going towards this trend, with this year being the 2nd year running.

Have I not learnt anything the last 365 days to know that despite the maggots in my head - they are what they are - maggots in my head! If not for anything else, this year should be further testament that I am my own spiral downfall catalyst.

I need to break the habit. Break these chains that hold me, tripping me up when I give it the opportunity to.

Another Year…

2011-08-25T14:41:00.002+08:00

Another year is coming to an end – both on the work front and also on the age side.

So much to think about and reflect upon, yet my thoughts and head is all over the place – where do I begin?

I was overwhelmed by a deep sense of loss last night. Perhaps it was because with most of the sales seats sold, the deluge of emails that has been keeping me occupied almost 24/7 is dwindling down to a trickle. Soon it would be a small cry from being absolutely silent. What do I do with myself then?

This year has been all about work – getting the business off the ground. And off the ground it did take, and not stopping at just there. We could be slightly snobby and say that we shot for the moon and got the stars. Yet I do not feel the sense of accomplishment and achievement – not when I think that how maybe I got lost along the way.

I “FBeed” this morning that I was feeling weepy. I still am. If I had it my way, today would have been a day where I stayed holed up at home, the blue bottle in hand and the sampoerna in the other. All because I have counted the losses and it has stacked up so high against me, it is too much to bear.

If I could have one wish for the year ahead it would be this: That I could grow some coldness in me – so that I can be like them out there who could easily take things up and put them down. My work has drained me. Squeezed me dry. And I allowed it to happen by taking such a deep personal interest in each and every person who came through that door.

It is not the draining of energy that I am wallowing on about. But rather the reminder of something someone once said to me: How could you be so wonderful to a customer, and so rotten to those who really are in your life?!

Sunday looms large and lonesome ahead. I can’t even begin to think about how I can go about filling the day so that I do not start a new age all red-eyed and moped out.

Cos at the end of the day, I may be going into 36 far wealthier than I have ever been financially, but my life is so empty, invoking the bankruptcy act won’t even cut it.

Lost Highway

2011-08-23T08:29:00.000+08:00

An old and dear friend messaged me on FB last night. And it was only then that I find out that he has been going through a lot of pain in the last few months.

Despite what people may have been thinking or saying - I have not been on a rampage of forgetting where I "came from" nor cutting ties with those who sat with me at the bottom of the devil's cauldron.

I suppose this is where "cultural" (for lack of a better word) differences comes into play. I have been associating and working with folks who have no qualms in coming on board and going "Have you got a minute?" And I forget that our culture is one where if we see the other going round like a headless chicken, we say to ourselves "Let's not bother them with our troubles."

I am disappointed in my own self. For all the walking I do, I am still like a horse with its blinders on. I should be more intuitive and know when a simple "Hi" may mean more, need more.

It now seems that I have been running on this lost highway. I suppose there is no time like the present to get myself back to the main roads.

The End of an Era

2011-08-08T11:10:00.001+08:00

I had a big pow-wow with Mandy over the weekend.

Even writing that line was hard as I couldn't write "BFF" anymore. And it makes me think - the acronym is just an acronym. It went out the window as fast as acronyms are created.

I am 36 this year. And that would mean that I have known her for over 16 years. It sure didn't take long to dissolve something that many years took to build. But then again, we wouldn't exactly be lying if we didn't admit that it has been brewing and fermenting for the longest time.

I have realised that a friendship is just the same as any relationship - it takes a lot of work to keep it going and to keep its shape intact, especially as we grow and change. Perhaps I forgot that cardinal rule in this instance, choosing to ignore that even between friends, sheets must sometimes be aired before the stink sets in so hard, no matter how many times you wash it, you will never be able to get the musk out.

16 years - come hell or high water, we have always been there for each other. And yes, she was always in my corner, waving my flag for me. Have I come to think that I have 'arrived' at a point in my life that I can do without this staunch supporter? Alas, I have not. Cos who else knows more about me in my circle of friends than her?

Yet, it was a point and a decision that I had come to reach. And despite what another friend Dzul tried to remind me, it was a painful decision to take. My colleague Sam just told me that perhaps I too have changed. And maybe that it is. I realised that we have both branched out in different directions of life - so far apart that the chasm seems too wide to cross.

These are all decisions that I have taken on my own. In all fairness, she has not had her say. And I cannot apologise enough for breaking her heart the way I did.

But that era has come to an end. And I'm sorry it ended the way it did. I can only wish her well and that all she has her heart's desires set upon, she will be blessed by them.

Shame and My Lil Blue Card - Part II

2011-07-09T21:01:00.001+08:00

When I first wrote Part I, I never really thought there would be another incident that would inspired me to the point of sitting down at my desk to write a follow up. I never thought 9th July 2011 would happen.

The last 36 hours has been nothing but a bundle of anxiety, angst and shame. Traffic disruptions and all aside, I think my main bone of contention was the gripe of terror that took hold of my insides as I watched the events of the day unfold on- and off-line.

The people of the city and country stood up today and marched with one intent, one voice and one purpose - Enough of this bullshit! Clean up your act or get the hell out of here! Of course, they are far more eloquent than I am, hence fewer words are needed.

And while I started today being apolitical, as the sun set and the sounds of traffic on the highway next to my window is still less than what it normally is - I am infuriated! For today, if not for anything else, my government held me a terrorist hostage IN MY OWN CITY!

For the first time in my life, I feared for my own safety and the safety of those I know and care for. For the first time in my life, I bundled the kids in the car and headed out to make sure the larder had provisions to last us at least a few days.

I still recall the last time we came this close, I had nonchalantly told my folks that if anything happened, since I was at the office, I would simply run next door and seek asylum. And in 1998, when the roads in front of the then-office (which was Lee Rubber across from the High Court) was cordoned off much like it was today, I play the eye-in-the-sky ~ providing updates via phone on where the water canon trucks were parked at. Even as the FRU stormed our building to evacuate us and I walked alongside men in amour - it was another day in my city.

But today was a different story. Simply because I waited and waited and waited for a voice of reason, for a voice in power to step up to the plate and call an end to the madness - it never came. I waited and waited and waited for the Main Man to speak yet again. But alas, apparently his voice and words are like the cards in Monopoly - you only get to use it once!

Add to it, the visual and written reports of police brutality just further befuddles me. It is so difficult to reconcile, especially since it is still fresh in my mind how I was advised to head to the nearest police station along the way of my Camino if ever I was in dire need of a stamp for the day and no one else was open.

Today was not the day for you to prove to those who put food on your table that you know which side you are on! Today was not the day for you to be trigger-happy with whatever weapon you were equipped with! Today was not the day for you to cast aside your brain and just be a stupid kambing-biri-biri! And for that matter - NO DAY EVER IS! For aren't you in uniform to protect and serve the people? Instead, you held us all at your ransom. AND, no prizes for guessing what your rationale of it is going to be tomorrow: We were following orders.

When we were away last month, one of the things that hit us really hard was the fact that "there is no place like home". But right now, if this is what home is going to head towards - I'll gladly sing in the metro for my supper and have my kids stand with a tin in hand in front of a phone booth anywhere else in the world!

When you terrorise your people the way you did today - you can only be sure of hell to pay when the time comes.

The Great Escape

2011-07-07T20:51:00.000+08:00

Okay so I have not really sat down and blogged much about the great escape that I had in June. I do apologise for that lapse. Having said that, I hope you had also given me the allowance of letting things settle down before committing to words the events of June 2011.

The Camino to Santiago De Compostela

This was the first part of the great escape. 6 days in the Galicia region of Spain, walking 118.5 km through its wilderness, villages and towns on my own. All to fulfill a vow. I shan't elaborate much about it as you can read the whys and the hows in my Camino blog.

Perhaps the only thing that I can add here is this: I found no clear wisdom nor have I learnt anything profound. I do not have any life changing decisions to make. But it was clarifying. Would I do it again? It's a definite NO. Simply because if I do - it only means I didn't clean enough on the first attempt. And if that is the case, then perhaps the Camino is not the place to do some soul cleaning.

Ireland for Work

This trip to Ireland was a partial wash-out. Weather-wise, this was the worst I have seen in my 3 visits. Not only were the skies grey most of the time, it poured at its own whim and fancy! And when it poured, it poured! I kid you not - torrential rains in Ireland?!

I suppose I would also have to add to it that I was ill and in pain. Yup - busted my right ankle and left knee on the Camino and was hobbling about a fair bit. But it gave me time to rest up and rest indeed I did! And yes, I did complete the work that I had to do before me - so no goofing off there.

The Vacation

I suppose for most folks, this is the bit you've been waiting for. The much-talked about vacation with the heard-off-but-not-seen person in my life.

For starters, even as I got on the plane, I still wasn't sure if I would be at Dublin Terminal 2 on the night of 22nd June waiting in vain. Fortunately, it was again all just maggots in my head. Did I go flying into his arms? Nope. In fact, it was a very sedate affair overall - the airport welcome. Let's write it down to me being ill and out of sorts.

I had this immense trepidation of sharing a space with someone else, after being on my own for so many years. And the first few days of Dublin and London was just me trying to shake it off. I do not think there is another person out there as anal as I was about the whole thing. So unless you can tell me that you actually did your business in the restroom of a restaurant not because you really had to go, but because it was an opportunity to go - I win hands down!

And what would a vacation be without any tantrum throwing eh? I must say, it was a fine one that I threw the first night of London after discovering that the B&B meaning of a double-bed is actually that slightly bigger than a super-single. Add to it walking out of the bathroom to find your sleeping partner laying down beddings on the floor for the night - it was a watch me walk out the door event for sure. But I must say, Ben took it all in his stride - leaving me to heave, huff and puff out in the cold on my own, knowing that I will calm down and head back in.

So with that, I do not know why the memories of Barcelona still blows me away. How he let me sleep, went about and got dinner ready (his birthday dinner to boot!) and had a glass of proper warm tea with fresh lemon juice waiting when I woke up. Yups - warm fuzzy feeling all around now!

I suppose it was a trip that was much needed. A break from the norm of the last 3 years. He got to see sides of me that was never shown before and I got to see a side of him that I never thought existed before.

Has anything changed since we got back exactly a week ago? I really cannot say. And I shouldn't. It wasn't happiness that I was seeking from the great escape. Hence, nothing really should happen afterwards.

I was seeking to make a solid memory and boy did I succeed at it. Not only at my end but at his too!

Question that hangs now is: Where to next and when? And hey - that didn't come from me so perhaps if we really had to quantify it - that is some measure of progress then yes?

Wouldn't It...

2011-07-04T21:58:00.001+08:00

This sums up the value of the time spent on our vacation: we're willing to pack up our bags, skip town and busk by the streets for our supper.

Now that is time and money well spent indeed!

Loopsided

2011-07-02T02:09:00.001+08:00

The mattress shifts just once when I turn my body.

The sound of pillowcase crunching happens only when I turn.

I can stretch my leg across the other end of the bed and there is nothing stopping it from going further.

10 days is long enough a time to get used to so many things, so many habits.

Oh dear.

End or Beginning?

2011-07-01T04:11:00.001+08:00

Time flies as we sit here at Doha Airport, waiting for the final leg home.

A year of planning (and fretting), it comes down to this ~ a 6 hour transit?

I am holding on to what a passing stranger told me: You won't know, until you get home and go back to normal life.

Yesterday, by forgetting those words, I was ready to walk off La Rambla straight to the airport and catch the next flight home.

Today, I am wishing we are back on the terrace with peaches and wine.

Nope - I can't and I won't conclude. If this is the end or the beginning.

Of a Lifetime

2011-06-27T16:44:00.000+08:00

I am sitting the terrace in a suburb in Barcelona. In all honesty, I really never thought I would be writing a post from here - right here, right now. Yet, I am.

