Gains

 “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.

How's That Charlie Brown?

The dictionary defines grief as keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss; sharp sorrow; painful regret.

For 2 days, friends, colleagues and cousins have asked me if I am okay. For a spell, I wondered “Why?” What is the rationale or reason for asking? Is there any reason why I should not be? Is it not all water under the whatever now? After all, it has been years and it’s not as if I do not still know how to love or be happy. So why? Why should I not be alright? Why do I need to grieve? WHAT IS THERE to grieve about?

There are five stages of grief. They look different on all of us, but there are always five.

Ben told me to keep the head’s up – that all this sudden rush of mention would find a way to duck me when I least expect it. I silently laughed at his text. And coolly told him that I was only going to go say my peace, for the last time and then be done with it.

Grief may be a thing we all have in common, but it looks different on everyone.

But because he is my Jiminy Cricket, and because he has been in his way, preparing me to accept death as part and parcel of life and living, he also saw all the demons I have been keeping at bay, toying with them in lil bits and then saying I’m done.

Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance.

In many ways, my mourning started years ago. And if this finality is anything to go by, it sees me moving into the last of it. A calm acceptance of how things had turned out, that I had given it my all, have been giving it my all. Perhaps I could have done a little bit more but there’s nothing I can do about it now. And all said and done, we’ve done well for ourselves in the end, in our own way.

But what I did wrong was imprint onto my children that they too should feel and think the same way I do. I did the whole gung-ho thing on their behalf when Ben said it was sad, to think that Lydia and Luke now shared the category of having lost a parent, by telling Ben they never had him anyways.

It isn’t just death we have to grieve. It’s life. It’s loss. It’s change.

I should have seen it coming when Luke, age 6, solemnly told me that my analogy of his father-and-son relationship is akin to Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker (complete with the ‘Luke I am your father’ saying) WAS NOT FUNNY AT ALL. I guess in a way I did, as did my brother who was in the vicinity. But I brushed it off as Luke having one of his moments and not understanding or appreciating Star Wars.

Lydia had her complete meltdown at night prayers, with her legendary heart-wrenching sobs with a smeared howl of “I can never say goodbye to him anymore.” And of asking if she could see him one last time.

My brave lil soldiers kept it all in, in my presence until their little hearts could hold it no more.

The very worst part is that the minute you think you're past it, it starts all over again. And always, every time, it takes your breath away.

Sitting down in my folks’ front porch this evening, they wanted to know everything. What does he look like now? Who is there at his memorial? What is he wearing? Did I take a photo of him in the coffin? Why did his heart stop beating? Why did he go away? And... Did he love them?

Grief comes in its own time for everyone, in its own way. So the best we can do, the best anyone can do, is try for honesty. 

I did not want these two youngsters to think they were not loved, or they were at fault. And so I forced myself to remember all the good times, all the good things. But they were slow in coming, because I didn’t want them to. Cos to remember the good times would only bring me to my feet and wept for a life past.

The really crappy thing, the very worst part of grief is that you can't control it. The best we can do is try to let ourselves feel it when it comes. And let it go when we can.

But I know that whatever I said this evening will come back again and again ~ kids being kids, what they do not understand or comprehend, they do not retain. And so I had to do it. I had to dig out everything from the box double, triple sealed and go through everything that was once life as I knew it.

And when we wonder why it has to suck so much sometimes, has to hurt so bad. The thing we gotta try to remember is that it can turn on a dime. That's how you stay alive.

So yes, I am grieving tonight.

Grieving for a life lost not quite so old.

Grieving how he will never see any of his children step up to receive their scroll, don a white dress and veil, giving him their hand to walk down the aisle, stand at the altar beaming as his would-be daughter-in-law come up to them.

Grieving how Lydia and Luke would never have the chance to say “You are my father and I am your son, daughter.”

Grieving for how I would never be able to say again “You can see them if you wanted to.”

When it hurts so much you can't breathe, that's how you survive.

I can smile now. Not a false bravado smile. I can live with the far-fetch thought that if Lydia wanted to put one of the framed pictures out by her bedside, I would not avoid going into her room.

By remembering that one day, somehow, impossibly, you won't feel this way.

I have been here before. And I came out of it.

It won't hurt this much.

The three of us will be alright.

Bleed We Will

I cut the sole of my foot last night at home, stepping on a strayed piece of forgotten broken glass. For a silly lil cut, it sure did bleed like hell - making a mess of the living room floor right after I had given it a cleaning. And for a moment there, blood dripping like a hog-in-process-of-becoming-bacon, it occurred to me: I'm freaking losing blood but I'm not howling in agony.

And that is the thought that came back to mind as I read Paul's piece on his blog today.

