Over the years of being friends with mostly females (I hail from an all girls’ school), one of the most inconvenient issues we whine about had always been about periods. It’s a bloody war, both literally and figuratively. A monthly commitment that comes with symptoms, it really does have the power to drive emotional consequences, damage relationships (for instance, did you know that statistically, most breakups happen during the woman’s period? Explains a lot doesn’t it?), and create physical distress. So for those who will never have the chance to experience it, or are blessed to have smooth-sailing cycles, I’m here to indulge you in some insider’s information. Also, these are not necessarily my own personal symptoms, but rather a more generic overview. 1. The “I’m-Going-To-Stab-You-To-Death” Mood Maybe it’s because of the discomfort of bleeding for days, maybe it’s the hormones, but it always seems like anger has a much shorter fuse at this time. You’ll get easily angered by everyone, and that includes colleagues, security guards, girl at the cash register who takes forever to pack your groceries, babies crying and the final episode of Game of Thrones. Sometimes you’ll get extra touchy too. For example, when your friends make jokes about how you should lose weight, it’s usually just good banter. But during these testing times, the same jokes will make you want to punch somebody. 2. The Sadness Over Everything, For No Apparent Reason Definitely the cause of hormones. One minute you feel like life is pleasant and filled with amazing opportunities and good fortune, and the next minute you’ll see a homeless puppy and the sky turns immediately grey. You begin to wonder what a hard life it must be for that pup, and you worry about how it will ever get a proper meal. Then you look into the puppy’s sad eyes and you contemplate about how horrible the world is that we’re living in, and injustice is everywhere. And that includes bad things happening to good people, which also includes yourself at times. Then you start tearing up because it’s now raining, and now that puppy will be cold. You begin contemplating to start a homeless shelter for animals. 3. The Cramps Have you ever experienced giving birth to a full backpack? Well, me neither, but I would imagine that the period cramps is a close enough approximation. A girlfriend told me that the whole myth of “once you have children, the period cramps will settle down” is an absolute lie, and that’s terrible news. It’s the back pain, butt pain, uterus pain and an overall sensation as though you’re carrying the villain for the next “Alien vs Predator” movie. This would usually last enough time to disrupt your usual life routines. 4. The Horrible Partner Episode I find that I was the worst kind of girlfriend during this window of turbulent time. The clinginess, the neediness, the constant need for emotional validation always made me cringe later when I was back to my normal self again. Everything a man says has a tendency to be a lot more hurtful than usual, even if it’s as innocent as remarking that your food needs a little more salt. Based on my observational experiences, these things happen even when women are in stable, happy marriages. Therefore I really just feel bad for all the men out there having to face the demon that is the dark, PMS-ed side of their spouses. 5. The Insatiable Hunger Good God the hunger. Sometimes the pangs feel like you’ve just gotten off an island where all you had for the past 5 years were coconut water. For some strange reason your body also begins to crave the unhealthier options – the carbs, the sugar and red meats. Looking back at my food photos (I’m always taking pictures of my cooking), this is the time when I’m constantly baking, making elaborate rice dishes, and eating a lot (I mean A LOT) of potatoes. 6.The Skin Rebellion One night you’re sleeping with a somewhat clear skin, and the next morning it’s “hello boils!” Skin tends to behave badly during this magical time, producing zits and inflamed imperfections that look like traffic red lights. This is particularly inconvenient if there is a date, a job interview or any social activity coming up that requires proper self-esteem. The bad news is that there really isn’t much to do when it comes to avoiding hormonal conflicts such as this one. And it always feels like I'm capable of eating all these kuihs.... There is little good news about this, except that you may soothe yourself by saying that this is all happening as part the required sacrifices in your social contribution in populating the earth (no, it’s not really that soothing at all). But if you’re in your twenties chances are you would’ve experienced this cycle at least 180 times, and so certain tips to calm the fires would’ve been established, as below;
So there you go. I think I’ve compiled pretty much everything I know, from my own experiences as well as my female friends and family. So the next time you’re faced with a woman possible going through an uterus make-over, consider yourself armed with these useful information and you can then safeguard yourself from being stabbed with a kitchen knife. Good luck! Two weeks ago I spent a few days on an island, by the sea. A good friend of mine has a place right next to a beautiful lagoon and steps away from the beach, and she gracefully invited me over for a little retreat. I spent a great deal of time in peaceful contentment – swimming while watching the sunset, reading in hammocks, and just marvelling at the harmless, vast beauty of turquoise waters, which at some point of the horizon transitioned into a deep blue, with white frothy waves surging towards me … it all felt very ‘Cast Away’ (minus the fugly beard, psychotic ball friend and rotting teeth).
