This post was actually written a few months ago. I forgot to post it and now I feel like I owe it a publish. I found myself in a place I had been before, one too many times. I was once again the girl who stood in the middle of the dark street, with memories of someone else put in a box, and I carry that box home with me again, alone. These sort of things have happened to me before, some being just mere shrugs of not very significant encounters, and some as let-downs that would last for a few weeks. But this? A few weeks will not cut it.
I hate telling people to move on. Nor do I like being told to move on. What I had come to realize is that a relationship is about two people – only the two of you will ever know the complexities, the depths and the death of your companionship. No one else will ever completely understand it. Therefore listening to what people say you should do is like Kim K telling Kanye West how to make an album. It is with good intent, but it will never completely fit the bill. All you have is your head and your gut. After all is said and done, many of us end up being in a limbo of emotions. Some days we feel glad that what was not meant to be is now over. Some days, unfortunately, we find ourselves pining over the loss of a soul who used to be someone important in the story of our lives. It is despairing when someone who used to be a part of our memories become a memory themselves. I would find myself to feel like I had somehow fallen down into a deep dark hole, with the pieces scattered around me on the floor. Somehow, I would have to pick them up and learn to assemble them again, albeit broken and a bit bent, and then climb out of that dark hole by myself. The sad truth about this hole is that nobody can pull us out of it except ourselves. We may have friends and loved ones who would cheer us on to keep climbing out, but it will all need our own doing. Not family, not friends, not even another boy. A lot of people say that you know you have moved on when you find another. This could not be more wrong. I am not a fan of the ‘rebound’ concept. It is not an excuse to delude yourself with other people as a compensation for your own sadness. The real way to know you’re moving on is when you wake up one day and realize that you can think about the past without being emotionally affected by it. With or without someone new. As you successfully make your way out of this weird, dark hole, the real journey begins. I know people who bounces back as fast as a silly putty, and before you know it off they go again, without much of a pause to reflect on how things have unfolded themselves. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) I am not one of those. As much as I try I always end up preferring to sit in my puddle of thoughts, dwelling on lost words and broken promises, feeling like I deserve to do what I want despite what Dr Phil would tell me. I start picking up the bricks again, putting them up one by one until they once again become that wall I had once smashed to the ground in the spirit of trust. Then I remain aloof towards anyone new, because bitterness is an anxious old man. He cringes at the sight of a possible future repeat of the same hurt. I was watching The Walking Dead all last weekend. There was a character who was dying, and as she was in her final moments she told another character, “Someday this pain will be useful to you”. I think she was talking about being eaten by a zombie, but whatever. You catch my drift, right? Because someday, this pain will be useful to me. I’m sitting here on a particular Sunday morning, enjoying a slice of pear tart that just came out of the oven, watching the cloudy sky outside from the comfort of my home desk. Sometimes random memories would gauge me in the early morning hours, and today it is one that I had a couple of weeks back at the office with a male colleague.
This male colleague, I must first press, is a catch. He was one of those nice guys with an even nicer smile, and he was seeing a lovely girl whom he knew way back when in college but has just started dating. In short, he was the sort of guy who could’ve just ventured out there and become a hot commodity. But instead, we had a conversation about the idea of ‘settling’ or to ‘make do’, which I strongly suspected was based on his current situation. This subject is one that have left me stirred countless times. How do you know if the one is The One, and at which point do you settle? In fact, this subject bothered me so much that I went to the extent of interviewing all of my happily (and unhappily) married girlfriends, in an attempt to better understand this idea. Of course, whenever you’re in love you will tend to think that the person is The One, until he isn’t. Or perhaps it is just a mediocre relationship where everything is stable but not necessarily mind-blowing – is this the part where we settle? What I ended up with was a string of answers, which to be frank didn’t help me much. I have a girlfriend who swore it was love at first sight for her, seeing her now-husband from across the room and nothing was ever the same again (we’re jealous of her). There is also one girlfriend who got married after six years of courtship, anchoring on the fact that they’ve been together for so long and would probably never find someone else better. And one other girlfriend