Nobody wants to love someone and be hurt in return for their affections, attention, loyalty and devotion. It could be as a big a thing as a cheating partner, or as small as one who puts other aspects of life before you. Sometimes, in the name of "loving that person" we let it slip, write it off as a flaw or challenge you can live with, preferring to not deal with a small cut. Yet, we all know we have our limits. And once we've reached those limits, nothing can stop us anymore from falling head on into that big boulder at the bottom of the valley.

Life's lessons have taught me that if only I had stopped at some point, to look, to ask -  the big hurts in my life could be avoided. But at some points in time, I have chosen to ignore my life's lessons. Meandering along, sweeping things under the carpet, making myself believe that I am fine, everything is fine and I am alright. i.e. I've been avoiding my small cuts yet again.

You should understand better than anybody else.
You wrote the book on quitting.
Running, hiding, you've written a lot of books

 Because I keep telling myself, life cannot always be that bad. God's gotta give me a break at some point in time. Forgetting all the while that God has been giving me lil breaks along the way. And that the biggest break I can ever receive, is a break from my own wounded self.
 

I say out loud, I will follow you into the dark, and anywhere it is you want to go. But I do not say, we'll go about it MY way cos it's the only way I trust. And if we don't do it MY way, it's doom to not succeed. 

Oh, hmm, you're here now?
Haha.
You've wanted me out since the day I moved in.

I criticize those who dare not commit, simply cos I know that while I may dare, I am also not whole enough to withstand the challenges that a commitment brings.

Because you're incapable of anything that resembles commitment.
You lied to me, you said you were healthy.
That you were healed.
There's no fixing you, you're a lemon.

I don't want always want to be the hopeless lemon. For that is no way to live life - without hope. And I want to have hope. I want to have the courage to hope. I want to be fixed - once and for all.

And so, I have to bite the bullet - stomach the smaller cuts, the ones that might leave red all over the house cos we have no other choice but believe that they would heal much faster.

Saturday Night Live

"No Barb. No more, until you're certain," said Mandy over lunch sometime last week.

In many ways, I agree with her - that when it comes to my kids, the trend of people coming and going in and out of their lives like a leaf flying in the wind, has got to stop. And in fact, it has stopped. Whatever persons who are introduced to them by association with me, has been carefully screened, pondered upon and all consequences - big or small - are weighed out carefully.

Over the last year or so, it has been a slight point of tension but it was one I could live with. Cos for once, I was doing the 'responsible' thing of not going into something feet first and when the body is mid-way thru the rabbit-hole, I'd go "oh no!" Plus for once, the decision was a joint-decision, which is great ~ this sharing of responsibility!

In all the times that I have indulged in the ponderments of it, it has always been 99.9% 'It would never happen' and 0.01% 'what if it does?' So what transpired that brought about a change in the 'actuality'? I can't really say cos I don't really know. Perhaps it was a weighing of the circumstances on hand and that was the only option left available. Perhaps it was the individual crossing of some un-seen barrier.

All I know is this: for a first 'outing' it couldn't have gone better.

You never know the biggest day of your life is the biggest day.

Not until it's happening.

You don't recognize the biggest day of your life,

not until you're right in the middle of it.

Blinded

Are we gonna get by?
I can hardly see the road,
Yeah but I'm gonna try

Haunted Borrowed Words

Movies made from books contain some of the best lines.

I love you. 

I'll wait for you. 

Come back ... Come back to me. 

From the book Atonement

by Ian McEwan

But sometimes, writers need not be authors to have their pens craft the best prose, as evident in the season finale of my fave tv show ~ Grey's Anatomy:

Did you say it? 

I love you. I don't ever want to live without you. 

You changed my life. 

Did you say it? 

Make a plan. Set a goal. Work toward it, 

but every now and then, look around; 

Drink it in 'cause this is it. 

It might all be gone tomorrow.

And it's not just words of wisdom or gems of love's declaration that touches my aching head tonight. It is also the anguished cries of pain that curses thru my blood as my temperature rises for reasons unknown:

But where are you my angel now?

Don't you see me crying?

And I know that you can't do it all

but you can't say I'm not trying.

Looking at you leaving, 

I'm looking for a sign...

Lyrics from the song called The Hills

From the movie ONCE

If only life was as simple and concise like a television series or a song or even a book. Alas, it is not.

A Retraction

I am gonna wake up with a splitting headache in the morning. Quite simply cos I'm having a liquid dinner tonight. But hey - there's mango juice in it so can't say I'm not keeping to my fibre intake. Plus the ginger from the ginger ale - definitely good for my digestion. As for the vodka - it's been said to reduce harmlful agents residing in the body. And THAT is what we need tonight. Though blogging might not be the suitable company for it, but hell - it was blogging that got us here in the first place.