It reminded me of one of my earliest memories of my life. That memory was vague, patchy and colourless – I remember a sea, waves, my Mother’s face, and some fish. My Mother would later tell me that this was perhaps a moment in Merdeka Beach when we went there for a picnic and I was around 3. There used to be a lot of fish swimming by its shores. She also mentioned me in a diaper, but that is hardly fashionable so let’s skip that. It then brought me to think about how people are embedded into our memories. By unintentional actions or choice, ones that come into our lives will inevitably find a mould into our minds where they sit there unencumbered as a snapshot of life, just like my Mother’s twenty six year-old face in my first recoverable memory. It is then safe to say, whether we like it or not, that we are bound to live forever in someone else’s mind, even after we are long gone, whether it be due to change, circumstance or cruel time. The fact that we will all go away someday, that our days are numbered before we remain as only fragments of fading memory to others, highlights a simple but often forgotten question in life. The question is this – were we ever brave enough to go for that exciting but unfamiliar choice, or did we spend the rest of our lives just worrying what others may think of us and trying to fit it? Did we coward out too soon and missed out on our chance for a truly amazing life adventure? If it doesn’t scare you, it will never change you. And not changing at all? Well, then we’re missing the whole point. Being aware that we are destined to be a part of someone else’s memory is also sometimes intimidating. It makes one realize that this only leaves us with either one of two choices – we can either choose to be a good or a bad memory to someone else. This in turn affects how we see our actions in everything. Did I thank my Father? Did I smile at that stranger? Did I make you feel understood? How would you remember me, if at all, years from now? By the end of the day, as the sun set at the polar opposite side of where I saw it rise that morning, it began to dawn on me that there really isn’t a prefix to that trail of thought. The simple fact is, someday, we will all be gone, only to remain as eternal pieces scattered in the minds of others. Someday, we will all just be a memory, so let’s strive to be a good one. On the second day of my little weekend getaway, I was finally doing what I had been daydreaming of doing for weeks now – I sat in my comfy knitwear for hours to read a book, enjoy a pretty view and gorgeous weather, drink some tea and stab a voodoo doll (okay kidding). It was the best, serene feeling of doing nothing, and my mind was now free to revisit some of the things I had thought of reflecting on, but had no time to do so. I have an imaginary shelf in my head where I would store thoughts ‘to be revisited’ when the time and space allows me to. So far the top 3 things are; ‘do babies cry in the womb?’, ‘foreign exchange policies’(snore fest) and ‘forgiveness’.