I have been and is still on a trip of a lifetime. Like it was said at Hyde Park a couple of days ago - if the plane falls out of the sky tomorrow, I'd die happy.

The sun is out and it is coming close to 11 am but I'm in no hurry. While they say "time and tide waits for no man", this is different. The cities we have been and is in - they are only backdrops.

And that - that is enough for me!

Next stop: Home. But as every journey ends, a new one begins.

Now & Forever

2011-06-22T07:11:00.000+08:00

I sat in the train in from Cork to Dublin today and I lookedout the window to a scenery of wide open fields, cows and sheep grazing happilyaway and horses trotting along. Funnily enough, it brought about a sense ofloss for the Camino which ended a week ago for me.

Perhaps it is because Ben has gotten on the plane and is physically making hisway half way around the world to me. And his words that we will sit somewheretomorrow to talk about my Camino experience.

Perhaps it is because since the Camino ending and right up to today, I have notbeen able to discuss my experience over with another person who was on it orwho had done it.

I went out to dinner with a business associate I met once in KL not too longago. She was pretty determined that we met up when I came around and for that Iwas sceptical – am I just another business contact to milk for my worth?

Yet, 3 hours later, we had just parted ways outside my hotel, leaving therestaurant because it was closing. And the banter tonight was a bit about work.But it was also a lot of discussions about “living in the now”.

I have no plans made ready for Ben and his first European experience. It is sounlike me. But here’s the thing – I am not having to fight down some internaldemons to not type up so itinerary to fill his day. It is REALLY a ‘we will dowhatever we feel like doing’ kind of trip and not a ‘we must do everythingbecause we might not come back this way again’.

It is so difficult to reconcile tonight that no more than a week ago, I was atmy most vulnerable – the memory of breaking down at some intersection of a roadand sending out a Facebook plea is still so fresh in my mind. And yet today,for more than an hour, a room full of highly respected persons in theirindustry had their attention paid to me and what I said.

It is also so difficult to reconcile that I am taking thewhole family away on a family vacation at the end of this year. Yups, all 5adults and 6 kids to Singapore – simply because I want when I am 80 and mybrother is 76 and our parents long gone, that we sit with our evening cup ofteas and reminisce on the memory that we made. That when our kids grow up andget together they can chat collectively about the holiday they had – together.

One of my dinner companions remarked that at the end of the day, we all have togo back to basics and that is doing what we must to live in the present.

As I close this and head for my shower, my thoughts are with a particularfriend of mine. I will not say you are lost. Neither will I say you areclueless. I have no wise words to share with you my darling friend except this –we only have one life to live. And sometimes we have to be selfish to live thatone life.

It has not been said before (and Mandy I know you will likely be going WHAT?! afterreading this) - Ben’s trip to Europe is a gift. My gift to him. It may seemmuch and yes, indeed there is a whole lot more than I can do with the moneythat I have and will be spending.

But at the end of the day, I am making a memory. And that, just like my Camino,will always be something I have to carry with me for the rest of my life – comewhat may.

If the walk in the wilds of Spain has thought me anything – it would be that:Plans are all fine and well. But what matters most is what I do with the “now”.

Quiet Days

2011-06-19T04:19:00.000+08:00

It has been a few really quiet days. Yes, it was one meeting after the other but most of the time, I stayed put in one place and everyone came to me instead.

After 4 1/2 days of endless moving, it was one big great dip. I had looked forward to the not having to worry about unpacking and repacking. But I didn't anticipate the huge sense of loss of camaraderie. And it is huge. For while I may have walked the Camino on my own, there was really very little time that I had spent on my own. Well, except for that one afternoon.

It is already Saturday. 2 Saturdays from now, I would already be in my own home, cuddling my babies around me like crazy. But until we get there, there is the time in between.

Truth be told, I am now honestly looking forward to Wednesday night. That is when my boy arrives from a long trip from Kuala Lumpur. And I shall keep the image of flying into his arms at the front of my mind for the next few days to see me through the aimlessness and loneliness that engulfs at each meal period.

Quiet days - let's just have only a few more of it!

Point of No Return

2011-05-30T15:03:00.001+08:00

With the parting words of "I will see you next in Dublin!", it is no past the point of no return.

I shall take a dose of my own medicine: It is an adventure.

True Love

2011-05-27T21:28:00.000+08:00

After going to bed past 3 am this morning, I got woken up with a text beeping in shortly after 7 am. And I have been on the get-go ever since.

It's a strange sensation and I suppose those who are in it would understand what I mean when I say - it creates a passion in you that rages in a positive way, and in such overwhelming volume that you cannot help but allow yourself to be engulfed by it.

After 2 weeks, I am certain where my heart truly lies and it reignites in me once again my dream from long before.

It may be a canteen but having been there and done all that, it can be a fancy place or it could be just a roadside shake - it is the industry that is my true love. How it is set up - immaterial.

Thank you LegalBeagle for showing the light and giving the opportunity!

Perhaps...

2011-05-23T21:41:00.000+08:00

It's been so long since I have sat down and not written in angst. It is such a strange sensation now - but don't get me wrong, it is very welcomed here.

And so, it is about two weeks before I head off for my summer escapade. Went and got our plane tickets sorted out today. And yes - the generally response to that is a resounding FINALLY. I know - smack me on the head, go right on!

I am extremely nervy. So I am glad that I got my work act finally together, all the balls safely staying in the air, one after the other. Otherwise, lord only knows what I would be breaking right this moment and who would be suffering from my wrath.

Nonetheless, I am extremely nervous. Not so much for my camino - I have come to reconcile that it is not a race. I have 5 days to get from point A to point B each day. While I have been training to do 5 km per hour, I really don't have to. And I shouldn't. This is going to be one of life's fine example that it is not the end but the journey.

So what am I nervous about? I guess, it would be this "giant" leap forward. And however much I have tried to put safety nets (ala apartment with big Big BIG balcony and separate living spaces with a sofa bed thrown in for good measure), the inevitable truth is 11 days is a hell of a long time to really break me down.

My good friend (and ex-boyfriend) calls it progress. And he says it has to be done - just to prove to the rest of us that there is hope. I laugh when I recall this command of his - yes, it was a command for sure.

I can be a lot of things in this life time of mine. But a bringer of hope would be a first. And I guess we will only have to wait for what I would have to say when the return to the real world happens.

Perhaps. Just perhaps....

Bittergourds

2011-05-14T15:09:00.001+08:00

My aunt has a daily lunch of bittergourds, tidy and porridge. As she told me what she was having, all I could think of was 'Isn't life bitter enough?'

From inside the house, family laughter filters out to the garden. Why do they have so much to laugh about, while I have so much to vent?

I am tired. Really really tired. And I'm tired of being tired.

A Time for Solidarity

2011-05-09T22:05:00.000+08:00

We belong in the generation of nuclear families. Yet, there comes a time when solidarity calls and your family's strength expands and extends.

My aunt, the wife of my father's 3rd brother, passed on this evening. I am glad that I managed to go say my thank you and goodbye. It wasn't very much, compared to all that her family and her has done for ours in our time of need(s). But nonetheless, we do what we can.

While my cousin brother and my uncle seemed to had reconcile themselves to the fact that she would be leaving them soon, I know that grief is a strange lil bugger. It whips you upside down when you lest expect it.

I do not profess to be a grief guru - how many people have I had to bury in my lifetime? But, I would like to think that just being there, being an extra pair of hands, an extra voice in prayer and an extra shoulder to rest one's head on - these are not things you need much experience of.

We are going to go home. As tired as our bodies are tonight, we are going to rest and we are going to go home. And anyone who says otherwise, who tells me - leave it for another day - I will personally buy them a bus ticket and they can take the bus.

The family needs us. And so we will go.

Both Sides Now

2011-05-07T17:09:00.001+08:00

In between spending time with family and trying to organise my week, I am having to chase up on work, take calls and manage instructions.

In snatches of moments, I stop and wonder why is it all on me?! Why am I the only one working more than 1 job?

Perhaps a visitor said it most accurately: My dad is free. The house is free. It's transferred to Barbara.

Now if only someone else can see it both sides now.

Wearing Black

2011-05-03T21:06:00.001+08:00

It is without a doubt that my favoured colour is black. Yet right now, I wish that my next reason to wear black did not exist.

My aunt is dying. Seriously. As in like a given number of days left.

It is such a stark reminder that we are all grown now. No longer the young ones running rings around our parents and grandparents.

If there was anything that I could do, I would take this away from my cousins. Cos I know when it is my turn, I wouldn't want to walk it.

But there is nothing we can do except hold their hands and hold them up as we say goodbye.

Run

2011-04-26T21:34:00.000+08:00

I wish I could run to you right now. Right this minute. But yet, I am not sure that even if I could, I would.

And if that is the case, when you are my last port of call, my safe harbour and I cannot find it in me to do that, then where else have I left?

I need you here
I need you here to wipe away my tears to kiss away my fears
If you only knew

Girlfriend

2011-04-06T22:35:00.000+08:00

Mandy asked me today, after exclaiming that she didn't get no credit in an earlier post, what my last post was all about. And she is the first person I have told it to in its entirety. And her reply to my statement that I do not kick up fusses was this - Maybe I don't literally but that I have been known to let my imagination get ahead of me.

If we were the hugging sort, we would have hugged (even if it was a virtual one). But because we're not, here you go girl - One post just to yourself. You know me best!

Trust Me

2011-04-04T14:56:00.000+08:00

"This happened a few months ago but I didn't bring it up cos I didn't want you making a fuss over it. But since you've mentioned it... this was what happened."

I know I should be jumping on the "what happened" but instead, I am thinking to myself: He doesn't trust me! And it is a horrible thing to happen at 3 am - to suddenly dawn on your tiny wee self that the one person you have come to learn to trust, does not in turn fully trust you.

If my brain was less fogged by the whiskey, I would have probably flown into a rage with a "Whaddayamean I make a fuss?!" when we all know I am the most fuss-free person still existing in this day and age. I have learn that not all fuss are worth fussing about!

But regardless of the whiskey in the jar, the point is this: Why can't you trust that I am not like anyone else before this? And that this (imagine finger going from head to toe and back) is not some act, or hidden-unfussiness-ploy.

I wish I could make you see that this is ME. This is who I am. There is no evil-two-headed monster waiting to pounce on you.

I wish I could take back all your trauma and bad experiences that has brought you to where you are today. So that we do not have to be addressing this issue.

And because I shall not fuss, I shall only say it once: I wish you'd trust me enough to not compartmentalise your life the way you do now.

Messy Beds

2011-03-21T01:34:00.000+08:00

I look forward to walking towards St James' Gate and watching your face light up as the Guinness sign looms as we turn round the corner to the left.

I look forward to you stopping in the mid-step as you realise the cobblestones that you're walking on in the Campanile dates over 400 years.

I look forward to you having your first taste of black pudding (My money's on you liking me and me having to learn how to make it!).

I look forward to hearing Bon Jovi play all our favourite songs, not more than 500 metres away from where we stand as dusk falls over the London skies.

I look forward to heading out to La Boqueira to grab the freshly baked bread and some meats for breakfast when you wake up.

I look forward to climbing the hills of Montserrat, with you right behind me panting for your dear life.

3 years ago, if you had asked me if any of these things featured in my near or even distant future, I would have told you a definite and resounding NO. Yet, here we are. 3 years on. Wondering where did the time go and planning for the times to come.

For that, you get the right to mess up each and every single bed that will cross our paths.

Along came a ....

