Maybe it's you I need...

I need to find the time badly to draft that email. to write to him and to tell him how i feel. the cumbersome task of having to put my thoughts into words. Just because I blog doesn't mean I am gifted at drafting my feelings out in words. especially to someone whom i want to take my email seriously. someone whom I want to finish reading my emotions put to words. unlike my average blog readers who scrolled through the contents of my post, i don't want him to scroll through, i hope for each word to reach to his heart and sink into it...etching a memory he will never forget.

I rang my astronomist to confide my fears in. I rambled and talked like I always do. throwing in a sob once in awhile typical in all the long distance phone conversations I have made to him. He never like the way I rang him everytime I cried because he said, "it makes him feel he hasn't done a good job protecting me". i always look to him for explanations as to why i am given carte blanche by the people i care about. sometimes he offer some, sometimes he doesn't. i can hear him banging shuts cupboard doors looking for teabags. i can hear him heave a sigh once now and then. frustration seeps through the phone. often we leave things unstated and unsaid. these are the times when ambiguity works to our advantage.

i waited for him to speak. then i hear him sigh again as i continue to be choreographed unconsciously by this butterfly dance we do around each other. this pas de deux we dance every time i rang as we glissade by each other in these moments of fragility, taking the utmost care to not step on each others' toes. i guess there is a certain beauty in this fragility.

then he spoke - relationships or would be relationships was never supposed to be like this. it was never meant to be like this. i would never agreed to this.
i had always believed that a relationship should be unrestrictive. it should be open and free, made self-evident by the essence of the parties involved. not be bound by obligation, but rather by choice. it should enliven us as an affirmation of who we are and who we are to become.

instead, yours is a relationship built out of comfort and convenience. convenience insofar as you do not step on each others toes. in order to maintain this "convenience" you forged a closed relationship. there were no channels of communications; lest one should offend the other. it was a relationship predicated on false presumptions and inaccurate assumptions. restricted by your perpetual walks on tippy-toes and moments of fragility. but these are the circumstances you find yourself stuck with. trapped. a bull in a chandelier shop.

how do you care for something which you do not know?

I retort - there are moments when things seem perfect. the shared laughter. a shared meals. we had our moments.

The astronomist sigh again - and i knew what was on his mind.
he longs to give me the strength to leave. to give me the wings to fly. to soar to heights i've never knew. but he realizes that the wings i need can only come within.

For one thing I know, I am glad he is always stands besides me in all things that i do, no matter how silly or how much he disagrees with. he always have been supportive in my decisions and even when i made the wrongs one and turn back to him, he always is there. I must've hurt him countless times and drove him mad but he has never once abandon me. He has never hanged up on me. never not texted me back even at the weirdest hour. never not reply. never gone off to bed whenever i was halfway rambling on msn despite just coming home from his graveyard shifts.

I do really owe him the time and sacrifice he has made for me. Maybe the email wasn't meant to be written, he said. maybe all you need is a little faith. just because things aren't visible or audible doesnt mean it isn't there. just like God.

I like his honesty. The way he never dodges my difficult questions. The way he taints the truth with love. The way his love for me drowns his ego. simply just his character - compassionate but not sympathetic. his compassion for my sorrows. no sympathy because it was the choices i made that landed me in the situation i was, he once said.

I feel so lost right now. All i want is for him to give me a big hug and tell me that everything will be alright. cold and numb. its so difficult to do the right thing and yet not to be hurt. Probably all i really wanna do is go back to england; let him iron all the worry lines on my face with his strong palms; snuggle me in his chest keeping me safe; and most of all, whisper to me that all will be fine. Back with him would mean returning to less problems. less worries. less crazy people. just the astronomist to star gaze with. Maybe it is him i needed all this time...Maybe it is time like this that I want to be selfish...

Overrated [Ooo-varr-ray-tad]

At some point in the last ten years it became fashionable to be overtly knowledgeable about popular culture. The best way to show how much you know about pop culture is to be pretentious about it, and the best way to be pretentious about it is to arbitrarily say something is “overrated.” For example, Little Miss Sunshine was a critically acclaimed movie, but Steve Carell enthusiasts like to say that it was his least inspired work. I’ve heard by snobby music fans say that Gnarls Barkley is overrated and don’t deserve their popularity, even though the only people who listen to Gnarls Barkley are snobby music fans, themselves. Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is widely regarded as the greatest novel of all time, yet it’s often cool for smart literary people to smugly say, “’Who is John Galt?’ I don’t fucking care!”