Forgiveness is an even more daunting task than apologizing. Apologizing requires surpassing one’s ego to do it, but forgiveness requires surpassing one’s ego to do it AND choosing to see a person in a positive light AND giving others the benefit of the doubt. But newsflash; it is made even harder when the person you are trying to forgive is yourself. Like a lot of other people, I am perhaps my own worst critic. When something does not happen the way I had hoped or planned, I am quick to turn the blame on myself first. Perhaps it is due to the opinion that although I can’t control situations, I can certainly control me. Why did I act out of anger? Why did I say that? Why did I do that? Why would I make that bad decision? Sometimes there are words I expressed that I wished I had not said, circumstances I wished I had handled better, or even things I wished I had fought harder for. It is true that the heart is the mind’s braver sibling, but sometimes it deludes us to make hasty emotional decisions and reactions we later regret. In circumstances such as these, it is helpful to perpetually remember this – there is always a reason for why people are the way they are. Understanding this makes anger more irrelevant and forgiveness more prominent. Perhaps a person did that because they have fears, just like we all do sometimes. Perhaps we ourselves acted a certain way fuelled by our disappointments of an expectation, and isn’t that natural? I realised that the twenties is a crucial time to experiment with the concept of empathy, and the balance between heart and head (in between the raging hormones, the self-searching and the quarter-life crisis. How exciting.). As a conclusion, I once came across a beautiful saying, which have evidently helped me through countless times. It says, “How many times should you forgive yourself and others? As many times as you would like God to forgive you”. I find that it speeds up my own forgiving process, even that one time a mean boy came up to me when I was 15 and called my face ugly. I still despise you, you punk. When I was a kid at preschool, there was a high brick wall that surrounded the little building. Word had it that if you’re standing on top of that brick well, the view would be amazing. I was merely 3-4 feet tall, and the wall was much higher then than it is now. I wanted to see this view. So with the help of another boy (who was a wimp, because he kept cheering me on but refused to get up there himself), I climbed that wall on a fateful sunny day. If my preschool teacher knew I would probably be punished, and if my Dad knew I would probably get spanked. But I climbed it anyway, curious to see what it looks like from the top.
I fell head first and cut my eye so badly that I couldn’t open it properly for days. After that my Dad spanked me. But damn it, the view was really nice from up there. That was my first recollection of me ever having any sort of bravery. Bravery comes in many forms. Some are utterly useless, most probably driven by hormones and the need to explore. Once in college my friends and I went for a swim in the open ocean at 4 am. It was fun and I would remember it fondly, but do I think it was reckless bravery? Absolutely. Some are essential to teach you the deeds of growing up, and you would never be who you are today without them. It could be the travels you took alone to see the world, moving to the city miles from home, and even smaller acts like going to the bank alone and managing your own finances. And some, the last category of bravery, are ones that would alter your lives wonderfully in ways you could never expect for yourself. This bravery requires you stepping out of your comfort zone and into a world unbeknownst to you. They could be as big as making life choices different from the norm that surrounds you, or as subtle as having faith in someone else or something else. As you moght've guessed, only the ones with a good pair would usually ever take up these sorts of bravery. Metaphorically speaking. I have always found that bravery is essential to my attraction towards people. I am attracted to befriend strong women who show gusto about ploughing through challenges in life with a steady bravery. Unknown people on social media who are living a life I could only fantasize – leaving everything they ever knew and going on a journey to find themselves. And of course, men who are self-assured and brave enough to make their own life choices despite fitting in or not. Sometimes I would lose sight of my bravery. This could be due to a number of things – past falls, the fear of being let down, intimidation of being different, or another world I am not familiar with. Whatever the reason is, I would divert my thoughts to that girl in preschool who cut her eye and got spanked just so that she could see the view. It reminds me that falling or stumbling will always be the part and parcel of being brave, but it would always be worth it in the end. Women are batshit crazy.