I was informed today that something I wrote during the course of last week, has brought hurt to people I call my friends. Now, I have to say - I'm a linguistic person i.e. words, phrases, statements, tend to stick in my head like a fly to fly-paper. And I mull over it as if its some great secret brew, and before the gases explode, I empty it out here on my blog. Ben calls this my virtual shrink (which is probably why he doesn't come here at all). 

I used to use this space as an in-your-face / read-em-and-wept and needless to say, it did as 'twas intended. Afterall, a close friend did draw this picture of a gravestone in my high school autograph book and wrote under it "If your words were poison, I'd be lying under here by now." But over time, I have come to learnt the furtility of it. If I have something to say - I'd rather say it in person. Sure, this may be my drafting board, but the steam of the fury is not here anymore.

As doctors [and parents] we can't undo our mistakes, 

and we rarely forgive ourselves for them.

But, it's a hazard of the trade.

Which is why I'm aghast to learn that a thought shared by two very good friends with a long history, could be taken out of context in this virtual world and made personal. Now I have written before of Mandy, and who she is in my life. Here is a friend I know would love me for this lifetime and 3 others (even if I do not make her the dimsum she favours!), and the one person I would not mistake her care and concern as "pity for the poor single mummy." Which was why when she made the comment of the men in her god-daughter's life thus far, I knew that it was pointed in the same direction as mine - the one who started it all, the one who caused the tip of the scale.

But, as human beings we can always try to do better. 

To be better. To right a wrong. 

Even when it feels irreversible.

We thought we saw him the other day while out about town. If only I had such luck! And honestly, there are days, especially when I'm uploading pictures of the kids, that I am so tempted to attach one to an email and send it off to him with a note saying "Here's what you're missing out on!" But truthfully, it's not been done not cos I lack the guts, but simply cos it's not worth it. People shouldn't have to be made to realise what they have thrown away. True satisfaction comes when they realise it themselves.

Of course, "I'm sorry" doesn't always cut it. 

Maybe because we use it so many different ways. 

As a weapon. As an excuse. 

I do wish most times that I didn't walk around, carrying this deeply rooted hatred in my heart for the one person who not only made an utter and complete mess of my life, but the lives of my kids and everyone else after. I wish he didn't ruin me to the point that now when I get an email from Ben at 4 in the afternoon, I am left suspiciously wondering "What the hell is he doing on his email at this working hour?!" I wish he didn't shatter all possibility of me ever hoping for anything BUT pain and misery in life - exactly the way he left me, that everyone else had to bear the brunt of it.

I could wish for many things tonight that has everything to do with driving jaggered-edge daggers over and over and over again, drawing pain of the highest possible level. Just So.

But in between all that, the one thing that I do wish for was that I was not so broken a person that the one who put me back together again, was broken in the process as well. Which is the only justification and rationale I can draw as to how "you're welcome to keep in touch with them" could be read as "stay away for ever." That I said it to you so many times in the past, it's all you can ever recall and deign to remember in association with me.

But, when we are really sorry, when we use it right. 

When we mean it. 

When our actions say what words never can. 

I'm not a bad person and I'm not hiding behind the excuse of a motherhen trying to protect her brood. I did what I thought was right but on hindsight it was tunnel-visioned to a high extent. I only took into account what my lil girl would go through and didn't quite give a care for the adults. And what I took into account for my lil girl was all the lessons that life had given me 6 years ago. 

I cannot expect and do not expect to redeem myself through this one retraction of sorts. But you were not there, having to pull her away from the front door after waiting for hours on a no-show. And you were not there, for the times we held ourselves together as best as we could - just she and I. You may have been there to salvage what you could, but the damage was already done. Just writing it out down here is making me feel so wretched as if it was happening All Over Again. Yes, it is that deep.

But in saying all this, we are not likening you to the other. We're just saying it was someplace we didn't like, still don't and we would do everything within our power to not go back there again. 

In my favourite series of Grey's Anatomy, it was said that when you get it right, it is the most perfect thing to say. That when you get it right, it is redemption.

And so it is said here - I'm sorry if I had hurt you Pups. Twas never my intention. Especially not after you tried to be all the king's horses and all the king's men at the same time in piecing the humpty-dumpties back together again. 

3 Rooms & 2 Baths

"What is home" I asked myself as I waited at the airport, in the hour long flight and on the train back into town. I said I was coming home, but what is home to me? I have a house but the only space I have in it is my bedroom. Every other room and space has a barrier, a block.. maybe cos the emotions have been there for so long, I can't get rid of it anymore."