was an expression of true bravery. After years of searching and not finding what she was looking for, she settled with a decent man that she was set up with by her relatives. No butterflies, no jitters, nothing. But now it’s a year later and I swear she has never seemed happier. Like this male colleague of mine would eventually emphasise, are the butterflies-in-the-stomach overrated? Perhaps it is not necessarily what everyone would experience when finding The One. Perhaps instead of focusing on the euphoria of love, one should find goodness wherever they can, and accept that love isn’t necessarily manifested in the feelings of your feet not touching the ground, the excitement to the point of sleeplessness, nor the jitters whenever you see each other’s faces. Perhaps. This male colleague seems to have a fair point. I thought about this for a while. It is true that some people find happiness through ‘settling’, and by that I do not at all mean making do with someone who is below your sub-standards. Rather, there are people who chose to proceed with having faith that good is enough, and find peace in life liking each other and being nice to each other. Some people are even lucky enough as to find that through this, they eventually fall in love and the rest are fireworks. That’s really great. Really. But this morning, as I sat here through my half eaten dessert, I recall the times I fell in love, and then the times where I tried to somehow force myself to fancy somebody, out of the pressures of people, or even out of the pressures I gave myself as a result of self-assessing that I was probably being choosy. And what I recalled was this; those butterflies-in-the-stomach? That can’t-live-without-you kind of love? Those moments where everything dissolves around you except for yourself and the one you’re fond of? I live for that kind of stuff! It is a beautiful feeling, the sort that leaves me feeling as though all those years that weighed me down with age doesn’t seem to matter anymore. In fact, I couldn’t imagine anything else for myself except for that kind of stuff. So by the end of this little research I did, I came up with two conclusions. First, companionship comes in a variety of ways. One is not better than the other, whether it’s voluntary love or something that evolves as a result of trial. Second, if one has a clear conscience of which route he/she is to take, so be it. Whether it is to settle or to keep finding those butterflies, one should be brave to get out there and find whatever it is that one is searching for. Even if it can sometimes seem a bit bleak, like this morning sky I’m looking at. But as always, grey skies never last forever. Today is John Mayer Appreciation day (I made that up). In conjunction with that, I will be listing down lines from his songs to prove to you that he does, in fact, break into my house in the middle of the night to steal my journal and wrote songs with it
1. “Just when I had you off my head,Your voice comes thrashing wildly, Through my quiet bed.” – All We Ever Do is Say Goodbye That roller coaster ride of emotions Post-breakup. One moment we think we’re okay, and it takes just one small jolt of memories or random thought to bring us ten step backwards again. You see an ice cream truck and you recall that nice ice cream date you had. You see a random guy wearing the same shirt your ex had and now you want to beat that guy up. You accidentally come across your old texts and you feel like flushing your phone down the toilet. The song is pretty much my soundtrack for an on/off relationship, and I used to listen to it repeatedly while eating chocolates and shouting ‘Liar!!’ when watching rom-coms. 2. "Don't know how else to say it, Don’t want to see my parents go.” – Stop This Train At the start of adulthood, a lot of us are a bit overwhelmed by the truths of growing up. This particular song pretty much captures most of my own angst; everything moving so fast, realizing you have aged, the possibility of parents dying someday. See? John have the same fears we do! *tear* 3. "Give your heart then change your mind, You’re allowed to do it.” – The Age of Worry You will have episodes where you will change your mind about what you want, your aspirations and your tastes. And sometimes it will be at a cost of hurting people. Sadly, sometimes it is inevitable. 4. "Some days I think it's all okay, Some nights I throw it all away.” – Lost at Sea Great song to be enlisted in the PMS playlist. Otherwise, it’s a song about not necessary knowing what the heck you’re doing most of the time, and having moments where you’re not certain of the decisions you’ve made. But no matter. The end of the song says ‘I will be found’. That could mean you’ll be found by a significant other, or the suicide squad. 