And I will not disagree with that notion. It’s the overflowing of hormones, which are a blessing as much as it is a curse. It’s because of the female neurological imprint that makes us care too much sometimes, which can be just as good as it is bad. It’s good because we all know this brand of female affection is what makes the world a more nurturing place, but it’s also bad because it’s the same stuff that makes us paranoid over whether our guy is actually reading the news on the phone or texting some other girl with legs that go for miles long and looks like Megan Fox. It’s wonderful being a woman. But it’s horrific too. Remember that girl we saw on TV or heard our girlfriends talk about? That girl who is insecure, paranoid and over-analytical? Yeah. ‘That’ girl. ‘That’ girl we scoff at and vow to never become. Unfortunately, there have been times where I suddenly came to a sinking realisation that I was being just that. Eventually, I have learned that all women have that side of us, no matter how small – it is either we manage to keep it calm and suppressed, or we let it go rampage. I wish I could tell you that there is such a woman who is always zen, bares zero effect of monthly hormonal changes or does not let her mind wander to great depths of the ocean. But alas, after five years of being in an all girls’ school, having 95% of my friends being female and sitting for weekly womanly talks with other women, I can sadly confirm that no such female being exists. I sometimes get a little disappointed with myself too. Even after consciously making an effort to control it, reading self-help books on how to emotionally improve as a woman and making a mental note on how I should not behave, I still slip once in a while. Before I knew it I was doing that thing where I was expecting people to read my mind and say exactly what I wish they would say (and become disappointed when they don’t). In the midst of trying to be cool, I find myself becoming jealous. While attempting to be nonchalant, I managed to come up with the worst scenarios of things. Eventually it becomes more evident that being frustrated over not becoming the ‘perfect’ woman is a pointless battle. Like every other creation, none of us are perfect. We value men for their much more collected ways in dealing with the same emotional spasms, but at the same time recognising that the male nature too has other downsides. I am slowly learning to cut myself some slack whenever I recognise that my behaviour is reflecting this ‘craziness’, and fortunately I have noticed that as you grow older, you will have better control and rationalism over it. Over time you would learn to appreciate these traits and see them as privileges. There is a dark side to it for sure, but with growing up you will learn to control and coexist with them. And like all privileges, there is always a choice to use it for the better, for yourself and the people you treasure. What a month. Really. What a month. Someday when I am old and toothless, I would think of my career and this month would probably be one that flashes (after I try to recall my own name). Like I’ve said before, it’s funny how you think a job is just a job, until you find out it isn’t. Earlier in April saw a huge shift in the company I’m working in, with a large slash of employees due to the current state of oil economics. The dreaded letters came in from HR and the effects were almost instant – some people cried, some people were speechless, some people packed immediately and left, some people were silently relieved, and some even accepted their fate with a lot less poise.
It was also a humbling experience watching people walk away from their jobs. Some took it worse than others, and I was in a strange position of feeling grateful I could stay, but feeling sorry to those who did not get to. It was a slap to the face to realize that a job is just like a lot of everything else in this life – completely and utterly fluid. A job, just like a lot of everything else in this life, is in fact fluid and could change in an instant. One day you’re sitting comfortably at your work desk, and the next day you’re no longer required to punch the card. One day you’re on top of a hill and everything in life is going great, and the next day you’re in the ditches, wondering how everything went south so fast. One day you have parents, and the next day you don’t anymore. One day you’re inspired, and the next day it feels bleak and demotivating. One day a man is a prominent character to you, and the next day he becomes a stranger. The list is endless. The larger parts of causes for despair often root from failure to accept this very nature of the things we experience in life. A good friend of mine lost her father by surprise, much too soon than anybody would’ve expected. They had a close bond, and I braced myself to witness the after-effects it would have on her after he passed. At around the same time she was also studying for exams, and was broken up with a boy. In my head I could clearly imagine my own self handling this situation, which would probably heavily involve a long period of cat-murdering, pot-smoking, life-resenting depression. Okay I hope I wouldn’t do that, but you get the picture. But of course she didn’t do these things. She was sad for a considerable amount of time, but never taking it too far. I suppose my point here is that we all experience the same emotions – sad, happy, elated, in love, disappointment, loss. But often what makes a huge difference on the impact it has on our lives is how much we’ve accepted the fact everything goes away eventually. It is never about clutching onto them eternally for dear life. It is always about enjoying them while they last. This is a popular concept, well-understood and agreed by the most of us, but so darn hard to actually apply in real life. A part of your brain knows this is true, but the other part of it just couldn’t help being drawn and sucked into this swirling mix of over-attachments and leeching onto things that are just as flawed as we are ourselves. As a person who relies on work as one of the very few aspects of my life that are actually stable, this whole episode reminded me how nothing in life stays as deep black holes nor rainbows forever. And expecting them to remain that way means you have missed the entire point. It has been wired into us that we should never ever give up. Ever. We should never give up until the end (I’m sure this comes from a song lyric somewhere). Whatever it is that we are striving for, giving up is for losers. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Resilience will prevail.