I wished with all my heart, I didn't have to hear those words being said out loud. It serves as another reminder that sometimes, people bury themselves so far in, it'll take a whole lot more than 4 nights of rigourous workouts to be able to fit into that wee tiny hole they have pushed themselves into.

Doesn't matter how tough we are

Trauma always leaves a scar. 

I have been living in my present place for 3 months now. And since the day I unlocked the door by myself, it has had this calming effect on my soul - I knew it in my bones that I could and would call it home. That it would not matter very much if most days I go back to it empty ~ I would be able to sit, sleep, play and rest in it without feeling out of sorts. But that's only happened cos this place is brand new - it has no balconies to sit on and have conversations with the moon, it does not have ghosts lurking in closets, and it wasn't the result of something bad happening in my life.

It may not belong to me, be listed in my books as an asset. Yet, there are those out there who are envious of me and my lil cubby hole in the sky, simply cos it's bright and shiny - like a newly minted penny coin.

It follows us home, it changes our lives. 

Trauma messes everybody up, but maybe that's the point. 

I dunno how else to make things right, to make things better. I know I should not try to be Atlas - taking on the weight of the world on my shoulders. But I cannot also stand by and do nothing, not even a tiny bit. This is my people we're talking about. And to know that my people is choosing to live out of a suitcase instead of home ~ it's not done.

But as I said - I do not know how else to make things better, without seeming to be Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction (dead rabbits and all!)

All the pain and the fear and the crap. 

Maybe going through all of that
is what keeps us moving forward. 
It's what pushes us. 

So for now, I cook. I cook what I think would whet the appetite, even tho it's 12.30 in the morning. And I put together lil bits and pieces of this and that ~ CARE Packages to bring about a smile. And I write, all the things I dare to say here but not outloud.

It's not meant to make me a hero. Nor is it meant to carry any hopes.

It's just simply being there for my people, so that they know that even if their own 3 rooms and 2 baths feel strange, they can go right ahead and make mine their own.

Cos there is not worse feeling in the world, than feeling as if you have no home.

Maybe we have to get a little messed up,
before we can step up. 

Seriously? Seriously!

Which Grey's Anatomy Character Are You?

More on Grey's Anatomy. Created by BuddyTV

In the Quiet Calm

heav⋅en ~ noun

1. The abode of God, the angels, and the spirits of the righteous after death; the place or state of existence of the blessed after the mortal life.
2. A place or state of supreme happiness

As a Christian, from a staunch Catholic family, I naturally believe that Heaven exists ~ It is the ultimate place to end up at. But through our Christian studies, we are also taught that it's not a direct-go-to, that there is a transitionary place that we have to go to first. And that only the very best of those who lived gets a direct-go-to.

Heaven. Hell. Limbo. 

All through life, I have never really sat down and pondered on what Heaven is like. Some say that it has roads paved in gold. Some say that it is where you are restored to the point in time of your life where you were happiest. Some say that your loved ones awaits at the gate to welcome you.

No-one even knows where we're going. 

I have had an experience in today that I really never thought I would have. Not because I didn't think I deserved it, but it's just one of those things that never came up before. And now that it did... like I said in my earlier posting - it's so surreal, I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.

Or what's waiting for us when we get there. 

It's one of those times in life when you feel as if you know someone inside out, yet not know them at all. What do you do with that? How can you feel your way out of this dark hole when the light at the end of the tunnel keeps shifting? When what your gut says defies all logic, experience, sensibilities and counsel?

Someone said my writing was too creative to be understood. That person was mistaken. It's not creative. It's just way too abstract. Trying to say everything but nothing at all. Cos that's how it is sometimes... you feel like you're having this big thing you wanna shout from the top of the mountain, but that which no one else would understand. Even now, I have my moments of going "WTF?!" Yet, I understand.

One of my fave questions to the LegalBeagle is "Why is Life so difficult?!" and his usual answer to me would be "It's not. It's you who make your own life difficult." And I see the truth in that now. Just as the Bear says "There's always a choice Barbsie." And of course, in making any choices, you accept the consequences and roll with it.

There's never any certainty with this thing we call LIFE. Just as there's no guarantee that if one lives one's life by the Holy Bible, you're certain to go to Heaven. And while certainty may be what I want, wish, hope for - my choice does not allow for it.

All it does allow for now is that my world is right yet again, in a way that for now, no one else can balance it to the T like this one person does. And if I am deemed the fool for being bestest against, then so be it.

But the one thing we can say, with absolute certainty, 

is that there are moments that take us to another place. 

Moments of Heaven on Earth. 

In the last week, and life for the past few years, I have had glimpse of what Hell is. And tried as hard as I may, I have never been able to see what Heaven could be.

I would say today, I had a glimpse of what heaven is.

And maybe for now, that's all we need to know.