froth my milk

In one week, I have stumbled upon my past self twice.

On two separate occasions, I talked to friends who are both dealing with their emotions. One struggling with an accumulation of years of pain, another struggling to deal with something she had buried away years ago. I can empathise entirely. I have been there. In my story, the pain came mostly from one source; but I have had to pull myself out from the brink of depression, forget an entire person who has embedded himself under my skin, forgive myself for the despicable things I have done, and diving back into the deep end of the pool again before my heart turned fearful and cold.

I look at this week, and I am thankful for everything that has happened to make me who I am. In retrospect, I can now appreciate the process, even though it was a painful one. I had a choice: to be this person who internalises a horrible experience, or someone who puts up barriers so thick that adversities bounce off with no effect. I did not choose the latter, despite how happy that person could turn out to be — I just cannot imagine what happiness built on a block of ice will become in a few years’ time. No matter how much I want to find happiness, I just can’t see how exuding happiness is the same thing.

I don’t have a religion, so I don’t have a medium to talk to god; I don’t have brilliant words, so I rarely get my sentiments out the way I intend it. I don’t know who to pay attention to sometimes: the conscience, the ego, the intuition, the dream?

The thought of these things rile me up from time to time. But it’s okay. Finding two friends, one whom I look up to, the other one I am fond of for her personality — knowing that they have hit similar lows in life, tells me enough I need to know about myself and tomorrow.

I will always be okay.

A quarter of the year is gone, and I have to finally, admit that I have been absent for the most of this new year.

The primary culprit is cosmic interference. I don’t know how many people would compromise their religious beliefs and acknowledge mercury retrogradation. But once you look up the dates, it is like jigsaw puzzles pieces falling into place. Three times a year, it affects communication, travel and decision making. How many times have I come to a dead end when applying for scholarships when mercury is in retrograde; how many times have my relationships taken a hit; how many times have I found utter hate for social media, handphones, texting, messaging applications, and every other platform or medium people communicate with.

I haven’t been able to articulate how I feel, but I have been reflecting hard. I’m getting there.

Last Friday night, I learnt something new about this friend who makes an appearance in my life about once a year. He is a bit of a devil’s advocate — and as he was justifying infidelity over our drinks, I protested that no one can talk about cheating unless they were first a victim. Which led to the revelation that his first girlfriend cheated on him… I could never have the capacity to be as magnanimous as he is towards this weakness curated by society. Despite three years of romantic tug of war: being a victim, being a helpless bystander, being the host, being an audience — I still can’t digest any justification that sells infidelity as anything more than a show of pure selfishness.

It seems like people have little respect for things more important than themselves. Before pop culture bombarded us with themes of warranted intrusion (think My Best Friend’s Wedding where we unhappily sighed for Julia Roberts’ character), there were great loves — and modesty — like that of Sydney in A Tale of Two Cities. Unfortunately, media’s endorsement has made love triangles very much okay. The foolish girls of today have been lulled into believing in the act of throwing themselves against barriers, i.e. an existing relationship. Poor child.

What they see, is “I can easily do better than his girlfriend/wife” — that the guy has the right to choose; may the best girl win. What they don’t see is, a relationship is a state of equilibrium, rather than a scrapbook worth of shared memories. Of course balance is easy to lose, equilibria can be easily disrupted, men easily seduced; but just because you can, does it mean you should? It’s not karma you should be worried about if you do, but rather yourself. Really, what kind of a person are you, if you look at a male friend who has attained that state of emotional peace with another person, and instead of respect and admiration for the effort that two individuals have put in to make their relationship work — you lust after him?

For the sake of keeping up with a society that is constantly redefining seniority as chronological precedence and experience quantified in years — fine, I can play along and be objective about excuses like: “although they’ve been together for five years, he’s been unhappy for at least three years”. Let’s consider your role here. Are you trying to rescue him from the depths of his despair? Are you so sure of the future that you can make the decision for him, that he’d be happier with you? Even if you win this game of Jenga, and you pick out all the pieces you want, is this man worth all the trouble? He gave in to seduction, he chose ease over hard work, he plays the damsel in distress, he is too spineless to leave even when he was unhappy, he sits around and wait for someone to come and tell him he’s currently unhappy. Thank you for purchasing this Tamagotchi. You now have to feed, play and clean it. Hope you enjoy the journey!

Girls who elbow and jostle their way to break up relationships, are easy to paint as villains. However there is a spectrum between the aforementioned villains, and girls who just need to profess their love but doesn’t seem to want anything from the guy, except to play coy some more: “Look, we can’t be friends anymore because I can’t stand to see you happy”. Well, here’s the number for SPCA: 03-4256 5312

It bothers me how we can be completely absorbed in just one person, and at the next turn, we are going through full days without making contact.

I know that if I were to press for an answer, that I still love you. What tells me, are those faint memories of moments when I am completely myself when I am with you, suppressed in the deep recesses of my mind. However faint, I know exactly when and where, but it is redundant to specify.

I never really wanted us to grow apart, especially not when our routines have intertwined that much, and when you have shown me a possibility that I never really believed in. But if I try just hard enough repeating to myself every night, maybe I will make it through the year:

Everyday it hurts a little less.

Something so simple, has been made so complex.

What do you do when you know that someone has the capacity to love you with their entire existence? Do you subconsciously realise how available they are to you and thus pick out all their flaws? Do you transition from love to hate to love to hate again, and make all the decisions for them — forgetting that the person who on the receiving end, who consistently loves you, is, a person:

Who is vulnerable to pain you inflict when you withdraw. Who is gullible enough to want you back each time you change your mind. Who sometimes try so hard to be strong in this game, to face you and the cards you deal, that outside your game, she becomes completely weak to strangers. Who hates being seen weak.