These generic advice are poison. For the most part of our lives, these motivations are true and have been proven by so many success stories of people who went through hell and back to achieve something and never gave up. It stops people committing suicide, it cheers people on to make it in life, it helps implant positivity in people with illnesses to heal themselves, and it pushes forward broken hearts to get out there again. But at the same time, this idea can be easily manipulated into the specifics in life that it becomes almost dangerous. To simplify, sometimes we really should give up. I know a couple who has been trying to have kids naturally for years and years now, and although doctors have advised that it was near impossible for them to conceive naturally they have not given up on that idea yet. Which is great, except they are also miserable and desperately wanted children. Not giving up on this hinders them from considering other options to have children that could be just as wonderful but not necessarily their initial picture of what it would be like. There is a guy I know who refused to look at other options to make a means of himself other than dreams of becoming an artist and as a result, his wife and kids suffer. And I could easily point out a girl who is in a dead-end relationship with a man, unhappy but adamant to not give up in this emotional investment. I too am as guilty as charged in this subject matter. The go-getter attitude has been instilled in me by my environment from an early age, and as a result I become almost obsessed with the idea that every single little thing I want in life should be fought tooth and nail for until it is mine. I just couldn’t quit. Which sounds amazing in theory. But what it does in my real life is that in many ways, it stops me from moving forward and it hinders my vision outside of what I think I want. I stressed myself into thinking that my current job is the only job I would be best at, and as a result I could not bring myself to explore other things out there that might be just as interesting. I resiliently loved people who did not love me back, and as a result, I did not move on. I hold on to expired dreams because I could not bring myself to admit that not all dreams are actually applicable in reality. Giving up is a delicate subject. It should be under no circumstance applied in some policies in your life, as it is scientifically and spiritually proven that resilience is effective, causes positive changes and defeats impossibilities. That being said, sometimes giving up is a possible option that can create miracles too. Giving up on the idea of ever looking like a Victoria’s Secret model (there are no Korean surgeries that can substantially add body height) made me much happier in my own skin. Giving up an initial plan of living a certain lifestyle can open up doors to many other wonderful options we never knew existed. Giving up on a pointless relationship will allow others to give you what you actually deserve. The trick, I suppose, is to know the fine line between when to soldier on and when to respectfully abort the mission. It is a large part of making the right/wrong moves in life, therefore always remaining a subject of eternal perplexity for all of us, wherever we’re from and however different our lives are from each other. Good luck in giving up! Did you realize that these days you have fewer friends than you used to? Think about it. I’m not talking about acquaintances or the number of people you know – obviously these will only logically increase with your number of years. I’m talking about real friends, those whom you deem close to you and who you are emotionally attached to. And while we’re on that subject, did you also notice that you seem to care less about a lot of things you used to give a hoot about?
I used to find myself in events and social gathering that I would dread having to go to now. Thank God people gather less these days. I used to totter around with heels so uncomfortable my toes went numb. It was fun then but now I wear sensible work girl shoes. I used to enjoy having friends with questionable ethics doing borderline illegal stuff, but these days I'm a concerned citizen with a pepper spray. I used to worry a lot about family members/friends who struggle with issues, but now I have learned to be selective about them - some are worth everything and some are worth very little. Whether we notice it or not, as we move past our phases in life we also drop and leave behind things and people that we no longer require. We don’t announce the end of friendships, but most will just fizzle away with the tide of an old lifestyle, as we start growing towards different personal directions. We don't publicly declare a 'type', but we slowly find ourselves attracted to only a group of certain people now. Subconsciously our minds are also built with a certain emotional threshold. Suddenly a lifelong family or relationship issue that seem to bog us all these while will come to a screeching halt and we find ourselves not slaving our energies to it any longer. Sometimes, the actions are deliberate. We soberly and consciously make the decision to quit a relationship, a lifestyle or an ambition simply because it doesn’t fit us anymore. These are the hardest ones to do. To say goodbye to something familiar, to bid farewell to someone because he/she is no longer contributing to our happiness and to leave a life we knew so well because it is no longer making us contempt is a difficult feat. When I decided to stop taking sugared drinks seven years ago, it was sad because I really loved Coke. But it was necessary and I had to do it, and these days I don’t even like sweet beverages at all. Okay, maybe my example is not that profound, but you get the idea. Over the years I had gone through many goodbyes. Some were unnoticed until they were gone, some were forced on me and some were choices I had to make to ensure I am better off, hopefully. I had to leave some parts of my lifestyle that I felt was not doing much for me anymore, and some relationships with friends and relatives fizzle off due to, well, life. