Restructure- on your own terms

I got awakened with a less than positive start. V texted me that she was feeling low again and she felt as if she is coming down from a super high… I am no better. Last night, I pushed the thought of leaving DL aside, fantasizing on Dr. Jekyll & Hyde instead. But it got me really down because I haven’t hear from him since I last texted him yesterday upon my return. So I felt like I was hitting a brick wall wherever I turned.

I woke up feeling totally n’en forme pas (is that right V?) and not looking forward to work. When I arrived at work, I received two personal emails. One from Josie who encouraged me to work hard and try to be happy with my life (On Sunday morning before we parted, he said that he would like to see me grow up the next time he comes Down Under to visit me) and the other from M. Yes, my M who is currently doing his Tibet/India travels.

M mentioned that he wouldn’t be in Hong Kong by the time I visit Macau in mid March. Funny, he was just thinking about me and my Singapore trip the other day, he said. He will fly off to UK early March and then onwards to Chile to hang out with his family. So there you go, I guess he wasn’t going to stopover in Sydney en route to Santiago after all. Well, just as well because again, I ask myself what’s the point?

I replied a cordial email and said that guess we are going to miss seeing each other again but never mind, I hope we would see each other again sometime this life.

No, I wasn’t being sarcastic but just stating the fact that I hope to see him again this lifetime. Just there, no imposition of a timeframe. I don’t know, it must’ve been my spiritual re-awakening during my time back home. I love this guy but I guess some things are just not meant to be and I think I am learning to let go…

I’m feeling weary from all the emotional burden that I shoulder, now it’s time that I focus on me…

I felt tears swelling up my eyes because I felt tired and sorry for myself. Not just him but my entire emotional being. I tried bracing myself to get on with work as I have loads to work on today- the usual mapping of teams and all. I am so sick and tired of making calls because I just have a terrible fear for phones and what my eyes cannot see.

Then before lunch, the boss summoned me to the room with the delivery of bonus news. I attempted to look happy and surprised by the amount (since I had privy knowledge since the start of the year) but her words of encouragement and appreciation did lightened me up. She said that I was holding the fort well and was really stepping up to the role. I took bold to request for what I have always hoped to achieve in my job scope and it was granted. She recognized that I needed to go further and challenged myself harder. So that was one big up for me to neutralize the early morning sub depression…

At least, work is always an aspect I would have control over.

You know what they say about women with emotional or family problems? They make the best workers…

****

Over dinner, I sat down to talk to the older sibling.

I told her I am tired. Tired in my relationship with DL.

But always, too many things would come to hold me back.

His love holds me back and drags me down. 6.5 years and less than a year into the relationship, the break up notion has already started to sow its seeds in my mental backyard. Over the years of accumulated trials and tribulations, it made the weaning off harder.

It wasn’t the length of time together but the intensity of the emotional, financial and physical struggle we had to go through together. It was us against the world and our survival instincts sharpened ten fold. Or was it just mine? DL still come out somewhat unscathed (with the exception of one major regrettable incident) while my protective and mothering nature must have scarred me so many times over as I have often single-handedly weather the storms and suffer the battering alone for us…

See, I have a need to win in life and so I charged on with ferocity when the going gets tough, like to prove a point. I am a true survivor, I was told. And I have a intensely protective instinct over the people that I care for.

So now I grow weary. Finally, my red letter day arrives. But I cannot seem to enjoy it in peace or jointly with him. DL has not caught pace with me and again, I keep finding ways to shorten his gap with mine, just so he would not be left behind. And hence, I slow down, but often with apprehension and claustrophobia, like I have somewhat been trapped.

The day where I don’t nag at or worry about you is the day I longer care for you, I used to say.

The other night, I spoke in a weak, resigned voice that it was up to him what he wanted to do with his life. The onus was on him now. But how was he with money was all I ever asked. As usual, practical and protective me talking and I need to know first things first.

He must’ve detected the tone to mean something more serious and poignant than what he have foreseen.

I am tired, I told him.

He was silent and then he went on to say that he would get on with it himself.

Then I could no longer talk or keep up the forced assuredness of light-heartedness of my childish tone and excused myself to cease the phone conversation that night.

****

But gullibly sentimental me. This is my stupid gene that makes up a big part of my nature. It has done me in way too many times. I never learn.

The other night, even Harry mentioned that I am so brilliant at so many things, but when it comes to my choice of men…. Well, he started sniggering but in good jest…

And DL is the best thing that ever came along in my emotional life.

****

I remember the incident of the caran d’ache water colour pencils that never fails to tug at my heartstrings and make me a coward at the eleventh second to let those words be uttered even when I appeared ungrateful for committing my shady deeds on the side…

I was leaving for Paris. He hated the idea but he wouldn’t have not let me go for fear that I would hate him for stifling my life. The final damage that led the opening of my emotional Pandora’s box has since already been incurred.

He put down his pride and insecurity of possibly seeing me off to another life , experiences and other men. And he gave me his blessings. I avoided acknowledging his emotional insecurities to avoid raking up an unhappy past.

We were still hell as broke- me scringing and saving and emptying out my last cent of life savings just for this trip. I was to go to Paris to study fashion for a short while to fulfill my dreams. I needed to bring lots of art materials with me and I loved working with watercolour pencils because they were the easiest medium to control, not having sketched and drawn in years (when I couldn’t bring to do so again because I thought I’ll never ever have a go at attending an art school).

So DL went to order a set of 72 caran d’ache colour secretly behind my back and came home one day to surprise me. I was elated.

Why so many colours? It must be very expensive!

Back then, every cent counts.

I was quietly happy, of course.

Baby, study hard, he uttered quietly.

He only ever give me the best, even with what little money he has. Even now.

I was grateful for his blessings and very touched.

But one part of me has been hardened by a destructible pain that he has irreversibly wrecked me.

Anyhow, I did finally return home. Only this time, I am laden with secrets compounding secrets and suffering compounding suffering…

I figured I deserved my break. But I have started a habit that I wonder if I could ever quit as long as I hang on to him.

DL and I brought the worst out of each other- those baser, destructive instincts that we both harboured in the very depths of our nature. We unleased it one day because he opened up my Pandora’s box. But then again, my will was weak and I betrayed my wandering nature in exchange for a short-lived fantastical moment. Me- the intellectually laisseiz faire soul who is in a constant quest for adventures and a through and through escapist.

If we start pointing accusing fingers, there would be no end to it since the best plausible explanation is that our personalities or what I would much rather call “soul types” are incompatible. I live larger than life whereas he favours a stable, routine life governed by herd instinct. But again fate brought us together under the most unexpected circumstances and again my Ego did me in. I didn’t know when to fold when I saw my winning streak was coming to an end. Instead, I trudged on and think I could do the hardyards.

I'm no Quiter, I told myself.

Or was the Ego really my sentimentality and loyalty?

****

Today, I feel weary. I wonder how much more weight I could take before I tip the balance of the basket of intensely pain-laden love and the basket of accumulating escapist secrets that poises ever so precariously on my tiredly sore shoulders?

# posted by DilettanteP @ 11:26 pm