5. "Still have dreams, They’re not the same, They don’t fly as high as they used to.” – Born and Raised When we’re younger we dream bigger. There are a lot more flexibility and less limitations on what we could dream of for ourselves. But as you grow older, the sad fact is that some dreams become almost impossible to achieve, or nonsensical to our current life positions and commitments. For example, my youthful ambition of becoming a bug scientist is slowly taking a back seat. 6. "Cos I'd die if I saw you, I’d die if I didn’t see you there.” – Atmosphere Urgh. Too relatable. You know that feeling when you’re not completely over someone yet, and when you think about it you’d love nothing more than to see them, but if you do, you might throw up? My goodness. I read somewhere that this song was written for Jennifer Aniston. Poor girl. 7. "Gravity, is working against me." - Gravity. Honestly, I love the guitar more than the lyrics. Perhaps my favorite guitar song ever since I first heard it. Compulsory to be included in every playlist ever created for my road trips. It’s a simple, honest testament to the hardships in life. My Dad loves this song too. 8. "My dear, We’re slow dancing in a burning room.” – Slow Dancing in a Burning Room No, it’s not a song about two people dying in a stupid attempt to dance in a middle of a burning house. Rather, it’s a metaphor of a slowly dying relationship, and inevitable no matter how hard two people worked on it. 9. "Who says I can't get stoned?" - Who says I can't get stoned An ode to growing up. I really don’t smoke pot, but in a way it’s a relatable song about sometimes trying to convince yourself that you’re still young like you used to be, and still capable of having some good fun and being silly. 10. "There I just said it, I’m scared you’ll forget about me.” – Edge of Desire I love this. It’s a recurring theme in my record of thoughts, and I’m sure for a lot of us as well. There is always this fear of being forgotten, as the days end and as people pass through our lives. We rarely ever say it out loud because our egos will never let us do it, but it is always sad to feel/know that you have been forgotten by people who you once deemed very important in your lives. In the wake of me being single again earlier this year, it was like a beacon of light that shone across the horizon to signal my family and friends that I was again ‘back on the rack’. Ending relationships always found me bruised and battered, slightly traumatized at the prospect of ever trying again, and frankly in a mood that resembles a closed-up clam. My friends, bless them, left me in my own bubble to recuperate and rejuvenate myself. However, there is a whole other group of noble people with good intentions who are just waiting to jump at the chance to match-make me. This group is called The Aunties. The Aunties is a group of select few that comprises of middle-aged women with grown children, with a wonderful sincere agenda that is to get you hitched and to get you hitched fast. Perhaps it came with the wonderful wisdom of age and being in marriages that lasted more than all of Madonna’s marriages put together. These Aunties never seem to run out of ‘potential’ candidates for you, and work tirelessly to ensure that you will be sitting in your wedding day with a fat smile on your face, because you can now be sure that you probably won’t end up being a 40 year-old singleton with 16 cats. Unfortunately, the hard part is always when the person that you are set up with is not quite up your alley. I find that disappointing these Aunties with news that it is never going to work out with your ‘potential’ mate is a much, much harder task then disappointing the men themselves. Don’t get me wrong, letting a man down if you don’t feel the same way is also hard in itself, but you know he will move on eventually and find happiness with someone he is meant to be with. However, to actually tell the Aunties that you disagree with their choice of men for you is a much more daunting task. Especially if there is much hope from them that their hard-work and efforts will pay off. I recently had an experience of being set up by some lovely Aunties with a nice boy. After a long thought I finally decided to just meet the boy to satisfy everyone’s demands to ‘just give it a chance’. I figured that if nothing else, I could at least make a new friend. But note to self and others – do not commit to such things if you are the only one with these kinds of expectations whereas the Aunties are already visualising you stepping down the wedding aisle. Half way through the date I had concluded two things. One, I was nowhere near a mind state where I wanted to be in a relationship again. Two, although he was a nice, decent human being, I felt no connection at all. Now usually, a first date would be a make or break situation, and if it doesn’t seem promising, well then tough luck and you’ll move on without hurting many people, if not at all. But here I found myself stuck in this dimension where I was going to let down two parties; the boy and the Aunties. Letting down Aunties felt like letting your mother down, in a way. The disappointment they felt killed me. It was like promising your parents you won’t fail in college but you did. Twice. So the lesson here is folks, when agreeing to such arrangements, know what you are getting yourself into and what you are prepared for. Otherwise, be warned that you might be struck by lightning for disappointing mothers (though not you own). The long distance relationship. We all know somebody who is in it, or we all at some point have experienced it ourselves. The symptoms are pretty common – panda eyes, phones that are permanently stuck in the hands, difficulty being in present reality, and excessive grinning while texting. But what are the real tolls of the LDR? Based on my extensive research, here are some common results and impact.