How difficult was it to love me?

This was originally a post about the lightness that I associate with you, and that morning when my fogged up lenses captured this moment. This lightness, this unbridled happiness that blankets me like warm kisses on a cold morning. That this morning, while having my Sausage McMuffin, I felt compelled to write about. Because in little occurrences like this, I find you.

But like the blurred lines of our relationship since last Christmas, I can no longer tell if I erased the lightness that once existed; or they existed exclusively in specific moments, like the picture; or maybe I’ve blacked out all the heaviness, dread and cruelty in my frame of mind, to keep just what I can call, love.

Perhaps it is time to step out of this comfort zone that I function in, and that imagine King Charles with. Like how the tangible evidences of the tenderness between us have stopped — it is time that my fanciful notions come to an end as well. If there are no more emails, no more telling texts composed while half-drunk, no more handwritten cards and pages; then the last three recesses where I keep hoarding stories of us, should not exist anymore either.

It was that morning after, in Lumut.

I’ve reached a point of saturation. For days since I confirmed that suspicion, words and ideas have been simmering. I keep putting it off, waiting for it to spill over, but it won’t. It just keeps becoming heavier.

I want to talk to you, talk about you, talk with you, talk over you, talk after you — unfurl all of the words I have collected in this year. Phrase after phrase after phrase. It revolves entirely around you. Yet you doubt how much I care for you, or take you into consideration. I have always done.

I just don’t want this to be a monologue.

It is the birthday week!

The question of what would you like has been asked, and I really don’t know. The things I can afford, I don’t need gifted. The things I can’t afford, are too much to ask for as gifts. But somewhere between the two extremes, there are some inexpensive options, so here, I will try.

1. Xanax. I have approximately eight 0.5mg doses left. I’m saving up for the rainy days but if you are worried that I would OD if I had a convenient stash on hand, I can’t. It takes over 30mg for someone to get high, and even then, you’re not close to killing yourself.

2. Someone to take me out all day. No phones. Belle and Sebastian playing as we drive to the zoo, for fish and chips during lunch, for sushi in the evening, then to a fancy bar at night — because I haven’t had a drink for the longest longest time.

3. Get drunk with company. Listen to my madhatter talk, try and answer my madhatter questions, hold my hair if I get sick.

4. Dedicate me a song. Sing me Skinny Love, ideally accompanied with acoustics and an envious audience. Note: you don’t have to mean a single word you sing.

5. Therapy. Be an earnest listener for just two or three hours. Or if it is beyond your capacity, buy me a visit to someone who would.

Someone once told me, that I looked in all the wrong places.

One day, that someone became mine to love. And love him I did, I was high on all our saccharine moments, I was dejected and crying, I was apathetic, I was pining for him, I wanted him back, I wanted any spillover he could give me. Then finally, in recent weeks, some things became clearer than his haunting absence.

I was so at conflict with myself that I unintentionally made peace with him and the memory of us.

He is the only one of his kind that I have come across. Someone who reads my writing and correspondences and interprets them the way I intended them. That is part of the reason why it is difficult to let go. Each time I think of questions larger than myself, larger than my problems, I wonder if he will understand them? I wonder if he will blank out and leave us in an awkward silence that some of my friends have done. I wonder if he will listen to my rant, then shrug it off thinking that I should just be left alone till I feel better like many of my friends have done. I wonder if he will give me a stiff hug, be very pragmatic, make sure I won’t be stupid, and turn his attention to other matters like my sister had done. I wonder if he will attempt to give advice like my parents had done, “love people who matter, and you’ll find life alright” — and that is my two biggest problem, the people I love, and how just alright everything is. I wonder if he will understand and make a guess when I talk about Sylvia Plath.

He is the only one who asks, which I’m grateful for. But he asks, and it ends there.

I am really on my own.

I am on a book ban.

Ban from book shopping to be exact. Here is a list of books I have bought in the past eight months, that I have yet unwrapped, or read. This list would thus exclude the five or so books I am currently reading, or the two books that were gifts from friends, and the six Penguin cloth bound hardcover classics I plan to order when my salary comes in.

1. The Glimmer Train 1: Guide to Writing Fiction

2. The Handmaiden’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

3. Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained by John Milton

4. Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

5. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

6. Liars in Love by Richard Yates

7. The Fall of the House of Usher and other stories by Edgar Allan Poe

8. The Decay of Lying and other essays by Oscar Wilde

9. Trainspotting by Irvine Welse

10. East of Eden by John Steinbeck

11. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

After I have purchased each these books — most declining a bag, proud to say — I have gone home, stashed them in my room, away from the family’s collective pile of books, and forgotten all about them. But strange enough, as I compile this list, the memory that comes with each book is easily recalled. I can vividly remember how I felt that afternoon walking in the bookstore, who I was with if I were with someone, and even what compelled me to choose that one book.

I have always wished I had a photographic memory, but I don’t. Back in school years, I struggled to memorise definitions for Chinese proverbs which I had to regurgitate for our daily mini-tests; and I definitely have very little tolerance for numerals in my memory bank. However, my recollection for emotions, is pretty nifty. How nervous I was around some people, how my hands turn clammy approaching certain individuals, how time and time again, I believed I knew love when he slides next to me, plants a kiss on my forehead, and naps next to me; and next to me, my book.

Yet, I keep letting myself get burnt. I really don’t know why.