2011-03-08T12:21:00.000+08:00

I have never been a firm believer of a great number of things:

1) Owning assets - For a person (no need to put names now!) who is always on the ready to up-and-run-for-the-door, 'asset' is one big scary word. My philosophy towards renting accommodations is this: If I don't like it, If something happens - there is nothing stopping me from packing up and moving somewhere else.

2) Boys - Call me a snob but in my mind, men will always be boys to me - callous, heartless and no-brainers. Yes, many of our world leaders are of that particular gender but hey - look at the state of the world (and its countries) today - need I say more? It is a never-ending footy game that is badly played - both on the skills side of things as well as sportsmanship.

3) Taking risks - They say that if a risk is calculated and the odds are in favour - one should always go for it. My retort to "what is there to lose?!" has always been - anything and everything! Calculated or not, I've always been the chicken when it comes to taking risks - it is a no-go zone. Play by the books, work your bones and what is due to you will come... eventually-ish.

In a span of 2 weeks, my 3 firm beliefs went flying out of the window as though it was sucked by a tornado. And it has taken me days to settle down and put it in words - it has to be done so that it's real to me at long last.

It's hard to imagine that only a week ago, the wheels to this statred turning. Perhaps, it was always there at the back of my head but it didn't ever make it way to the bus-stop for the bus to take it to the front. Until along came a boy who said "You're a great person but your heart is too small. You need to grow it bigger!" Not only did he put that damn thought at the bus-stop, he bloody brought a Ferrari round to drive it to its destination. And with that, changed belief #2 and #3.

Maybe I am placing far too much credit on the shoulders of one person. But in all honesty, in my 35-odd years of living, nothing has ever felt this right and this conscious. Perhaps this was what he meant when he said "Be conscious to your sub-conscious!"

I'm taking a moment to reflect on my entire life todate and wondering, if the wrong turns I didn't take, would still result in me being here today - buying over my parents' house (so that the roof continues to stay over their head), making progressive business moves that will only help us grow from strength to strength and making plans for life beyond today and tomorrow.

Change is constant.
How we experience change that's up to us.

Maybe it is like I told my dad's friend over a cuppa at O'Brien's - it has really been a series of events and persons who has led me to where I am today.

It can feel like death or
it can feellike a second chance at life.

Along came a boy who opened my eyes to a the difference between 'living' and 'existing.'

If we open our fingers, loosen our grips,
go withit, it can feel like pure adrenaline.

Along came a boy who made me see that I was not all that good and inspired, taught me how to be better - personally, professionally and religiously.

Like at any moment we can
have anotherchance at life.

Along came a boy who tore down each and every wall I have carefully built around me, encasing me in a bubble.

Like at any moment,
we can be born all over again.

But at the core of it all - it really is this:

Along came a boy who looked me in the eye and told me this: I will never ever let you fall.

New Boundaries

2011-02-21T04:12:00.001+08:00

Every once in a while, you get to a point where you either charge forward or retreat, admitting defeat.

I've been letting the defeatus fear get to me. And when I finally let go and let it flow: new boundaries are found.

It's all looking up now... Which means I have to face more skeletons from the closet...

Give me courage and i'll walk it with you.. but let's for now just try out Saturday dinners with the kids :)

Evergreen

2011-02-14T23:40:00.000+08:00

So it's Valentine's Day. And I let it pass me by, unobserved, unmarked.

Why do we have to listen to our hearts? Because, wherever your heart is, that is where you’ll find your treasure.

I started the day, just staying in and reflecting - words, words, words - nothing but words going through my head. But I held them off. Kept them at bay. They didn't see no text, email or notes. Perhaps towards the end of this day, I may just write them down - just so that they are said. But still, they have yet to find their own momentum - so perhaps not.

My heart is a traitor, it doesn’t want me to go on ~ That makes sense. Naturally it’s afraid that, in pursuing your dream, you might lose everything you’ve won.

I observed a kid this afternoon as the sky overhead aggressively got gloomier with the threat of rain heavy in the air. I observed him as I walked towards my appointment - he was all chirpy, cheerful - holding a bouquet of roses in his arms as he waited for the girl to show. And hour later, in near dark skies, I walked out - his smile was gone and anxiety was written all over his face as his stared down at the flowers and his mobile. I doubt it beeped before the rains came.

Well, then, why should I listen to my heart? Because you will never again be able to keep it quiet. Even if you pretend not to have heard what it tells you, it will always be there inside you, repeating to you what you’re thinking about life and about the world.

It may be the folly of youth. But then again, when you're young - nothing scares you. The monsters in the closet are as soft and cuddly as Scully. The Randalls of the world have yet to show up at your doorstep and haunt your dreams.

If you know your heart well, it will never be able to do that (treason) to you. Because you’ll know its dreams and wishes, and will know how to deal with them.

There will be a celebration. This weekend. And for once in a long time, I find myself thinking ahead - what to cook, what music to play... but I shall stop at there and not go into what to say. Because if anything the last few months have taught me, it would be that by preventing myself from looking forward to the evening, I have brought nothing but dread, anxiety and frustration to myself.

My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer ~ Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.

They say, you bring some of your past into your present. And try as I may not to do that - I have failed miserably. My Tennessee Line has not yet been crossed. And while I work at it, it does us no good (NO GOOD AT ALL!) to have it hang out right in front the obvious truth. The past is still very much present.

Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out indeed, to be threatening place. So, we, their hearts, speak more and more softly.

My own version of the above is absolute silence. And I have been doing much of that lately. Where once I spoke my heart and mind, I instead kept silent. And when you've been with someone for coming close to 3 years, the silence does not escape you.

Our best times (with the hope that there is still more to come) were those where communication took place. When I cast to the winds, the fears, the Randalls and everything bad that comes with it and said what I felt.

We never stop speaking out, but we begin to hope that our words won’t be heard: we don’t want people to suffer because they don’t follow their hearts.

And I want to bring that back, with all my heart - even if it holds things that I am afraid off. Like being even further away with even less time. I want to bring it back cos we may be nothing but we are in fact something.

And that something is worth me fighting for. Just as you fight all the time to bring me back from my darkness and my twisted-ness. With your telling me to "listen to the drums in the background" or that you feel the "need to get our lives back to normal".

So yes, it is worth me fighting with all I have. For if I don't try, I would have already lost. And at the end of the day, despite all that you are (not), you're all I want and need.

Phrases in italics are taken from

Paulo Coelho - The Alchemist

Tv Off

2011-02-11T14:50:00.008+08:00

I just had to make that first move and reconnect with Ben last night. Needless to say, the last few months has been everything but a smooth sail.

Love can consign us to hell or to paradise,
but it always takes us somewhere.
We simply have to accept it,
because it is what nourishes our existence.
If we reject it, we die of hunger,
because we lack courage to stretch out a hand and
pluck the fruit from the branches of the tree of life.
We have to take love where we find it,
even if it means hours, days, weeks of
disappointments and sadness.

I guess at the end of the day it comes down to this: I was never promised the world. And when faced with that choice then, I took it and ran. And I've been running with it since. - years later. Sure there are days when I question: Where is all this going to see me ending up at? And there are some days I am so confident of what I feel and what it is, it doesn't touch me one bit.

Can I fault him when he has been nothing but clear and focused? Is it fair to go shouting "I've been giving and giving!" when he's never asked to receive?

It's simple but not perfect. Hasn't he said it a thousand times over, especially when he thinks I need to be reminded of it? And it has to be said - it must be working to some extent - it's soon coming 3 years on. (By golly, has it been that long?!)

I need to snap out of this emotional dip - it does no one any good. Instead of looking forward to my one day a month, I have been dreading it. Instead of smiling and laughing, I have been spoiling for fights. If I were in his shoes, I'd put off coming home - just so I don't get into any trouble that I don't think I should be in!

The hours of waiting have been
transformed into tension,
the tension has become fear,
and the fear makes you embarrassed about
showing affection.

There is always a solution to every problem. And some of them is as simple as not to not have the problem exist in the first instance. While some may say I'm living in the land of the-nile, there would also be some who may say - you've made your bed, now lie in it!

It's tough all around. And rough sometimes too. But I just have but to believe in it! And playing the same sad sobbing programme over and over again in my head is NOT the solution - it is THE problem. So I'm turning this emotional TV show off.

Life is too short. I am not wasting it.

Love doesn’t ask many questions,

because if we stop to think we become fearful.

It’s an inexplicable fear;

it’s difficult even to describe it.

Maybe it’s the fear of being scorned,

of not being accepted,

or of breaking the spell.

It’s ridiculous, but that’s the way it is.

That’s why you don’t ask - you act.

As you’ve said many times, you have to take risks.

Instead, I shall live it.

Weary Momentum

2011-02-10T16:53:00.000+08:00

I asked the Bear a very rude question yesterday after he shared how he has started seeing someone new. It was rude cos it went something like this: What does this new girl have that the last didn't?! Now if it works out, this would be the Bear's 3rd or 4th relationship since I meet him years ago. And of them all, one had him licking the bottom of the devil's cauldron, and the last had him almost buying a house together.

I do admire the Bear though - for unrelentingly putting himself out there, all the time. And its a thought that sits heavy on my mind as I sit with my coffee and try to make sense of what's been in my head for a very long time. Cos in all honesty, this girl is tired and weary. And she's at a crossroad as to what she should and need to do...

On one hand, I am reluctant to do anything - after all, if it ain't completely broken - why fix it?! And on the other hand, we all know that it's cracked and cracking as we speak. Top it off with the irony of how Barcelona is a mere few months away - I cannot help but hold a cynical smile plastered on when I think about it.

At the end of the day, I guess I had always knew it would come down to this. It was only a matter of time. There - I've said it out loud. And thank God I am in a public place - puts some restraints on the tears falling down as the song plays on.

Good thing life doesn't come with a scalpel...

because if itdid, when things started to hurt,

we would just cut and cut and cut.

At this juncture, I cannot help but also recall the words a long-lost friend said to me in the aisle of a supermarket recently - Barb, you've just sometimes gotta try.

The thingis what we take away with a scalpel
we can't ever get back.

So perhaps... I should just not do anything (again?!) and just let the pain come and go?

So, like I said,good thing.

A Chorus Line

2011-01-28T10:25:00.000+08:00

I only have one prayer today and it goes something like this..."Please make the right decision, the one that you know is the one I want you to make - Not because you think I'd be pissed if you didn't do so. But because it's what you want to give me."

Options are there because that is who I am - the one who goes and purposely opens windows and doors, just so the feeling of being trapped doesn't have the opportunity to arisen and awake. Yet, I know now, that giving options are more dangerous than opening doors. It builds walls that then create a box, leaving you feeling more trapped than ever.

It's all finally sunk in. Or rather, the demons have finally caught up with me over a week of hide-and-seek. My lil head has wrapped itself over the magnitude of what was said over the weekend. And my lil heart is not ready for that - it's cracked and in the process of breaking to a million pieces.

So please.. as the clock ticks away towards the end of your seven days, please, please, please make the right decision....

Kiss today goodbye,
And point me t'ward tomorrow.
The gift was ours to borrow.
It's as if we always knew,
We did what we had to do.
Won't forget, can't regret
What I did for love

Untitled

2011-01-23T18:26:00.000+08:00

In about an hour, I'd be sitting down to dinner with Ben - something we have not done in like a month. Yeah - precisely! And that's just the physical "I haven't seen you in a month!" part. Cos in my imperfect world, that also includes a whole month of being conversation-less.

And I guess that is the hardest part - the "when I don't see you, work is almost all I do" bit.

But here I am, wondering if I have been any worse off the last 30 days. Sure, there were days when it became utterly unbearable. But for the most part, I do not recall being unhappy. And if you really asked me, I'd tell you that the dips came when my colleagues left KL after concluding their business. So that was 2 dips in the 1 month.

