aT OdDs

I am caught in a very strange situation.

While everyone else I know is complaining about the lack of time to do what they want to do, I am faced with the prospect of having too much time on my hands for the next two weeks. So much time I don’t know what to do with myself, apart from being bored out of my mind. I never knew I’d say this but I wish time would move a little faster, at least for the next 14 days.

While everyone else I know needs sleep badly after they’ve worked hard, I am feeling tired without having done anything. I am so sleepy just sitting here doing nothing I am surprised inertia takes so much out of me. Whatever is the opposite of insomnia, I think I have it. It is a real challenge to get past the 3 o’clock drowse hour.

Going one step forward and two steps back. Or something like that.
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i WisH

I wish reality could be kinder to me. Even if a little bit.

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thErE & NoT TheRE

It’s weird how fast some people can just disappear from your life. As if they were never there in the first place. And as your memory fades, you begin to wonder whether you made it all up or whether those interactions really took place.

Sometimes though, the more you try to force yourself to forget a certain person, the more you remember. And for some strange reason, everywhere you turn you see little reminders that make you think of them again.

I long for peace, in the ruckus of my unquiet mind.
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aGe

I have always been quite comfortable with my self, despite the constant chattering in my head. I suspect it’s an age thing. The older I grow, the more I can tolerate myself. I can sit alone for hours, caught up in my own thoughts or just generally watching the world go by. Guess I’m lucky in that sense. Or maybe, I’m just awkward with people.

A lot of things change when one grows older, as I’m slowly coming to realise. And it’s not just physical changes, like love handles or wrinkles that won’t go away. It affects my head too. My mind is filled with so many worries about not being able to fit into student life again. Of course, it didn’t help when I discovered at enrolment today that my undergraduate academic transcript is no longer valid as a proof of identification as it is more than 10 years old (but my credit card is totally acceptable).

So yes, even as I look forward to the start of school, my enthusiasm is tempered with caution. Because the fire of passion in me now glows rather than flames.

It is not impossible to teach an old dog new tricks, perhaps it just takes longer.
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aLL gRowN Up

I had my last farewell lunch today with my best friend from high school, ending a 3-week run of gatherings and goodbyes. Like I said, I have accumulated a lot of ties, both human and emotional, over the last 10 years. And I am unable to just turn and walk away. It is not in my character to do so. Sentimentality is my middle name.

Packing, has taken on manic proportions. All around me, I stare at the spoils of my many many many, way-too-many shopping trips over the years. And I feel bad, for indulging in the commercialism that I so righteously claim to want to rid the world of. At least, I don’t remember having to deal with the problem of surplus (glut) when I left for university 14 years ago.

So after all this, I just want to tell him that the baby elephant has grown up and broken free of her chains.

And he looked pleased.
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My muSe

My muse has two incarnations. One yin, one yang. One female, one male. One bright, one dark. Polar opposites.

I know not when they came into my life. They just crept in one day, without cymbals and fanfare. I discovered Mr. D first, entirely by chance. Then, I became acquainted with Ms. M all too soon. And that moment of acknowledgement brought about great turmoil, as well as a strange sense of peace.

I draw a lot of strength from my muse. For they speak the internal dialogue that accompanies me in my daily life and living. With my muse, I have travelled to the highest mountains, and descended into the deepest valleys. In our 3-dimensional world, they occupy the 4th dimension. Seemingly there, and yet not there.

These days, it is getting more and more difficult to summon my muse. It is as if a light switched off somewhere, and they went into hiding. I don’t know what to do to bring the pair back, except that the road surely leads to madness.

They say you should never name your muse.
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mY BesT fRieND

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BiRds

I am watching two birds perched on the window ledge opposite mine. Chattering. One struts back and forth, looking busy. The other stands stock still, looking resigned. They look like little mechanical toys from this distance.

I remember, back in high school, we had an audition for a musical. The coveted role was that of the bird. And our dance teacher gave us specific instructions to study birds carefully, so that we could mimic its actions.