1. Night becomes day, day becomes night. Life happens during the day. This causes communication via technology to come to a screeching halt, what with work, meetings, talking to other normal real people, eating and driving. Night time is when you’ll have to make up for it, by talking for hours and hours. And let’s not even go into people who are in LDRs with a different time zone. That’s just brutal. 2. Goodbye sleep. That’s right. Remember those policies about getting at least four hours of sleep for human survival, or even eight hours to retain your beauty and health? Yeah throw that out the window. Apparently talking to your loved one over sleeping is the best choice you’ll ever make. Until the next day of course, when no amount of concealer can cover those hideous eye bags and you get on zombie mode at work. 3. Call the phone rehab centre. Phone addiction is real, y’all. If a person is in an LDR and the phone is accidentally left at home, trust me, he or she will climb mountains, push through herds of people at the subway, and sneak out commando style out of the office just to get back home and grab that phone. Phone failure will cause severe hand trembling, disorientation in thoughts and emotional instability. 4. There goes the savings. Long phone calls. Faster internet for Skyping. Visits. Surprise visits. Fun activities to make up for lost time. These are all wonderful things, but these wonderful things ain’t for free. It takes a bit of time to adjust with the fact that an LDR can sometimes be a bit costly. Goodbye new shoes, good chocolates and the spa. Come on, you can’t have it all! 5. You are society’s lunch. Sometimes you will be the person without a date to events if you spouse can’t make it back home. Sometimes people will quietly suspect that your spouse is just an imaginary one you created to shut people up from wondering why you’re single. Some days you think about how wonderful it would be if you don’t have to take a walk alone. These are the common challenges that one will face, but as a wise LDR expert once told me, the hardest things in life are often the best. It seems like I am listing a lot of downfalls here. I have always wondered why people do it if it seems really hard. But what I have failed to realise is that, it all comes down to the question of – is it worth it? The truth is, some people are worth little for, some people are worth some things for, and some people are worth everything for. If you’re clear about the choices you make and the consequences that come with them, chances are you will have little regret if it doesn’t turn out well and more regret if you didn’t even try. Haven't we all been this guy. Except maybe without the fancy painting. Lol. I have a friend who just broke up.
Well. Haven’t we all been there. But here’s what’s interesting; pretty much all of us have been there, but none of us can tell other people exactly how to go through it. It is a deep, dark hole, and how deep the hole is will depend on how strongly we felt about that significant other. If it was just a few dates that didn’t turn out well, maybe a weekend watching Friends will do. If it involves the guy, well draw down the curtains and alert Oprah. It’s going to be a long, winding road of emotional rehab. I did some research on the stages of grief. There are five, which are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. I tried applying this concept to my previous experiences, and they fit like a puzzle. Denial – I would associate this as the feeling of shock. Especially if you’re the one getting dumped. It doesn’t last very long, but most of the people I know exhibited the same symptoms; they would feel nothing, and try a lot of things to make it still work. But alas, like a really worn out car, sometimes it just can’t be fixed. Anger – Now this I can vividly recall. You can be the happiest person on the planet, but this phase will make you want to punch a baby. You’re angry at yourself for being a fool, you’re angry at the person who hurt you, and this is the time where people who give generic useless advice like ‘It’s going to be okay’ or ‘It’s all for the best’ makes you envision getting on a truck and running them over to death. I find that this part of recovery makes me the most irrational. I would be resentful with pretty much everything. Other happy people. That homeless guy who’s been sitting around the train station for years, but today it bothers you. Your boss who are nice are just too nice that you want to strangle him. That clock is ticking and oh my God why is it so loud that’s just annoying as shit. Bargaining – Strange hobbies or a change of lifestyle will surface, all in the spirit of compensating for what is lost. The brain doesn’t want to think about the sadness so it finds other ways to cope. I have a friend who took a month off work and traveled. Escapism is not a solution to life’s problems, but for this part of recovery it will do. I once picked up art and painting. I bought a sketch book, crayons and paint. I drew a single picture of a horse, which ended up looking like a mutated cow, and never touched it again. Once this phase passes, the revolting hobbies go with it too. Depression – This part requires only one word. Sadness. It is the pit of that deep dark hole. It isn’t a continuous feeling. Rather, it comes in waves. Some days you hardly ever think about it. Other days, you find yourself sitting there for hours and thinking about the past, why things happen the way they do and the what could’ve been-s. At this checkpoint, you can have the most amazing support system and still feel completely alone. I understand that in life, bad things happen and one day you’ll look back and this might even be amusing. I think most of us are rational enough to know that. But at this point, sometimes even the best of words can’t pick you up. It’s a sad part of your life, and you’re allowed to be. Acceptance – In a cartoon, this is where the light shone from the sky right onto your forehead. If you have a strong spiritual belief, you’ll get to this part quicker than others. Acceptance comes in many forms. Some people find that one day, they woke up in the morning and realized that they haven’t thought about it for weeks. Some of us would now want to give ourselves another go at it. The rest of us would accidentally meet that person in the middle of the road, and this time, we don’t feel like fainting/hiding behind the person walking in front/turning around and use the long way instead/having a cardiac arrest. Congratulations. You have climbed and crawled out of that hole, bruised and battered, but still in one piece. So you see, the process is the same for everyone, but the ways of going through it is never the same. Billions of people before you have gone through it, and you’d think there should be a really good manual out there somewhere by now. But nope, there isn’t. There is a friend who reads my blog from time to time, especially this column. He then proceeds to say, “Well you’re a Male-ogist, aren’t you?”