Which brings me then to my next line of thought - Have I conditioned myself to withstand the distance and the lack of communication? Or it doesn't matter either way to me? Both the former and the latter scares the hell out of me.

It really truly does.

From the heart

2011-01-21T09:31:00.000+08:00

"What's the median score looking like?" I was asked by one of my colleagues a couple of days ago just before lunch. "There's this one candidate that we may need to adjust the scores a little to make sure she gets in."

It's normally unheard off. But this is what I've learned in the last few days when it comes to getting into our group of universities to study medicine - whatever you say, it has to come from the heart.

And it's not always the easiest thing to do, especially when you're a young adult and the people you're opening up to are absolute strangers. And this is the separation point - those who can, are deemed to have what it takes - cos 90% of the time, your patients would be absolute strangers.

If you can prove to these seasoned physicians and surgeons that you can cross that chasm, you would have proven that you are here because you really want to. You would have proven that even if you lack some smarts, you will work your butt off to make up for it. You would have proven that you will not be mediocre. You would have proven that you have the heart to achieve greatness.

And the same principle applies in everything that every one of us does - it has to come from the heart. Or else it would mean nothing.

Borrowed Words Again

2011-01-08T00:55:00.000+08:00

Such a grueling day - physically and mentally. And I shudder when I think of the next 2 weeks, and the months ahead. Let's not even go to where we reach deep inside and think of the years ahead.

In all honesty, I have been drowning these past couple of weeks, living some kinda of hell that lies in the land of denial. And it all came crashing down this evening, when I looked at my phone and saw a familiar name and number.

Because it's so late into the day (or early in the morning), and because I've just written a detailed report for the bosses, I have but to borrow words again...

It's a quarter after one
I'm all alone
And I need you now
And I don't know how
I can do without
I just need you now

I've said it before.. and I'll say it again.. I love you but I bloody hate your job! And I'm now adding to it your complex rules for living a simple life!

Things from my head

2011-01-06T01:32:00.000+08:00

I'm in a whining mood tonight. Well, I haven't exactly winged it out as yet but it's there, boiling slightly beneath the surface of things.

There can be so many things for me to complain about tonight. And yes, right up there would be the cause of a bag that taunts me each time I drive by. But here's the thing that's stopping me from having a right go: my number whine would be about a billboard? WTF?! Besides, haven't I already decided that I like the look of a bag that was described as a "Hermes look-a-like" at under RM 90?!

I've gotta let it go. Accept the fact that if I want to bask in that, I can always go lie on my parents' couch instead. Which would always be better cos 1) it's a nice comfy couch to have a lie-in on and 2) it brings me home.

I've gotta let it go. Accept the fact that some people can be so self-righteous on the outside but so hypocritical on the inside. Which is good cos it taught me first-hand never to trust the hand that fed you, especially if it was ill-maintained just to show.

I've gotta let it go. Accept the fact that if I'm having a bad day, week or moment, I do not have the luxury of running off to a corner, picking up the phone and dialing a number. Which is good cos it forces me to sit down, take a moment and think it out on my own, exercise that rationale a bit on my own. And if I can't fight it over, I always have the option of tipperty-tapping it away in an email for you to read at your leisure. And knowing me, it'll still be beef to me then.

It's the 6th day of the new year - and I do not want to set the tone for the rest of the year to be so. Especially when there are so many other things to concern myself with.

I shall sleep tonight, forming things (thoughts) in my head and visualise it bit by bit, piece by piece. Then as I drift off to my la-la-land, I shall release these things out into the world.

Tomorrow, it shall be.

Tennessee Lines

2011-01-01T01:19:00.001+08:00

I didn't expect my first posting of the year to be one of this nature. A recounting of how I lost my first battle of the year with my demons.

When a call goes unanswered, a text unresponded to ... I go into this battle with my past.

I don't know why it's come back to haunt me. I truly don't. But if I don't get to the bottom of it, I know of only one path that it will lead to.

I feel stupid right now. Stupid and silly. And only that wee bit tall. And I grow smaller as the drums (literally) play back in my head.

Some folks are built for relationships. Some folks are not. Question: which folk do I belong to?

I need to cross my Tennessee line so that I can let go off my demons and start living without.

I'm so sorry I doubted you (again!).

Finding Salt

2010-12-31T20:47:00.000+08:00

"A grain of salt, without its saltiness, is just another grain of mineral," said my wise man of the decade.

So here I am, at the desk, some four hours before the old calendar gets thrown out and replaced with a brand new one. For a year where I had hardly written anything, the pressure of doing the 2010 capping blog is intense. Yet, some 10 days ago, the title for this closing reflection was already decided. So it really shouldn't be all that difficult, right? Or should it be even tougher?

Salt ~ noun :

A crystalline compound, sodium chloride, occurring as a mineral, a constituent of seawater.
A product formed by the neutralization of an acid by a base.
An element that gives liveliness, piquancy, or pungency.

In the last day or so, I have been trying very hard to recall what transpired this year. A momentous 365 days, no doubt about it. Yet, nothing really significant comes to mind when it is called. A strange occurrence indeed, except that it is not when I really sit down and think about the whys and the how-could-this-be.

I have been so wrapped up and warped by fears and trepidations that it had pushed everything else aside. Have I really lived in 2010? Or did I let the better part of it pass me by?

Life is all about experiencing. And I did not do much of it the earlier part of the year. But as we flip another page, open another chapter, I am grateful and glad that I was awaken from it soon enough to be able to still savour what was left of it.

And that is what I want to remember today, the last day of the the year 2010: all the lessons I have learnt this year. Yes - the lessons, not the accomplishments.

For it is the lessons that will see me through the rest of the days and years to come. For it is the lessons that will shape me to be a better person. And I could not have acquired such knowledge if not for the guiding hands of the Almighty and the persons He put in my path.

As I googled the definition of salt, I could not be more blown away to see one of its scientific definitions come up as a product formed by the neutralization of an acid by a base. As Paulo Coelho writes in his closing blog for the year - Stop being who you were, and change into who you are. It could not be more apt as I look forward to the future.

And it is a future that shines bright, with some possibilities of bad thunderstorms along the way. But I am ready to weather it through, even if I come out of it slightly less intact than before. Because I am reminded yet again, that it is the experience of it that is of most important. And not what I am left with (or without) at the end of the journey.

If I had to write a resolution for next year tonight, it would be to always find salt. For wasn't it also said, "So be like salt: stay true to who you are!"

Happy New Year 2011 one and all.... I hope your year has been as fruitful and rewarding as mine has been. If you had to suffer some form of hardship, feel some heartache, sit through some very dark nights - I hope you'll be able to see it like I do. If you had nothing but endless days of joys, I wish you the same for the days to come and that you'll wake up each day thanking the heavens for your continuous blessing. And that you also start the day thanking the heavens for the blessing of the day itself.

As the LegalBeagle rightfully said it earlier: Did you realise nothing is really ending? We'll see you tomorrow!

Author's Note:

I am thankful for each and every day that you have filled my days with. Yes, it is not perfect but it is simple enough for me to see it as it is, and appreciate it for what it is.

Starts, Finishes and the Bit in Between

2010-12-29T09:33:00.000+08:00

The end of the year is already upon us ~ where did the time go? It feels as if so much had taken place in 2010, yet it feels so unimportant.But 2010 was an important year, not just in a specific milestone but in so many other milestones that weren't marked down.

How do I end this year with a blog worthy of all that has happened in between? How do I put words down to a period of growth and learning that I never thought possible before? Even now, as I try to start reflecting, I cannot pin down one major theme of the year to anchor my thoughts to.

There was a song that one of my yoga instructors played towards the end of our session. And the words go something like this - "I am stand here before you, covered in gratefulness."

And that's all I can think about... perhaps that should be it...

Roundabout

2010-12-20T02:20:00.001+08:00

Here's another reason why: you go this roundabout way to tell me something, without quite saying it out loud in plain a-b-c.

Maybe one day i'll figure why is it that you do that.

And ok - shoe thrown.

Coincidence or Timing

2010-12-18T01:36:00.001+08:00

I've just finished my new read. And the last few chapters were not quite how I expected them to be.

And while there are possibly many more nights to go in digesting it, one thing is for sure: God speaks to us in the manner in which he knows us best able to receive.

For the whole year, my reading list has been as strange as snow in May. But in this A-ha moment it has dawned on me that it has quite possibly been leading up to this book; training my mind to be receptive to the obvious.

I want to be free.

I want to be free of the feelings of inadequity that I carry around me like an invisible cloak. I want to be free of the anger rushes that creep up on me at every available opportunity.

I want to be free.

I will be freed.

I am free. Thank God for that.

I.Am.Free.

Piles

2010-12-15T16:20:00.000+08:00

After an evening of running around, falling down on my bum and all that jazz, it dawned on me that I really could have been spared all that if ONLY a decision was taken much earlier, like when the suggestion came out.

Spilled laksa gravy and sore tailbone aside, it was this thought, and what is quite possibly the deeper unspoken thought behind it that kept up awake till 3 this morning, wishing deep down in my gut that I could pull said persons right up to my face, slap them really hard and then tell them to get the fish out of my life.

But 12 hours on, I realise that I really can't do that. Sure you can if these people are your friends. But when they are family, that's a whole different kettle of fish altogether!

Why do I have this run-around in my head year in, year out at this time, that no matter how hard I try, nothing I ever do would stand up in the eyes of the family? This year it's come early (no close proximity required) cos truth be told, if my brother was not going to go back to our hometown, next week's reunion would not be happening. The folks would have voted me down and head on home.

Perhaps it's just me and it's all just in my cobblestone-paved brain, but it sure as hell hurts to see the reflection as it is. And to recall the years I've spent Christmas and Chinese New Year by myself, and nobody gave two hoots.

Two hoots. Two simple words that seem to say so little yet so much. And it's so painful to put this all down. But I know I have to if I was to exorcise this demon that has come and reside in my mind, my subconscious - yes, angry dreams and all! And I want to get it down before I get on that plane that takes me home. Cos for this going-home was never for me to begin with. And so it should not transform to be some shouting match (recall last year) that makes it become all about me.

"Her dad's advice came back to mind, "Make a list - make two lists," he would say. "Start with the positives and end with the negatives; bundle the crap into a pile and let it go where it belongs. Cut your ties Eve - if it doesn't serve you, ditch it"

It is as if by falling down, landing on my bum had shaken loose some lodged chip in my shoulder, telling me that once and for all, to let it go. Cos even now, as I fumed, fretted and teared, tossed, turned and moped - life goes on for the individuals I deem involved in this fiasco. And really, even if they knew something was up in the wind - it really wouldn't be as if today would be any different.

Maybe if I hear it enough times, then go run it out again after work, head on home and write my piles, I may really be able to say these words and mean every single one of them...

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

Excerpt of text in bold italics is taken from the book Dressing for God by JF Tallon

Permission to throw

2010-12-12T00:17:00.001+08:00

I picked up Paulo Coelho's 'By the River Pieces I sat down and wept' again this evening.

It's a book about what it means to love, to trust, to surrender. But it appears I am merely skimming words tonight, even tho I'm a firm believer that books mirror what you think / feel.

Why do I say that? Cos I just went and asked what now seems to be an idiotic question. And the reply that followed may well have been a flying shoe.

What is it gonna take before I can believe what I cannot see?! Or rather what I cannot show...

That's twice now and I know there cannot be a third. Even he can take only so much distrust. And we all know that the solution to quell that lies not in what he can do. No one can give me what I cannot give myself.

And that right now feels downright shitty.

Simple Complexity

2010-12-07T03:47:00.000+08:00

Here's something that I only really said out-loud to 2 persons during my vacation: I think I've been lied to.