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe in cutting ties. I think it’s unhealthy to pretend that some things doesn’t exist when it does, or not acknowledging knowing someone whom you were obviously destined to have met in life. Rather, I believe in letting go. Letting go means you appreciate what has happened but are parking it in a slot in your mind where it will remain static – you will no longer progress to spend much time on it for now. Letting go of something also means that you’re allowed to visit its memories once in a while. There is comfort in realizing that if you hadn’t known somebody or lived a certain life in the past, you would’ve never had these set of circumstances that ended you where you are today, with the things that you do have and the lessons you have learned. Some things are not good for you now but were so good back then while it lasted. It is not wrong to reminisce or even miss them a little. Sometimes I think about those days I went out all night and swam in the ocean at 4 am and I am filled with jealousy of the old me. But then the clock strikes 11 pm and I get a headache and I’m so glad I’m in my warm bed with iFlix instead because honey, this is my idea of a good night these days and there ain’t nothing wrong with that either. On the fourth day of 2016, I was back in my office and the excitement of the New Year have calmed down (not really. I found myself still gleefully wishing ‘Happy New Yearrr!’ to random strangers I met at the lift). I was talking to a friend when he dropped the revelation bomb.
“Do you realise that we’ll be 30 before we know it?” (Yes, and it physically hurts my gut) “If we live to be 60, which is the average statistical number of years people currently live, that means we have lived almost half our lives! Have you done anything significant?” And with that, my 2016 hurrah fell splat on the floor and died. As he went on about his goals of being a millionaire (okay maybe he didn’t say exactly that, but that was the gist I got), my mind had already wandered off somewhere else. The state of panic had caused my brain to immediately do a quick flash back on my highlights of the past 10 years. Strangely enough, instead of the big, ‘significant’, recognisable things that happened to me, my mind seemed to be flashing random images of mundane life incidents. Like that time I was on the bus on the way to work because I haven’t bought a car. Or the time I watched a starry sky on a shipdeck after being stranded there for three weeks for work. My first night in my new, empty apartment and I was excited about it. People. Lots and lots of images of people who came, then stayed or left but made a difference anyway. Beautiful quiet Sunday mornings at home with brunch. Laughing with friends. Laughing with my Mom. Chasing a train somewhere in Vietnam. Crying at movies. Crying at boys. Jumping off a jetty into the sea at sunset. Flying a kite. Eating fois gras and discovering that it’s overrated. Writing at my favourite spot by the window. My mind doesn't seem to flag some of the bigger things that I had done or seen. It missed out graduation. Or getting highest in class for a subject. Buying designer bags. Buying a car. Working. People whom I thought did me wrong. Extravagant weddings. Pretentious parties. As much as some of these things are important, standard milestones, it doesn't seem to feel that they had a significant impact on my hard drive memory. There is always a pressure to fulfil our lives with generic goals that the environment around us seem to have set for everybody. Unfortunately, more often than not these have the least impact on our personal self-growth. I am not all saying that getting job isn’t important, or that owning property isn’t momentous. In fact, that may very well be the case for some of us. My point here is that what is significant for you may not necessarily be the same as what is significant to other people, and vice versa. Your idea of a life well lived isn’t always the same as your friends or what your parents have envisioned for you. I have a friend whose vision of a great life is having lots of kids and they all gather around for Raya every year. On the contrary, I also know someone who quit her job to focus on being a photographer, is still currently struggling to get her work recognised but is embracing her current lifestyle because it is what she has always aspired to be. Unfortunately a lot of us (read: myself included sometimes) tend to conclude that what’s different from the norm is often ‘sad’. Which makes us the sad ones, really. So when the question arose about whether I have done anything significant, I was more concerned if I had spent the past thirty years living someone else’s life. Did I do the things I wanted to do? Did I live the way I wanted to live, however weird, odd and perplexing the choices may see from the outside? Did I pay attention to the little details that make up to the sum of a wonderful, adventurous life? “So, are you where you thought you’d be by now?” the friend asked. I sighed. I am so glad the answer wasn’t no. So to answer the guy’s mother’s question; what am I waiting for?