It’s okay to like things, and it’s okay to not like things. We can consider some things to be good, and we can consider some things to be bad, but nothing can ever be “overrated.” (Conversely, nothing can ever be underrated, either.) We live in a civilization where people like to say things are “overrated” just because it makes them feel intelligent. However, everything in society is rated exactly how it deserves to be rated. There is nothing wrong with the amount of attention that Gnarls Barkley receives and the amount of praise that Little Miss Sunshine has collected. Also, John Galt, at the very least, deserved to be defined in a two hour speech.

If it pisses you off that Britney Spears is on heavy rotation on Top 40 radio stations, then turn on your iPod and listen to MGMT as many times as you want to. That’s what the “repeat” feature is for. If you think society is falling apart because mindless films like Iron Man and High School Musical make ridiculous amounts of money, then subscribe to Netflix and rent No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. You and the rest of the film genius’ can have a critically-acclaimed-movie orgy in the comfort of your own damn living room.

If you complain about things being overrated, then you are no different from people who feel that they deserve better. The fact that you’re trapped in your own personal sphere where you consider yourself bigger than the society in which you are a part of is the exact reason why you’ll always be unhappy. It’s like complaining that you’re underpaid at your job. The truth is that everyone gets paid exactly what they’re worth. If you think you’re underpaid, don’t complain about it, but find an employer who will pay you what you want.

If you think society owes you more than what you’re getting, then go do something about it and don’t complain to people who don’t want to hear it. The only thing that pop culture owes you is pop culture, whether you think it’s overrated or not.

My taste isn’t better or worse than anyone else’s, and, quite frankly, I just don’t fucking care.

Heaving sighs

The thing about love that a lot of people don’t realize is that it isn’t necessarily supposed to make you happy. It’s fun if being in love brings happiness, but having one doesn’t guarantee the other. A lot of people chase happiness and mistake that for being in love, and that usually results in people settling for less than what they want. I’ve been ridiculously happy in love, and I’ve also been excruciatingly miserable in love. When I was sad, I wanted to cry my heart out. I wanted to be alone. I didn’t want to get out of bed. But because I was dying inside, it was the time in my life when I felt most alive. In life, love is more important than happiness. If you’re in this just for happiness, then take a Prozac.

Happiness is just an illusion.

Picking up the pieces

The truth is that most of us do not function in relationships the way God intends. We carry with us such great amount of fear, operate with such guilt and shame and most of all are masters of this game called rejection. We reject others based on their education, background, colour, character, attitude and wealth just like how others reject us. We play this game so well that we became masters of it ourselves. Instead of facing our emotions and dealing with them ,we hide them. We sweep them under the carpets and pretend as long as we don't see them, they aren't there. Only to have the dust accumulate under the carpet to creat a bump that one day when we walk over that bump, we fall.

We often forget that conflict stems from the heart, and unless the heart is changed, the problems will never be resolved.

Proverbs 4:23 encourages us to guard our hearts, for out of the heart flows all the issues of life. These issues include selfishness, greed, hate, murder, adultery, etc., all of which originate in the heart before manifesting themselves in the open.

Adam claimed his independence in the Garden of Eden. Ever since that time, people have been trying to put the pieces of life's puzzle back together on their own. For example, broken relationships, infidelity,alcholism, and abuse are all evidence of our need to turn to our heavenly Father to make out lives work. While the world says, "Exercise- that'll fix it," Take a vacation- that'll fix it," or "Do this and take that and go there, and it'll all work out", what we really need to do is take the same advice that God once told us - Go back home. go back to dependence on our Creator, who knows better than ourselves. He can fix our mess. That's where a person who is God fearing and who understands the principles of God's word and knows how to apply them to meet human needs. We were not created to fix our own problems. All of us have limited capablities. We can only do so much to rectify the pain in our lives. The truth is that we were created to be constantly dependent upon an all-loving, all-caring God. We were not created to be self-sufficient.

So the truth remains, no matter how hard I try to solve the mysteries of my heart and others, there is always the unanswerable questions. The questions that remain open for anyone to solve. anyone ready to take up the challenge to dive into the sorrows, troubles and heartaches of others , tear it all apart, analyse it and put the pieces back together - to make it all a picture perfect. No one has been able to do that for me. No one has been able to give me profound answers to my questions and no one has been able to put the pieces. They take one look at it and say, "this is for you to deal with". To much fear? Lack of courage? Or simply just not their calling...?

Didn't I ask You not to trust me with so much to handle? The hope that I am tougher or stronger by your trials and tribulations each day will crush You. It's better not to hope. Expect me not to be able to pick the pieces up on my own while I promise You I won't sweep the dust underneath the carpets.

So my question remains - when and How, Lord?