It puzzled me. Why would you think that you needed to 1) provide an explanation as to why it went the way it did and 2) that whatever it was, if you felt I needed to know, had to be a lie.

It hurt me. That you could possibly be caught up in something that you thought would hurt me, if I knew. And we all know that could very well be only one thing.

It pleased me. That you considered my feelings well enough to spare me from any hurt.

None of that makes sense. And yes, it never does when one speculates. I wore myself out every single day during the vacation so that my body is so tired, I fall instantly asleep when I hit the pillow. So that my thoughts will not spiral out of control, as it always does. And when those failed, the words "I caught him in a lie" came tumbling out.

I could have spared myself all that unnecessary wonder and pain if I only had the guts to keep things simple earlier. Much earlier. The phrase "sooner rather than later" comes to mind, followed by "better late than never."

There is much truth in what was quoted ~ Complexity exists only in Simplicity. In trying to remain simple, things can get so damn complicated as well. The trick is to keep the goal in mind. Finding the right balance. And when you do, the results will be surprising. I promise you that.

For all the sentiments that followed, only one can now stand firm - with some changes.

I wasn't lied to. So simple.

Surroundings

2010-12-05T18:27:00.000+08:00

One of my fave original sayings is that common is as common can be. It is shaped by your surroundings and your environment. The people you use to form that fence around you.

Right now, my common is to go the way of single-tons. Yes, in the last 7 days, I have heard of nothing but good friends deciding to call it a day in their fairy-tale relationship. And mind you, it's them doing the dumping.

Is this the way things are going to go? It weighs heavy on my sleep-deprived mind this evening, as I sit here and type away, instead of chopping garlic, frying bacon and cooking pasta.

Should I give up
Or should I just keep chasin' pavements
Even if it leads nowhere
Or would it be a waste
Even if I knew my place should I leave it there

Vacay

2010-12-04T23:22:00.001+08:00

I took my kids and folks down to Singapore for a quickie vacation.

These close family time tends to get to me cos it reminds me that time is a darn fluid thing. The hairs get whiter, the lines of thoughts get blurrer.

It is something beyond my control - I realise that now. The best I can do is make the most of it and just go with the flow - their flow.

I'm glad I see it now, sooner and not later.

All For...

2010-11-28T10:08:00.000+08:00

At the end of the day, everything I do is only for...

Lydia & Luke
November 2010

Stick to Ya Guns

2010-11-23T12:51:00.000+08:00

This email came in this morning as I was huffing and puffing away at 8 miles per hour on the treadmill:

"Sorry for not updating you as much as I've been busy with Adam and work. Adam has turned 1 yesterday. I felt like it has only been 4 or 5 months since the day I give birth to Adam. But doesn't mean everything went smooth sailing. There are those hard times that left me tensed and depressed but I'm trying my best to do the best for Adam."

I do not know the sender, don't even know her name. Her paths and mine crossed almost 2 years ago when she sent out a cry for help on some web forum somewhere. For the life of me, I cannot recall if it was sheer busy-body-ness that made me sent her a mail in reply but reading her email this morning, made me glad that I did write her back.

Hers is a story that is not mine to tell. But it is old an age-old trend. Despite what a lot of folks told her, she made the decision and stuck to it. How she did it - honestly don't ask me. I mean, till today, her family does not know of this child and they lived with her through her pregnancy.

I am not pro-life nor am I pro-choice. It's not that I have no sentiment on this matter - I just don't think being pro-something is the way to go - not everyone's station in life and tenacity is the same. So you really cannot go hanging a stand and make everyone fit to it.

Life may not be easy for this girl, and perhaps even this child and only time will tell. But she made a conscious decision way back then and she rode it out. And something tells me that she will continue to ride it out, always.

And that is what it means to stick to your guns.

Of Buns

2010-11-21T07:41:00.000+08:00

Friday night was a bit of a surreal thing. Got a call from someone I would call now an acquaintance - one of those folks you used to say is your friend but then found that it wasn't really a balanced act and so relinquished the status and life was so much better after. (Dreadful thing to say about people, but it is the truth!)

Sadly, I'm not able to say now that this lil bit of "catch-up" was all that catch-ups are made out to be. In fact, days after, I'm still slightly disappointed.

Perhaps it's just me - my line of thought that if you left people be, they'd go about their own way and eventually find wisdom and grow up.

Perhaps some folks just aren't meant to do any growing up at all, no matter how they are pushed and plodded on.

But to give said person credit, he has guts (well, come to think of it, he's always had blind guts!) to take the stand he took. Callous as it may be, I have but to agree with him, just this once. Buns are never a good enough reason to wise up and be a man.

I can only hope, that somewhere out there, someone else is waking up and realising the same thing.

It's not an easy journey to walk - deciding to open your own bakery and be the baker, the commis and the sales person tending the storefront. If I had my way, I wouldn't want to do it all over again, on my own. But honestly, sometimes it is the only way to go, especially if the potential co-owner is one that you know will run off with the week's worth of buttermilk somewhere down the line.

It hurts now, for sure. But trust me on this - this too shall pass.

Valve Failure

2010-11-14T21:46:00.000+08:00

I'm sitting here, waiting for dawn to come. And it's not even 10 pm.

Every pressurized system needs a relief valve.
There has to be a way to reduce the stress, the tension,
before it becomes too much to bare.

I've been hitting the gym or working out Every.Single.Day. Not cos I have a lil black dress to fit into for Christmas or the New Years. I'm much fitter now compared to 6 months before, granted. But that was not the real aim.

There has to be a way to find relief because if the pressure doesn't find a way out,
it will make one. It will explode.

It's only the middle of the month, and my mind is already 2 weeks ahead to pay day, 3 months ahead to the application date, 6 months ahead to applications acceptance time, 9 months ahead to when results come out.

It's the pressure we put on ourselves that's the hardest to bare.
The pressure to be better then we already are.

I've spent the better part of the last 6 weeks, running from one government office to another. Reviewing one write up to another. Throwing up one copy after the other. I have yet to strike one clean relationship with a potential customer!

The pressure to be better than we think we can be.

It's worrying me cos in my line of business, it's all about relationship (incidentally, I just took a stupid quiz that told me I'm 100% not-chinese - so much for Quan Xi!) and I have yet to build any with next year's customers.

It's my perfect nightmare. To want to be the employee yet being caught being the employer. To want to be the runner, the salesperson, yet caught being the one having to review every single fine print.

It never ever lets up.
It just builds and builds and builds.

And so I cannot wait for morning to come. So that I can go into the gym bright and early, to kill myself again lifting heavier, pushing harder and running faster. Just so that in the midst of feeling as if I have lost control, I remain in control.

A Can Of...

2010-11-08T22:51:00.000+08:00

So it's been a while since I last found the words to put down in writing. Not that anything has been happening any ole ways.

I suppose what's spurring me on to do some wordly deposits tonight, is finding a friend's blog closed off to me. Hi-how surprise! Surprise! But then again, should I really be?

I told Ben last night, that it has been feeling as if I'm carting around baggage that do not belong to me. And how I've been trying to work it out in my puny pea-sized brain if it was me. Cos no matter how I've been turning it around, the only common factor that I could see in each scenario that irks me, is ME. And if it's really ME, then I have no right to come out and throw open the cover to my lil can of worms.

It's sad cos his reply makes so much sense - friendship and relationships should never be compared to a can of worms. But Cindy Lauper sings True Colours in the background, I cannot help but not be able to finish the line that goes "I see your true colours, that's why I ..."

The LegalBeagle once told me not to hang a category over our friendship. "Labels only brings about expectations!" I should have listened to that old boy and applied it categorically across the board for everyone.

Then maybe having to occasionally play Charlie Chaplin or constantly being "reprimanded" for not hanging out anymore won't bug me so much. Then maybe I can put aside the lil barbs as just plain stupid whimsical utterances, and not sit and wonder "Why do you have to go and say stuff like that?!"

And while, my gender, is famous for being the gender who speaks their hearts - somewhere along the way, this girl forgot how to go about it.

And so it's now a bulging can of worms. My lil can. With something in it for everyone I know. And I don't know how to throw the can out over the edge for the waves to carry it far, far away. Nor do I know how to slowly pull out on, hang it on a hook and use it as bait.

Life is a funny old thing. Sometimes we hang on to things, people, relationships when it has really gone past its use-by date.

What do you then do?

Beatle Bugs

2010-10-15T07:58:00.000+08:00

I have always like to think of myself as having grown, becoming open to the differing opinions, paradigms, perspectives and values.

Perhaps I've been ambitious in my thought. Perhaps I've taken a wrong line of acceptance - isn't it that when you accept you do not question the whys, the hows, the whos and the what?

I am bugged and bummed out. Cos when it comes down to certain matters and state of affairs (no pun intended here!), there are some lines I cannot cross, try as I may to be accepting. And it was with that that I had to tell a friend that from henceforth, there is one area which I will NOT go there with. That for one part of his journey called His Life, he walks the rest of the way, without me.

What would you think if I sang out of tune,
Would you stand up and walk out on me?

I'm bugged cos this is the same friend that I had said - anytime, anything just call and I'll be there, in the next barstool. I feel as if I'm bailing out on him. Yet, I've tried and tried till I'm turning blue in my unseen face. And I have to admit defeat.

Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song,

And I'll try not to sing out of key.

I'm bummed cos everyone else in the same circle seems to take it in their stride, this on-going saga. And it has left me wondering if I may have inadvertently hoodwinked myself into thinking that one day, one wedding and numerous online chats later, a strong bond of friendship has blossomed. Blossomed to the point that I think I know said person well, when in fact, I know them not at all. And the who I thought I knew, I placed on some angelic pedestal. And now he lies in a heap of broken marble on my floor.

Tis sad. Tis heartbreaking.

But this is not a case of asking one to choose. There is nothing to choose. And we're not 8 year olds in the school yard, having a recess time disagreement.

Oh I get by with a little help from my friends.

While saying I'm sorry may not mean very much here and now, I will still say it nonetheless. Cos that's just who and how I am.

So as I crawl away like a beetle bug, I'm sorry mate. You've sung way out of tune and it's jarring my ears.

Timing and The Bit on The Side

2010-10-13T17:34:00.000+08:00

When I sat down and wrote about Raphael Selbourne this morning and his book, I didn't think that at the end of the day, it would come back and hit me in the face.

But it only goes to show that in the list of many "perhaps" - there lies the reason shrouded in a puff of smoke that we often use as a screen. And because I don't think YOU heard me the first time round, I'm saying it here again - FOR YOUR BENEFIT:

The key to freedom lies within each and everyone of us. It is a conscious decision to choose and accept the consequences of the path we take.

Enough with the skirting, the excuses and whatever else you wanna hide behind. I cannot call myself your friend (let's not even add the 'b' and the 'f' if I didn't start throwing my shoes at you in quick succession:

Grow some bloody Cojones!

And in case you're wondering: Yes I am pissed at you and with you! Lie to everyone else if that pleases you. But the minute you start lying to US - don't expect us not to be upset with ya!

Free

2010-10-13T08:10:00.000+08:00

I've just finished reading Beauty by Raphael Selbourne. It is a book that has made me sit up on my bed, in the middle of the night, with its message.

It is an old one, yet seems to be one lesson that refuses to stick in our heads for some strange reason.

Perhaps it's because we're not subjected to an extreme opposite end of it. Perhaps we're not truly in a state of forced oppression that we fail to remember.

The key to freedom lies within each and everyone of us. It is a conscious decision to choose and accept the consequences of the path we take.

I suppose, living in our democratic world, we do have the freedom to choose and make our own decisions. I also suppose it's the 2nd half of this two-step that many of us fall and fumble with. And while some may choose to hide behind the "why do I need to justify myself to you?" mode - in part, perhaps, it's because we cannot justify it to our own true self.