Truth be told, I don’t think I am waiting around for anything really. I am just merely moving forward with my life with a profound trust that everything will happen the way it is supposed to be. Do I want to grow up and grow old with someone someday? Of course. John Mayer once sang that ‘it is such a waste to grow up lonely’. And I agree. It seems that he too faces the same predicament. But am I going to sit around and deem my life incomplete until that happens? What a preposterous way to live. Every second in your life is invaluable, whether it's with or without someone. The mistake that most of us make is trying to prove that we’re happy to other people. Trust me, I myself have done that a few times in the past. Especially if you’re single, you tend to feel the need to prove to others that you are just fine. And you can see enough of this on social media. The hashtags ‘#idontneedaman’, ‘#singleandhappy’ or ‘#independantwoman’ are pretty appalling if you ask me. Don’t get me wrong. I am all for being your own woman and such. But having to shout it out aloud just proves how unconvinced you are yourself towards the whole concept. It is observable that be content with life, you must first and foremost forget about trying to prove people wrong. I used to think about what people might think of me as I hauled a ten-foot mirror out of IKEA alone while everyone else seemed to be helped out by their own respective partners. I also cringed when I wondered how I must seem walking into of the movies alone at the theatre near my house. The truth was, I actually enjoyed doing these things alone, and yet worrying about how I might be perceived always ruins it. One day there might be a time when I can no longer afford a lot of time by myself, so I intend to enjoy it as much as possible. On a different perspective, if I am destined to have to do a lot of things on my own for the most part of my life, it is even more essential to learn to like my own company. I am proud of the fact that I am independent, that I know how plumbing works and what to ask my electrician, how to pay my bills and when to check my car. My parents raised me to be self-sufficient. A man should be cherished for his companionship in life, not so that he could solve all my problems. If I had found someone too soon in my life, perhaps I would have never learned all these valuable lessons. Mind you, I could easily recall a few married girlfriends who would sooner know nothing than what to do in an event where the water tap bursts. But of course, as human beings go, there are times when I went to panic mode. There was a scene in ‘Sex and the City’ where Miranda, one of the main characters of the show who was single at the time, choked on her own food while alone in her apartment. She revived herself, but then went on a paranoid rant on how she would probably end up dead, alone in her apartment while her cat eats her dead face. I have those panicky moments too. As a precaution I have learned to eat slowly and carefully. I also don't own a cat. On the contrary, I once heard a friend say that she has not had time alone to think for a year, with three children and a husband. So you see, it is perfectly normal to want things from the other side where the grass always seem greener. One day, I was trying to put together a table that I bought from IKEA. I had never assembled a furniture by myself before. As I was sweating profusely while managing the little tools my Dad got me in a toolbox, a thought suddenly occurred that it would have been so nice to have someone to help me with it. But there wasn't anyone. My parents lived miles away, my friends were unavailable and I was not seeing anyone special at the time. I sat on the floor and stared at the pile of wood panels, feeling sorry for myself. I even aborted my construction for a couple of hours. Eventually I got over it and carried on. It turned out to be one of those prominent moments in my life, looking at the fine desk I have assembled all on my own. It was a validation I needed that I was adequate. As much as I look forward to what may happen, I was just as happy with everything in my life so far. And for me, that is the essence one should ever need to keep in mind to ensure you enjoy your life being single. |
archives
January 2023
Categories
All
https:/
/www.bootsoverbooks.com/
|