Bangalore with love

Having hanged up the phone last night with Munchkin, I felt a sense of emptiness knowing that he won't make it back for Valentine's. I was crushed. He made it easier for me to put on a brave front, to not weep or sob when we rolled back to our old selves of endless talks of nothingness. rounds of laughter. rounds of poking fun at each other. rounds of craziness. that was how he always made me feel around him. light hearted. never to indulge into anything serious. we left our worries behind whenever we spent time together. even if it was just temporary but it was what we both needed. to get out of our pains and sadness for just a little while and to bask in each other's craziness.

He became that friend I could confess my profound 'crush' on him without worrying he will desert me or run for the hills. The guy I was proud of to call my bestest friend. not because he has always been there for me but rather how my time spent with him took away my pain, my worry - even for just a little while, it suffice. Magical as I like to call it.

In the summer, I remember vividly sitting on his couch in his room surfing on the net while he types like a maniac on his laptop, chatting to whoever or whichever 'girl of the moment' or listening to his list of emo songs on his I-tunes. If he was having a bad day, i felt it. if he was having a depressing day, i felt it. we hardly spoke whenever i was in his room. we will be submerged in whatever we were doing but yet I felt his emotions. It rubbed on me all the time. It was scary but yet it was my connection to him. Being able to feel how he feels without him having to tell me or put it to words.

This time round, it wasn't any difference. I felt his excitement of being in a new place but I also felt his sadness that it was so overwhelming. I cried after he hang up the first time. But like the Munchkin I know, he put on his brave front. our flowing conversation made him forget he was in India for awhile. a good whole 30 minutes, his mind was not on the busy streets, the dust, the pollution and the horrible food. For a whole 30 minutes, I made my best friend put behind his tingling depression of being in that country. Its easy to forget how messy our lives can be whenever we are talking to each other. its like our voice silence out our cries of pain. It could be his voice, his laughter, his open-ness or his wits. Maybe it is just him.

I will never forget how he filled my life last summer with his talking. While I was always the one doing the talking with everyone else, he was the talker in my life. I asked questions and he answered. He was the willing talker and I, the willing listener. Always silencing out my cries of pain. He made it better by talking. he seldom ask. he never demanded answers from me like most people did. he filled the answers for me. he was that safe to be with. never wanting to know more than you are willing to tell. never intruding. just there to talk when you ask. just crazy enough to make me feel sane. just funny enough to make me laugh. just open enough for me to share. just special enough to be my munchkin...

Goodnight, angel

I tossed sleepily in bed as my phone buzzed off at 3am last night. Lazily, I opened on eye to checked the caller ID. Unknown. How typical at this time. On most nights, I would've just hit the cancel button but tonight, unlike most nights, I pressed the green answered button.

As I answered it, a familiar voice flooded to my ear. All too familiar. A surreal feeling of coming home. It's me, he said. I knew who was on the other side without needing him to tell me. He was that voice I seek comfort and solace in for a whole year. The voice that sooth me to bed so very often. Hey, I replied sleepily. He apologise profusely for calling so late. I knew better. My phone would not buzz at this ungodly hour. it wasn't normal. it wasn't him. it not a social call. his voice sounded distant. perturbed by something behind the hello. as though he wasn't there. clouded, a storm of pain and agony enveloping it. my heart sank. instinctively i knew something had happened. I needed to comfort him. To be alert at 3am for my confidante, my prayer mate, my astronomist. I didn't ask what happened. I didn't ask what, who, when, why. I just talked about work. about life back home and I kept on talking, pausing in between seconds -to catch my own breath and to hear his shallow breathing on the other side.

I did what he wanted me to do. to fill his silence at the other end. I talked too much. It was like some one open my flood gates of speech. I learnt from a long time ago that the astronomist needed in time of his crisis is for me to dampen the echo is his life. to fill in the gaps that made his life shook and rattled so loudly. So he listened to my life. my ramblings.

After an hour of non-stop talking, he finally said - I miss you so much that it hurts. I hesistated. I was lost for once. I thought we had long understanding that if we weren't too careful over where our friendship stands, we could totally ruin it. We often rationalised with each other and ourselves that we had so much else - a history, a year long of shared dreams and fears, a togetherness that runs deeper than a misguided romance. You know that you will always be my number one guy, I replied. the one with a place in my heart no matter how far we go. but I knew it wasn't enough for him. it could have been better. if only....

Just a month ago, when the astronomist took me star gazing, he asked, why us? I didn't have a solid answer for him. I just starred at the stars until the lights blurred my eyes. until it hurts. I didn't dare blink just in case the tears that were welling around my eyes rolled down. I wished I did know how to do this without breaking his heart but I didn't. I wished I had answers that will keep his heart contend. I didn't have the answers then, I didn't have it now. I just haven't achieved enlightenment.