A Male-ogist. This suggests that I know a thing or two when it comes to guys. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Trust me, if I’ve figured out anything, I would gladly share it with everyone. But I haven’t. Even when my Mother keeps telling me that they’re really simple. If they say something, they mean it. There are no weird hidden messages. Yes means yes and no means no. If they’re not asking you out, then that is exactly what it is. My Mother makes it sound simplistic. And who knows? Maybe it really is as easy as that. But so far I have managed to over analyze, over compensate, hallucinate and self-convince myself when it comes to understanding them. It’s the girl in me. We have a tendency to do that. Take this scenario, for instance. My girlfriends and I are sitting down having dinner. Now in man’s world, that’s exactly what you’ll be doing. You’ll sit and have dinner, then maybe afterwards you’ll talk about sports and insult each other a little bit, then call it a night. But in a woman’s world, dinner is a top-secret therapy session, where secrets and details are laid out, and each of the women will take turns over analyzing them until the subject is exhausted (which is why I never really watch The View. That’s just us during lunch hour, recorded). I would imagine that if a man is to sit and observe, he would go home quite traumatized. Dinner has now become emotionally draining and psychologically demanding. Nobody would even remember what the salad tasted like. And even after all this, we’ll still end up having no clue what men are all about. Why do they say things and do another? Why don’t they call? How on earth could you tell if a guy is being nice because he’s being nice, or he’s being nice because he likes you? What does that text message mean? Why don’t they like to share feelings? Feelings feelings feelings. In a woman’s world everything revolves around feelings. When men don’t work the same way we get confused. And then we’ll keep talking about it all over. And over. And over again. I look at older women, like my Mother, and realize that her approach to this subject is quite mellow. I don’t think she understands it completely either, but I think with age, we will soon understand that some things are just not meant to be understood. Maybe that’s the whole wonderful mystery of it. I don’t know. Ask me again when I’m forty and writing a book on this. One fine boring day at the office, when my friends and I were mindlessly talking about mindless things, a slightly older, married colleague came to join our conversation, with a question on his mind. “Why do some women worship their fathers so much?”