In this case then, it sure is nice to be a literary figure - your life starts and ends only on paper. And once set in type and print, there is no justification needed.

Coming Of

2010-10-05T08:18:00.000+08:00

I really should have written something, anything, last Friday. But things were just so crazy that to scribble anything without much thought, would have been blasphemous.

So yes.... I am now a business owner. I clock my own time, I determine my own direction, I sit in the biggest chair in the office. But really - what does it all mean? There must be something about it that I am missing in the midst of all the felicitations that I've been receiving. Yet, I do not see it.

All I see is endless days of worrying, especially around the payment dates. Sleepless nights of wondering - am I doing the right thing, the best thing for the campaign. Headless days of running around errands that never before crossed my path.

I suppose, after much thought, the point I am missing is not physical or material. It is a mental state - the shifting of paradigm that goes on unexplained. And there are no marks to indicate that changes have happened, had happened. No tangible that one can see in the second it happens.

In the olden days, they would say it is a coming of age, this subtle change. A cross-over point from one stage of life to another day. And because I believe that all cross-overs must have some demarcation, because I am like a cow with a short-term memory, I must mark it.

And mark it I did. Not so much for myself but for the people who stood by my through it all.

So instead of a COACH bag that I've had my eye on for the longest time, I've traded it in for a set of dining chairs, a series of bookshelves and a brand new sofa for the living room of my parents' house.

And it's not because I now have a little more disposable income. But because I've come of age.

I'm an adult now. You can have kids, you can drive your own car. But truly, nothing hits you harder about that fact than you're responsible for people who are not related to you by blood or social ties.

I'll have to say it again - I'm an adult now.

Close Your Eyes

2010-09-27T21:37:00.000+08:00

It is a rare occasion that I'm at a loss for words. But yet, we all know, somehow, sometimes, the situation is so overwhelming, all the words in all the books you've ever read will not come to mind.

Part of me wants so badly to transcribe what was written and have it lodged here. But an even bigger part of me just wants to savour it quietly as the rain falls outside.

Grand gestures used to be the yardstick, the measure. But as one grows older, one realises that it is all the lil things that should be the measure.

And so as the clock winds down to T-3, this is all I can say:

Close your eyes and see my blue skies breaking
through these dark clouds
You are the light
In my mind I see your red (cap) and my arms are reaching
through the night
I'll never give up the fight
I'll go the distance

Thanks babe! Love ya!

Savour

2010-09-23T08:11:00.000+08:00

I went and busted my elbow, trying to protect 4 packets of Walker's crisps from being crushed by this gigantic weight I'm currently carrying. And the whole time as I sat in the emergency room, waiting to know if it was severely busted or merely causing me intense and acute pain for the day, the only thought that ran through my head was - I cannot be with a useless right hand for the days ahead!

In my last post, I wrote about how next Friday would be just another day. But as I opened my enveloped left by the my predecessor, I read the lines and realised that Yes it may just be another day, but it is still a milestone day.

Savour - to relish or enjoy.

Perhaps a day may be too long to savour. Perhaps an hour or two would be decently and gracefully sufficient.

I know it is unChristian-like to say that maybe I'd buy myself a new suit to wear. But heck, that is what I will do. If not for anything else, it is just to tell myself, my days of having to mend and re-mend a torn seam, is just about over.

Call me vain. Call me materialistic. Call me anything you want just because a new suit would make my day. I really don't care and you wouldn't either. When you know that every piece of clothing in my closet right now, has either been there 1) for the last decade or 2) a hand-me-down from my bff.

I will savour this day and I will savour it my way. In my soon-to-be new black pin-striped suit :=)

Just Another Race

2010-09-21T07:43:00.000+08:00

The checkered flag is raised and finishing line is just up ahead.

It has been a long and arduous journey. 2 years, 2 months and 20-something days. Lots of ups. Lots of downs. Lots of occasions and opportunities to throw my hands up in the air and scream "I quit!"

I'm glad I stuck to it. As I told the young ladies who came yesterday to inquire - "Figure if this is really what you wanna do. Cos it's not the time and money spent that will be wasted. But the blow to yourself that you have failed that would be the biggest loss if you turn away."

But here's the thing that I also remembered a few seconds later - another phrase that I always tell the students - "This is just the beginning."

I'm nervy. But I'm also trying to realign my expectations. 1st October is going to come and I will wake up and find that it is just another day. Nothing's changed very much outwardly. And that I'm gonna have to be ready for.

It's just the end and only the beginning.

The Only Difference

2010-09-09T14:40:00.000+08:00

in·dif·fer·ent

marked by impartiality
That does not matter one way or the other

Someone remarked that the only difference between us was our indifferences. Some things that I choose to take a stand over, he doesn't. Some things that he chooses to take a stand over, I have no particular opinion.

In many ways, we are as different as night and day. Yet in many ways, we could be two peas in the same pod. If I focussed on our differences, it would drive me crazy. If I focussed on our similarities, it would drive him crazy.

But I guess my question then is this: do I even need to focus on one or the other?

Perhaps I should just appreciate the fact that my differences and indifference are taken as they are. And I would do well to do more of the same.

Shame on Me

2010-09-06T15:43:00.002+08:00

Someone told me that he is on a mission todiscover himself. I could have said "well done you," or "how can I help?" or even just give a simple nod of head that says "I hear ya!" But I did none of the above.

Instead, I became needlessly mean and vicious. Venomous to an extent even. And it’s uncalled for.Totally and thoroughly.

And while I may take some pride in knowingthat I can realise all this because I know myself. It also comes with someamount of disappointment because the pattern of behaviour is slowly coming tolight.

I am pushing the self-destruct button. Again.

I can say ‘old habits die hard’ but truly – this is not a habit to inculcate oreven hold remotely close. And I’m disappointed with myself.

I’ll go sit in a corner and repent for a mo. Wake me up when September ends….

Passerà

2010-08-30T01:35:00.000+08:00

My best friend Mandy is going off to Europe next week for a holiday. Funnily enough, I have been covering my tracks since her itinerary was drawn up, making sure no opportunities for drama can occur. Yes - recall the last time she went on holiday in February of last year, innocently thinking that all will be fine and well while she's away. Only to come home to a right mess of a best pal.

And that's how unhappiness is: it doesn't really come without a warning. It brews but you ignore. It screams but you shut it down. Until it comes right at you, and catches you in what you think is a state of unawares. But hell, you can't really blame it when you've been living in a state of denial.

It used to be easy to know how to tell when someone you're close to is unhappy. They'll cry, they'll sulk. Some may even skunk around a little bit. But as we grow older, we shut these reactions down. Perhaps it's cos we've sang the song "Pack all your troubles in your old knit bag and smile, smile, smile" too many times it manifests itself as actions.

Which is why one of the phrases I am always telling my best mates is this : No matter what you do, I'm the one you call when you need someone to come get you off this end of the bar. Cos at the end of the day, when you're swallowed up whole by that big bad emotion, there really isn't any place for the 3Rs - Recrimination, Reprimand and Rebuke.

And whether you're the cause of it, a party to it or an innocent collateral damage - there's really nothing much else to do except breathe.

Passerà - it will pass.

Tradition and Change

2010-08-26T08:28:00.000+08:00

It has been a tradition of mine, to take time out and reflect just before I supposedly become a year wiser. And in my reflection, it has always been asking my parents if I have made them proud.

Perhaps I have always carried this chip on my shoulder. And in the last couple of years, I have deluded myself into thinking the chip away. Alas, delusions are what they are - a mirage that you will yourself to have fixated in your head. All it takes is a strong gusty wind to come and clear the fog away. And what you see, is not what you want to see. What you feel is not what you wished you felt.

I am quite done asking that question this year. Year in, year out - the answer remains the same. Year in, year out - I have chosen not to acknowledge that it is the WRONG question to be asking.

For I know now, pride has no place in this unbalanced equation. How can there be pride when there is hardly any existence?! Or acceptance?!

So this year, tradition changes. I will cease to ask. I will cease to work towards achieving the answer that I had hoped for. I will cease to ask the question.

I will cease.

Perhaps when I cease, it will hurt less, or not at all, the crystal clear fact that you allow me to be insulted and leave me standing out in the rain, to bear the insult by myself. Telling me in not so many words that I am not worth defending. That the fact that it is your blood that runs through my veins, doesn't matter.

Perhaps when I cease, I will be able to tolerate my rightful place in the history of our culture. That I am worthless, a negative number in your books - regardless of what else the rest of the world thinks of me and what I can do.

Yes, I shall cease.

Crappers

2010-08-25T18:53:00.000+08:00

I would like, for now, to know someone with a vacation home somewhere far, far away, indeed of some major long-term house-sitting.

What was suppose to be a time of joy, quiet anticipation, jubilation and celebration is now a time worse than sitting shiva.

As I told Mandy - I feel like I'm just surrounded by folks, waiting in line with a knife, dagger, machete.. waiting for their turn to have a right-go at me.

I am exhausted. Exhausted to the point that I have nothing more to give.

Exhausted to the point that if the only surprise on Saturday morning was that my life was only 34 years and 364 days long - I would gladly go YEAY.

This and That

2010-08-23T20:52:00.000+08:00

I've been thinking all day (and all night) how to make sense of all this. Of the fact that for a good hour, you talked and I did not even want to look at you (though some may say "Well Done Barbsie!") Of how I was on the verge of walking to the door, opening it and saying "Please leave and don't ever come back!" Of how I waited and waited and waited for the stabbing pain right in the pit of your tummy to hit, and it never did.

I was told last night that my BFFs were not Mandy and Alex. But trust and commitment, with disappointment and risk trailing behind. And how we're gonna work through them, one at a time but eventually we're gonna returned me whole and healed.

I laugh now as I recall that. I laugh still at how you disregard my warning - many have come before you and tried and they have walked away, failed.

Oh dear God. How did I come a full circle? Right back where we left off - where we worked so hard to stay away from. Do we say then now that nothing's changed? Do we say we've tried, and it didn't work and perhaps this is rightfully where we're meant to be?

So many questions in my head, and yours. So many said out-loud in the open, in the still of the night. With it, so many answers I am trying to squash in my head - silence them back into the deep dark recesses of my mind.

Yet, try as I may, there's one that just won't. And not because it's the one that I need to hear, dark and twisted that I am right now. But it's the one that I'm gonna put down and lock forever in my virtual metal box. Cos it's the only one that's gonna keep screaming louder and louder and louder until I break it down. And this one - I do not want to break down.

You're still here cos you chose to.

If only I can believe it myself.

Branches

2010-08-21T11:13:00.000+08:00

I'm not great at remembering facts and details of history. But I believe way back then, before the days of advertisement and all, the way of getting new business was to do your existing one as best as you can, so that the experience would create publicity for you. Of course, with the evolution of learning and marketing, it's now given a nice name of word-of-mouth marketing or the acronym WOMBAT.

As I go into the last mile of this journey (27 working days to go!!), I am taking a moment to reflect, the positioning of the business and how we can create additional value.

I am thankful that it has given me glimpses over the last 48 hours, to remind me of the value-chain that once existed purely only in my head. And what has happened in the last 48 hours? Nothing very much save for:

A potential that I did not manage to convert, now seeking Irish business partners in his field
A new customer passing on a new lead to follow up

Ben said the other day that we may educated in the Western world and operate in the Western world, but we'd do far better if we incorporated some of the principles of business that the Eastern world inculcates.

And yes, I'd like to think that this is what I am doing, we are doing. And what we will continue to do.

Even if it means I work a full day, across 2 different timezones, just to nurture and water this tree as its branches sprout.