I remember, standing at the bus stop, staring at a little sparrow. The way it thrust its chest forward, the way it moved its head quizzically, the way it hopped from one spot to the next – I was completely mesmerized. I am almost sure we swopped our souls for that moment.

The auditions came and went. The grace and dexterity of being a bird eluded me. I was cast in the role of a rabbit instead.

But I will always remember that day, standing at the bus stop, looking at the little sparrow, and seeing myself fly.
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fORevEr

In the grand scheme of things, I need to know where I stand.
In the stories that life brings, I need to know the beginning and the end.

I need someone who can read the lines on my hands and the creases on my face.
I need someone who can be my friend together in the safe place.

Who can be my friend?
Who can be with me till world’s end?

Maybe my assumptions have been wrong.
Maybe I’ve been playing the wrong track, the wrong song.

I once believed in eternity.
In everlasting love, in you and me.

Forever is an illusion.
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fRenZY

There I sat, willing it to appear. My mind kept sending up prayers, while my eyes stay trained at the number counter. Every few seconds, I would look at it compulsively; checking, double-checking, and re-checking. All I needed was for it to move from zero to one.

I am waiting for something. It should be here. But it hasn’t arrived. And I am worried/ distraught/ panicking/ terrified. What happened?

A hundred and one scenarios run through my head, all of them unpleasant. It’s like my brain is hard-wired to think of the worst in every situation. Lost along the way? An injury? An accident? A death?

It takes little to send my mind into a frenzy.
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DisApPOintED

I don’t deal well with disappointments. I take it as a personal affront to me, to my being. Even if it wasn’t meant to be that way. Perhaps I read too much into things. Perhaps I harbour unrealistic expectations. Or perhaps I am blind-sided by my own pride, believing that the world revolves around me and only me.

Take for example having my dinner plans cancelled. The fact that my friend has urgent work to attend to does not seem to matter to me. We had made a mutual agreement to meet, so it baffles me when it has to be called off. Perhaps I have a lot to learn in graciousness and forgiving. Or perhaps I should just hang loose and chill out.

Do not lie to me. It hurts.
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cURioSiTy ThRew A fiT

For some reason(s) which I don’t remember, I am extremely curious to find out how the interior of an ambulance looks. Like little boys and their fascination with fire engines.

Unfortunately, the only time I was in an ambulance, I was unconscious. I had thrown a fit, literally.

One moment I was in a meeting talking to my colleagues, the next I woke to a throbbing headache, someone shining a bright point of light into my eye, and a thin transparent tube with a needle at one end jabbed into the back of my hand. That someone kept asking me for my name and whether I knew where I was (presumably to check if I was disoriented, which I was, terribly disoriented).

My memories of those two days in the hospital are very very vague. What little I know is gathered from various eye-witness accounts which I have pieced together to try to make a coherent narrative. And even that is sketchy at best.

The story goes that I had seizures while in office and had to be carted off to the emergency department in an ambulance, where I was made to stay overnight for observation, and whisked away for CT scan and MRI and blood tests. All of which were inconclusive, so I was released home the next day.

I remember sustaining bruises from my fall (as well as during my transfer from office to ambulance). I remember my shock as I woke up to discover that someone had changed me into the hospital get-up without my knowing it, wondering if my modesty had been outraged(?). I also remember sleeping a lot, and still feeling extremely tired (wondering if the exertion of seizing had exhausted me?).

But what I remember most is the awkwardness of having a gap in my memory. That chunks of time had been stolen from me. That there was (and still is) a discontinuity, a disjoint in my being. It’s strange actually, because we lose consciousness while we sleep too, yet there isn’t the sense of having “lost” something. Is it because we can consciously choose to be unconscious that renders sleep non-threatening? Is it the lack of control, the lack of predictability we have over fits that make them scary?

For a while now, I have been a little worried that one day I might fall down somewhere and start seizing, or I might start seizing and fall down somewhere. If that happens, catch my head and turn me over on my side.

Thank you.
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NoW

I have been waiting, for a long time coming. Waiting for some word or sign, from you. I anxiously look behind me, wondering if I might have missed it. I nervously peer into the future, wondering if it might be too late.

When I realise, all we have is now.
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