Fathers. This is the first man who would ever matter to us. This is the first man who would be solely responsible for the way we would value the rest of the male species for the rest of our lives. I can only speak from my point of view, and of my own Father. My Father and I have a relationship that is not like the one in movies, where it is all idealistic. There are things we disagree about. Sometimes we argue, sometimes we have a good time, but now when I try to recall all of those many, many arguments (most of which happened when I was a teenager, of course), they all seem hilarious to me. My Father is not one who is vocal about his affection. He doesn’t send us cheesy text messages, he doesn’t make touchy speeches about his love, but he showed it through the subtle things that he does, which I have only now realized as I had gotten older. He never missed a recital, a stage performance, or a prize giving ceremony. Sometimes he forgets our birthdays, but he remembers the littlest details about us, like the position we liked to sleep in when we were babies, and our friends in primary school. These days, everytime I came back home to visit my parents, my Father would wash my car and check the engine. When he comes around my house he would fix things and mop the floor. We were a normal middle-class family, but growing up, my Father never made us feel inadequate. Although we lived in a small town not even recognizable in Google map, he never taught me to be a woman with a compressed mind. It’s becoming more clear to me too that whatever you’ve become, you owe some of the credits to your Father. My Father used to take us for roadtrips to the most boring of places, but when I recall them today, all I remember is the sheer excitement of a kid being taken to see things, even if it’s just another town in the same state. Because of that, traveling has now become one of the essential keys to my happiness as an adult. My Father has also never exemplified that money is a make or break for a good life, and to that I am thankful – these days I am the least fazed by it. Of course, I am by no means trying to worship my Father. He is after all, just a human. He has his flaws and imperfections, and although when I was little it seemed that he had the ability to shield me from everything, now, as a grown up, I saw that my Father is just like me, too, only older. There are some things in this world he can no longer save me from, and there are some problems in this life he can no longer fix for me. But that does not make him any less heroic to my eyes. Great fathers make the best of men. I wouldn’t say fairytales are completely lies. Yes, the part where all the princesses are always nice and pretty is a myth, of course. The scene where the evil witch is old and hideous is absolutely horrendous too (in real life, they can actually look like Megan Fox). But the part where the knight comes in and rescues the girl… well that’s absurd too, but I’ll have to say the concept is not too far off.
I saw an episode of Desperate Housewives and Susan Mayer said that “It is in a woman’s DNA to fall in love with guys who rescue us”. And she’s right. Women love being rescued. I learned this from my Mother, my sister, my girlfriends, and myself. Being ‘saved’, however, means differently to different people. A girl from a poor background feels ‘saved’ by a man with financial security. A girl from a broken family feels ‘saved’ by a man with emotional stability. A girl who’s just drifting about feels ‘saved’ by finding a man who has his feet firmly on the ground. We all want to be saved in a number of different ways. I had a friend who came from a broken home, went through a rough childhood and grew up to become a resentful woman. One day she met a guy who had the same difficult upbringing, and through time she said he saved her. You see, being rescued does not necessarily have to be done by a superior hero with the power to fix everything. In fact, it is a common mistake we girls like to make, so says my Mother. I noticed the truth of this as I went through the motions myself. Being saved can be as simple as meeting someone who seems to be figuring out things too, as you are. The knowledge of someone else who is in your shoes can sometimes feel like a great rescue. It signals that I am not alone in wandering about things and not always knowing what I’m doing. And being shown that you are not alone in this big scary world – is perhaps the most heroic gesture anyone can do. And it certainly beats the whole here-I-am-on-a-horse-with-a-giant-sword thing. That’s just too old school for me. The feeling of rejection is indescribable. Nobody likes it, not even George Clooney, so he dumps everyone before they even have the chance to do that to him. Being rejected feels like someone just came over and slapped your face with a trout, kicked you down the stairs into cow poop, pointed and laughed at you. With everybody else watching.
Rejection comes in many ways. Through a polite decline, a let down after a few dates, or a giant heart break after years and years of relationships. These are the small bricks that make a wall, and the wall has a name. It’s called the Fear of Getting Screwed Over. The Fear of Getting Screwed Over often becomes the only sole reason on why we will never take a leap of faith. Movies make it seem so simple. By the end of the plot, everything is said and done. Feelings are confessed at the airport or train station and they all live happily ever after. Sadly, in real life, The Fear of Getting Screwed Over will overwhelm us so badly that we end up never saying how we really feel, and as a result we let it marinate inside us until one day, it was time to move on. Did the Fear of Getting Screwed Over get to me? I’m sure it did, as for the most of us. I realized this as I find myself hesitating a lot nowadays, whereas years ago, when I was fresh into this crazy whirlpool of the relationship world, I was very keen on taking chances. Sometimes, even watching other people get screwed over is enough to create that fear in you. Guys I know tell me that the Fear of Getting Screwed Over scratches the ego pretty deep. Women I know would tell me that the Fear of Getting Screwed Over kills the bravery of ever making a move (and I would agree). Most of us have no problems encouraging other people to go on, but when it comes to our own selves, we chicken out. Come to think of it, like anything else in life, sometimes the only thing that’s standing between us and what we want is our own selves. We are what we have to beat. |
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