Every Breath

2010-08-16T08:28:00.000+08:00

I told mum yesterday evening that one of the things that I will do if I go a nice bonus this year was to change her living room.

The house they live in is in dire need of a sprucing. The walls needs painting (which perhaps we may put off until the youngest comes goes past the crayon-hand-wall stage), the furniture needs changing (the sofa is so sunken it's no longer comfy for my cat-nap) and the walls needs expanding (seriously?! a 20x60 feet house is not meant to hold 4 adults and 6 children). Let's not even go into the dining table that has legs that moves on its own - not hocus-pocus here. Just wee humans pushing the table to get off their chairs and not the other way around.

I have often sat on one of those sunken seats and ID-ed the place in my head. And it's nothing fancy really. A L-shaped sofa so that when folks come round to speak to dad, there's a proper setting to talk in. Some shelving with pull-out containers for the children's toys. A tall shelve with doors so hold mum's cookbooks and the odd bottle of brandy (which is used for the Christmas cake, not for my consumption!). My electone with its broken keys and pedals would have to go and so does the musking-tape patch work cabinet.

It doesn't sound like many items but yet they would amount to some 4-digit receipt. And honestly, if I get a bonus this year (which Ben tells me I should not be hopeful for seeing how things are going - bad divorce, remember?), these things would be right at the top of my list. Not my new mobile phone (yes, a decision has been made on model). Not the oven for my kitchen. Not even a new pair of trainers for my workouts.

I have been to houses of the parents of my friends. And their living rooms screams that life, at this golden era, is all about them. It holds nick-knacks from their travels, it boasts of rosewood furnishings that aren't afraid of pudgy crayon-wielding fingers, it glitters and it shines from the glass cabinets and such.

Mum says it doesn't need to be on my bonus-wishlist. That she's alright with the state things are. And that she knows it will happen with God's blessing. My folks aren't complaining. I know it is a joy for them to see the lil space packed with strewn toys and laughter from their off-springs.

Perhaps I am losing myself - forgetting that to have a living room to call their own, and having it filled with love and family, is more important that Wedgewood china displays.

I suppose then every breath we draw, every second of everyday is a already a blessing, eh?

Forgotten and Blurred

2010-08-02T08:53:00.000+08:00

Yesterday marked the final 2 months of this long and winding road that I have been on. I must admit - off-late, it had become to feel more like a walk with a stubborn mule, than a stroll towards the end of this rainbow.

I have ceased looking forward to 1st October with any joy or excitement. I could not muster the buzz than Ben felt and still feels. It had come to a point of thinking that it was a bargain that I had struck with the Devil (though I think that if that was the case, it wouldn't be this difficult a journey!)

As I sit here and force myself to acknowledge the ugly truth before I go to work, I am trying to remember words I wrote 2 years ago, when it was just pain and frustration. I am forcing myself to reconcile to the fact(s) that I had definitely lost sight of what is good and real.

I had let arrogance, greed and envy (AGE) overcome me and those are not the list of things that I want to be counting as my traits. As a person. As a Christian. As one who follows the path that was written even before I was born.

I had let the feeling of smallness of parking my lil WiNK mobile alongside the Beamers, the Mercs and the SUVs, get to me. I had let the shame of a rented 940 sq ft in the sky hung so heavy on my shoulders it has made me stoop so low I am almost face-to-face with the dirt of the earth. I had let the gluttony of lunching at the best places in my building fill me to the limit, there was no more space left for clarity and humility.

"I have lived out of suitcases and airports, I have power-lunched with head honchos, I have railed and banged my fair share of conference tables and I have signed enough documents. None of them brought me the sense of fulfillment I sought. I am currently doing the ONE thing that I am passionate about. As a wise bread man once said – there is nothing to be envious about when it comes to tones of emails to reply, phone calls to return or mountains of paperwork to tackle. It’s not the amount of time I spend in the office, or the amount of walking I do. Yet each minute I spend at it, might change someone’s future just that little bit. And no amount of frequent flyer miles can bring about that."

I used to pride myself of my ability to walk the mile in someone else's shoes. But in the midst of everything, I had allowed AGE to think that it was my own two hands that brought about these results. I now stand at this journey marker, humble and contrite, and say that I am wrong to have thought so. And I apologise.

I may have had a long arduous climb towards getting here, but the truth is this: I did not do it by myself. All these that has happened before me, and all that will happen from here on out - it is given to me indeed on a silver platter. And again, I apologise.

Two months. Much to do. Much to clear. Much to create.

But more importantly, much to keep close at heart, mind and soul.

vi·o·late

2010-07-21T01:00:00.000+08:00

One of the definitions of the word violate is 'failing to respect someone's peace, privacy or rights' and that about sums up my entire sentiment over the Wink Mobile getting broken ito yesterday evening.

In my head, I had taken every precaution - I drive a non-descript locally made vehicle, there's no flashy sound system on display, nor shiny sport rims on the tires. It was parked at allocated parking spots by the side of a major road in the neighbourhood, and to top it all off - there was a security guard no more than 50 metres away. I would be running around the tracks, with almost a hundred other folks in the early evening, with the car in plain sight.

Whilst everyone says that it was a good thing that only cash and my mobile (and my thumbdrive) was taken - to be read as my identity card, drivers' license and other cards were not taken, I cannot see it as the silver lining on this dark cloud.

Perhaps I have been brooding (and whining) over my perceived 'violation of space' with a houseguest on board the week past. Perhaps my claims have been baseless and groundless, I needed to be taught a real lesson as to what 'invasion of property' really meant.

I almost ran to my car this evening after work in a near deserted carpark - something I have never done in the 2 years of working and parking there. And I cannot bear to look at the seat next to mine cos the thought that a total stranger may have rested his bum on it without me even knowing his face, gives me goosebumps.

I have never felt this kind of fear before. And even though Ben says we've gotta evaluate my security policy (actually he said I can't be going around having come mug me painted all over), it does not address the root of my beef.

I am no longer comfortable in my own property, my own car. How on earth does having the ownership of my cards and everything else be a good thing?

In Between

2010-07-13T21:34:00.000+08:00

The husband of a former colleague passed away today. I read about it on her Facebook tweet.

It is news that on one hand, doesn't come as a surprise - he was much older than her. And yet on another, saddens me to the depths of my soul. For theirs is a great love story and as I recall her telling me about it, I find my eyes welling up with tears.

In this world, where relationships come and go as quickly as the seasons, it almost makes me wish that he was still alive, frail as he was, just to fulfill my own selfish need, to have evidence that exceptions to the rule of our modern times, still stand.

They made that conscious decision so many decades ago and they made every single day count. In a way I'm glad she met him when she was at the tender age of 20. They had a lovely long run and while they may be relegated to the status of mere memories now, it is a testament that truly, life only has one beginning and one ending. It's the in-between that counts. And mind you - there is just one, albeit a long one.

Which is probably why we're planning for next summer, before this summer has even properly begun. Cos at the end of the day, if the ending comes before the next 11 months are through - at the very least, there was the shared anticipation, excitement and joy.

Rest in peace Jim. And thank you for having given Lini so much joy.

Choices

2010-07-11T21:41:00.000+08:00

It's the 2nd weekend of the 7th month of the year. I'd like to think that after 2 years, I have learnt to brace myself for the silence that rings louder than 10 church bells peeling away simultaneously.

There is nothing particularly special for this said weekend of this month, except that it is the time that you steal yourself away from everyone else to go and reflect. Or rather, you call it reflection, I call it self-flagellation. All done under some tree, in some cemetery up north, looking over some small hill.

And one can't help but wonder - how long must it be, before you can actually come to this weekend, without any sense of remorse or regret? Has time not passed sufficiently for you to come to a point of realisation that no - you did not let her down, you're doing alright in her eyes and yes, she will still be proud of you and who you are today?

Many things have changed. And yet, some things remain the same.

The human life is made up of choices.
Yes or no. In or out. Up or down.
And then there are the choices that matter.
Love or hate. To be a hero or to be a coward.
To fight or to give in.
To live. Or die.
Live or die.
That's the important choice.
And it's not always in our hands.

I can tell you this in all the ways I can think of, and using all the words I know. Yet, it will come to nothing if you do not choose to let go of the regret and live in the pride of the joy you had been.

It is the 2nd weekend of the 7th month of the year. It is the weekend where you delayed returning home and hence missed saying goodbye to your mum before she left this world. I hope this year, you only had good things to tell her and that it ended with you telling you're okay and really knowing in your heart that you are.

Intervention

2010-07-07T19:46:00.000+08:00

I often wonder, how is it that people would rather live with anger and angst than to speak out or up?

It's a bit of a silly thing to wonder, cos at times, I too am guilty of the same. But if I had any say in it, I'd rather someone put in a bit of intervention, than to let sleeping dogs lie.

Cos at the end of the day, I'd rather go to bed satisfied that a situation has been resolved, than to wake up with a cloud hanging over my head.

But then again, that's just me. And I can't really say the same for what someone else might prefer. Perhaps, there are those who do like waking up with a dark cloud following them around, just so they feel there is something going in their lives.

Plans

2010-07-06T02:03:00.000+08:00

One of the grand plans for the time I was to spend away was to start on my book project. Yes, the same project that I've been going on about for the last millenia or so. But hey - the bright side of it was I got on the plan with a file full of notes and thoughts. Only problem I did not factor is was the lack of time ~ last year I had so much time on my hand I ran up a grand on my mobile phone bill!

I hate making plans. Okay - that may not be utterly accurate. I love making plans. I just hate having to carry them out. As it was once said of me - I make everything look so darn good on paper. And of course, I do. It's easy once you set up a grid and meticulously plonk things into them.

I currently have one new grid running. Hell, who am I kidding?! It's more than a grid. It's pages full of information drawn from countless people, strangers. And it's more than just one file - it's grown so much in size, I had to open a folder for it. And this lil folder is named "Summer 2011" - some 11 months away. And the grand plan of it would be that a certain someone would be coming with me, on my business trip and finishing it with an outing to Paris to celebrate the big 4-0.

It is a "grand" plan simply because for starters - we have never been folks who makes plans. Not to say that we go whichever way the wind blows. He has plans in his head. I have plans in mine. They just never had the chance before to come out and say "Hi! Nice to meet you." So the fact that this one actually got that far ~ I don't need to tell you I do occasionally pinch myself to see if this is real or not.

And here's an example of why I hate executing plans; of how I will somehow get it in my stupid lil pea size brain that it will fail, or not happen at all. On the drive back home last night, I got to thinking - if this doesn't take off, if you do not show up on the appointed time at the airport, do I still go ahead with everything that's planned or do I walk away miserable as hell?!

I know 11 months is a long time, and so many things - expected and unexpected can happen, would probably happen. But for now, I shall simply revel in the fact that me going off 3 days before you, and you coming after - was not part of your plan.

Like I said - we're not planning folks. But I guess, plans do change afterall.

How Do I Begin..

2010-06-28T13:22:00.000+08:00

This visit to Ireland is turning out better than I thought it would be. Perhaps, I am filled with less worries this year round and that has allowed me to soak it all in.

I have done more travelling and experiencing this trip than I have done in a long time. Travelling, whether far or near, has been a series of "going thru the motions" but the last few days, I have seen, tasted, walked and chilled out more than I have.

I know Ben would probably clobber me on the head - all these comparatives, but it is a fact that I must acknowledge.For everything that I have done, I can have photographs to show you, stories to relate and synopsis to provide. YET words and photos would never be able to show you the feeling of "being there" can. And that really is the heart of it.

We all go through so many experiences day in, day out. Some of us may have a habit of recounting it back to the ones who share our lives. And some other don't. I have always through it offensive and excluding - the latter category. But now I realise that sometimes, once the moment's come and gone, the emotions exhausted - there really is nothing left to tell.