I knew I missed him. our 3am chats. our giggles, our jokes. our seriousness. our little eating sessions. our endless tea drinking. just everything. just to have someone there to listen. to know that he is always there. but I cannot stand at the grave of our failed romance and weep. He just simply isn't there. Cannot be there anymore. It just isn't his position to take. his shoes to wear. My eyes flicked towards the clock - it read 5.23am. As though he caught me doing so, he whispered, Goodnight, angel.

I just regretted I never got the chance to say goodnight and to tell him that he is the angel in my life.

Dancing in the rain

'Life isn't about how to survive the storm but how to dance in the rain'

2009 was ushered in with a whole new fashion releasing hot air ballons with my new year rest-solutions written on it. 2008 is history, ancient news if one would like to put it. All the trials and tribulations, all the memories that you hold dear to your heart, all the pain and hurt, the good, the bad and the ugly all tied up in a big parcel and shipped away never to be reopened again. If one look back, one will be amazed on how fast 365 days flew by. We have all survived it (otherwise you wouldn't be reading this now) and we have have our stories to tell. I traversed and landed in 10 different countries alone in 2008. Forge a strong bond with the yellow stranger I met in 2007. Lost a person I held dear to my heart. Obtained my license to sue. Walk a better walk with Him. I learnt so much in a year but yet even if someone offered to pay me a billion dollars to go through 2008 again, I wouldn't and couldn't. It was a crawl in 2008. I had to grow up and I believed I did.

2009 begins bleakly. the economic recession hangs like a dark cloud over everyone. we wear wrinkles and shoulder worries on what awaits us in the next few months. We shudder in fear at the sight of the looming storm. 2009 beckons us into an unknown....

So while everyone is lying in bed and riding out their hangovers on the 1st of January 2009, I lay in bed thinking about what to have for lunch...and also my just newly "released" new year resolutions. People aren’t actively fulfilling their New Year’s resolutions, they’re only thinking (read: fantasizing) about how they can make their lives better while sitting on their couch and watching college football. No one does shit on New Year’s Day! There is nothing more unambitious than starting off a new year by making the first day a holiday. It seems to me that it would make more sense to take the last day of the year off and make December 31 a holiday, and start the new year off by working and getting stuff done. New Year’s Day, as a holiday, is just a celebration of procrastination and laziness.

The older I get, the more I realize how little control I have over my life. While the surprises God has thrown in my path sometimes lead to angry confusion - I can't tell you the number of times I've shaken my fists at the air, why-God-why style - there have also been a lot of surprise blessings in the form of things I initially thought were bad. Other times, I go through a rough period only for God to bring something good out of it. There were a lot of "what...??!" moments in 2008 and I pondered if 2009 will also be filled with loads more doubleyeeww teef eff moments too. scrolling down the list of my resolutions mentally, I probably have to slap myself in the face for coming up with such an atrocious list. So to save myself from any more hair loss than I already have in 2008, I made up my mind - to heck with the list. If I were to live life always cursing the storms, always weary to what's ahead and when the lightning is going to strike, I would be a very stiff and stoic person. Boring and lifeless. I pretty much want to just dance in the rain and soak myself wet, drench from head to toe in the rain this year literally. Not always precarious of what is going to happen.

Life isn’t measured by hours, days, or months as much as it is by the sequence of our experiences. Have you ever reflected on your life? I suspect that you have, and I also suspect that you don’t chronicle the events in your life by years, but rather you remember them by the context in which you were alive. We remember our lives by what grade we were in, where we were working, and who we were sleeping with. If you’re in (1) school, (2) have a good job, or (3) are in a fantastic relationship, you can certainly agree that time moves at a lightning fast pace when you’re existence feels validated. Conversely by that same token, this is why the lives of (1) married people, (2) Scott Baio, and (3) people who aren’t having sex (see 1) seem to be trapped in a time vacuum. New Year’s Day tells us to view our lives in an uncreative way, whether we have lives or not. It’s a way for dumb people to feel better about their wretched lives when they probably shouldn’t.

Here’s a solution. If you want to get tossed on New Year’s Eve and party like it’s 1999 then go ahead and do it. New Year’s Eve is the only time of the year when you can kiss a complete stranger on the lips and not be punched in the face or arrested for doing so. Everyone should take advantage of this snafu in social dynamics. But, if you want to turn your life around in 2009, don’t use the New Year as an excuse to do so. Resolutions are like marriage licenses; they’re bound to get broken. Life is a continuum, and you can change your life whenever you want to all year round. Your resolution won’t improve your life, but your resolve will.

I don’t know what’s going to happen to me in 2009, and I’m pretty sure that I don’t care. I don’t like to fantasize about how I want things to be. I just know that my life is moving faster than seconds and minutes. People say that my year is off to a great start, despite the fact that they’ll always view me through a lens with one-dimensional resolution.