And maybe... just maybe... in attempting to encapsulate it in words, mere words, would not do it justice. No, no justice at all.

Perhaps that is why they say - somethings are better left unsaid.

Two chaps basking in the side street of Cork City Sunday morning, playing familiar tunes - but the point of this would be that grey clouds hung overhead, and this pic was caught in a moment when the rest of the town cast grey and gloomy.

Quickie Update

2010-06-27T06:30:00.000+08:00

It has been a whirlwind of a trip and I am just finding the time and space to lodge some thoughts that have been flying through my head. It'll have to be short cos I wanna run downstairs (am at a bed and breakfast) and have a last smoke before turning in:

Sights of tenancity - all over Dublin, Galway and likely Cork city, restaurants are plastering their shop front with promotions that hopefully would fill tables and meet covers.
Sights of rebellion - all over the street light shafts, you'll find some call for protest.
Sights of a time gone past - as the bus zipped past the countryside, a lone cottage stands in the middle of a field. Its owners either died of starvation in the potato famine or immigrated before they died. From the size of it - I'll wager that it was the former and not the later.

That's all that's coming to mind for now. Maybe tomorrow night I'll be able to draw out more!

Trust and Leap

2010-06-22T10:39:00.000+08:00

A year ago, I was looking towards going away with trepidation, anxiety and fear. Lots of it. Not only was it for the business that was to take place, but also the maggots in my head.

A year later, my step is light and my heart is afloat. The stakes are higher this year - every business exchange would be in my own name, for my own future - no one else can be held accountable or responsible. But it is all water under the what-ever.

It has been a long long long journey to this day. But the end is not even anywhere near. I took my offer letter out last night in the midst of packing, and recalled how then today felt so far away.

If I have learnt anything - ANYTHING at all - in these past 2 years, it is that patience pays. Motivation helps. And a silent smile does so much more than a thousand pats on the back.

Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I'm through with playing by the rules
Of someone else's game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It's time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes: and leap!

And we'll trust that whatever is in the lil green bag, would be enough to catch my fall.

My Day

2010-06-14T23:09:00.000+08:00

I'm taking Lydia and Luke to watch Toy Story 3 this weekend, before they head back to school and I off to Ireland.

It's not really an expense that I can do with, with the trip coming up and all that. But yet, I thought to myself - it's Father's Day weekend. And while other kids are probably making cards and such for their daddies, my two would be slightly at a loss (especially with Sunday being a Sunday school day!).

So we'll celebrate Father's Day our own way - a day for the 3 of us.

Priceless

2010-06-08T22:38:00.000+08:00

They say the best things in life are free ~ and the last two days have proved exactly that. While it may not have come without its own dollar amount, as I put aside the various entrance tickets for the eventual scrape book ~ the priceless item of the family's first "holiday" is really the quiet moments of one-ness, unity and family-union.

I may be a grand down. My feet may disown me once again. My body might retaliate by refusing to move without protest. It was all worth it!

Months of planning, keeping cool and calm when well-intent protests came up from the folks ~ The Highlands Adventure has come and gone.

And I'm thinking - Doggone it! It was something I should have done a long time ago (cos seriously, the savings from the many bottles of alcohol would have more than paid for it!) - but I'm glad that I still had the chance too.

Barbsie is off to bed tonight a very happy camper!

Gains

2010-05-31T23:13:00.004+08:00

“Would you still be here, if there wasn’t the business?” the words finally came out of my mouth, after some 3 hours and 2 years of trying to find the correct tone, the correct words, the correct moment.

The skin is the largest organ in the body - it protects us.
Holds us together.
Literally lets us know what we are feeling.
The skin can be soft and vulnerable.
Highly sensitive, easy to break.

One of my saddest memories is that of a woman I’ve only recently seen in person, telling me how I was supposed to be the “winning ticket”, the person of influence who would turn her family life around – bring them out of the rags and back into the riches. It is the saddest because the person who told her that, her husband, was also the man I love.

– verb (used with object)

to get something desired, esp. as a result of one's efforts
to acquire as an increase or addition
to obtain as a profit
to win in competition
to win someone to one's own side or point of view
to reach, esp. by effort

Amanda told me that one time, how she thought that decision of mine was a big mistake. Perhaps she knew how my mind worked more than I do. Perhaps she just knew me. That I would be standing at this question mark, all my life. Perhaps she even hoped that someday I would have the guts to bring it out to the open, hoping that I would have grown in strength to do such a thing, knowing I never did before.

I’ve fumbled through life enough. Been over-indulgent when I shouldn’t have been. Been over-compensating when there was nothing to make amends for in the first instance. Been collecting dust bunnies when I haven’t an inch of space to spare.

– verb (used without object)

to improve; make progress; advance
to get nearer
to draw away from or farther ahead of the other contestants

We’ve watched enough movies, read enough books to know that there is a fine line that is drawn between celluloid fantasies and daily realities. We can try as we may to reconcile ourselves with the past, and make peace with the present. But we all know that what is accomplished in months of script writing, years of planning and shooting, and mega-millions of dollars in marketing – does not come to real life even with a thousand positive thoughts and many hours of mental strengthening.

We may think that we’ve made progress – we have seen the pits of hell and licked the devil’s cauldron – everything else is bumps and bruises only. And because we want that peace so badly, we cannot let today be the bad day. We cannot say put off saying ‘tomorrow will be a good day’. And what do we get at the end of that day, if we do that?

– noun

profit or advantage.
an increase or advance.
gains, profits or winnings.
acquisition.

“I never thought I’d still be here. And even if there wasn’t the business, or if that one ran its course, I would still be here. Cos each time I see you, there is something to be gained.”

No matter how thick skinned we try to be, there's millions of electrifying nerve endings in there.

What could have been quite possibly the worst answer anyone can give me in that given situation, has in fact, achieved the opposite effect. In another life, it would have possibly driven me to finishing the 3 bottles of whiskey that sits on our lil make-shift bar – though we all know that would have only been the surface of what I can do, and have done.

Open and exposed and feeling way too much.

But it had to be done. And as you exasperatedly declared - it took me so bloody long to come out and ask, because the result could be so otherwise scary. Knowing there is a fifty percent chance that you would prove to be my haunting of my worst nightmare. Knowing that my old adage holds water - if I stay very silent and very still, I can let it pass me by another cycle of the moon.

Try as we might to keep from feeling pain, sometimes it's just unavoidable.

Everybody uses everybody at some point in their life, be it for financial, spiritual or emotional gains. Some do it intentionally, some do it without knowing. Yet, all achieve the same result – gaining.

The most important thing that I have gained from this insane yet stable adventure is not the mental and emotional growth. It is not reaching a paradigm shift.

I’ve gained back trust in my life. Trust in myself, and trust in someone else.

Sometimes that's the only thing left - just feeling.

Gratefulness

2010-05-19T20:10:00.000+08:00

It has been a long time since something moved me to my desk; compelled me enough to have to unclog my thoughts from my head before I drown in them.

It's really two things actually. And while they are not related, it comes back to the key of tonight's thoughts ~ Gratefulness.

The first was when a young girl I have never met but have made the acquaintance of, shared with me online how her family has been utterly torn apart and is in chaos. It makes me sad, that the laws that are suppose to uphold the innocence of her childhood is not doing its job in her country. It makes me angry that her dad (my so-called friend) can be so warped that he forgets, he is father to not one but five. And that the other four needs him.

I do not know how to begin to tell a 10-year-old that the silver lining in all this is that both her parents are fighting to have her in their lives. Which is better than some other kids, whose parent could forsake them, wiping them clean from memory. I do not know how to say that without having this powerful surge of anger come rushing through. Which I'm trying very hard to stem cos the dead can no longer do anything about it.

Apart from struggling to be at peace with the fact that I still bear this source of this anger which I thought was laid to rest so many months ago, I am no doubt grateful that he then chose to walk away without even a peep backwards. Cos then, today it could be my kids asking the same questions and having the same pain. I am grateful it's happening to someone else's child and not mine.

As for the second, it's been all over the news.

Some two hours of flying time away, a modern city lays somewhat smoldering. The latest update from Reuters Live has the count as forty-two dead and three hundred over persons injured.

Bangkok was the first city I navigated on my own at the tender age of twelve. And since then, I have gone back a number of times. Thailand has never been a place that struck me a violent and filled with terror. Even in their desperate hours post-tsunami, you could still feel the love radiating out of the devastation that the waves brought.

5 years of unrest finally came down to today's impasse. And the whole time as I watched intermittently for news updates.. and as a Thai friend pleaded over Facebook - please pray for us, please pray for our beloved Thailand... I just kept thinking - please God, do not let this be another Tienanmen Square.

I am pleased that the leaders of the opposing faction had the sense to surrender themselves and their cause so that more lives would not be lost. But as the news updates comes in - the passion of the angst has been stoked to a level where they are like a wild fire - beyond any one person's control.

As I write that, I turn to look out at the sky, hoping to see the flaming redness that has been hogging it the last couple of evenings, signaling the pending rain. Praying for the families who have lost someone today, in the last six weeks is one thing. Having the fear that a place you once thought safe and familiar was and still is held tightly in the bind of terror is another. But the guilty one would be heaving a sigh of relief that no matter how much we may condemn our own country, we know that it is unlikely we would come to such a state.

As Tara of LivesayHaiti rightfully says: It is not encouraging to hear that the major change in someone's life was that they were glad the bad thing happened elsewhere.

And that is where I stand. Have been standing. Afraid of the good that lies just beyond the horizon not because we've never been blessed. Everyday, we are blessed. I AM blessed. But more because I am afraid of what I would do with this great abundance of blessings.

And more importantly - would it change me from the ME that I have come to be and love, to the ME that I was caught in before.

In writing this, the news has updated that the death toll in Bangkok has upped one to forty-three.

In writing this, I have lost another day to grabbing my task by the horns and taming the bull.

In writing this, I have come to realise that while my gratefulness, on the surface, is that rotten things are happening to other people and other places. The deeper bit that has come is this: I am grateful that good things are happening to me BECAUSE it will empower me to go beyond just writing about my frustrations in not being able to pay-it-back. I will finally, be able to do more than just tell someone else's story in the hopes that someone who is in the position to help will.

I will finally be able to be that someone.

So take my hand and lift me higher
Be my love and my desire
Hold me safe and honor bound
Take my heart to
Higher ground

For that realisation and clarity of thought and purpose: I am grateful.

In the dead of the night

2010-05-19T03:55:00.000+08:00

There is something about suffering from insomnia.

It allows you to scare the living daylights out of your counterparts, especially when they send emails after their hours and you're there to respond immediately - kinda make them wonder if they are in the right timezone.

It also allows you to think, except that when you're lost for clarity, it adds to the stress and grief ala "why is it not coming to me?!" Instead of focusing on what's at hand (and at stake!!), I instead allow my mind to wonder to the occasional passing of cars on the highway yonder ~ wondering who the occupants are, where are they going or coming from, and why in heaven's name are they out on the roads at this hour!

It's not raining tonight. But when it does, I can hear the howls of the wind, the rattling of the blinds and the rustle of the trees. And the sky turns a ambery red, making it look almost as if God has taken stock of the deeds of those asleep and we have incurred His wrath.

It is the 2nd week running now, that I have not had a proper night's rest. Once upon a time, this was a common place occurrence. But then, there was always work to fill my time.

Why I do not consider the big assignment before as work, befuddles me. I really should. Perhaps then, these silent hours could be put to better use, instead of being wasted buying useless nonsense on a virtual farm that I would never become rich from.

I would kick my own arse if I were that flexible.

I know you would too!