Tuesday, July 03, 2007
He’s my Man…
“Daddy, I missed you sooo much…” I whined and mock sobbed.
“I am such a poor baby, no one loves me…” I continued my whining, my poor puppy eyes downcast as I pouted and then sucked in my cheeks to don my usual pathetic face.
“Oh come here, Darling loves you lah…” he replied affectionately in his child-like manner as he continued playing with the dog.
He is a sucker for my lost pathetic schoolgirl look (perhaps because in other usual circumstances, my tone and topics are usually serious and heavy).
“Well, Mummy is only missing Daddy now because there is no one else who is loving her at the moment…”he said half kidding, perhaps half seriously as he looked up and our eyes met, his hands continued to rub Fluffball’s tummy playfully.
“Says who?" I retorted lamely.
I was guilty as charged. I had no real action in my extracurricular social life.
I gave him a sheepish smile.
He reciprocated with his knowing wisdom, disguised underneath that child-like mischievous smart-ass smile.
****
About two months or so ago, I have it in me to re-new my internal commitment for us to come together.
We were on the topic of his non-existent career development and the inefficient allocation of our joint financial resources.
I have invited him to come live with me.
But first off, the usual pragmatic me has pre-empted the foreseen challenges.
His big move inter-state will prove to be a double-edged sword. Although that would save him forking more than half his monthly pay in rent (since he would pay none living with me) monthly, he would have difficulty in securing a job. He has no real qualifications in what he does despite his talent, which made it hard for him to compete in this great big city as we have zero contacts here. On the other hand, he could try his hands at getting a day office job bean counting, which was what he is qualified in doing but that might too prove difficult given a combination of his bad university grades, short employment history in that field due to haplessness and having graduated a long time ago with a CV that is filled with experience that has more to do with using one’s taste buds, visual and olfactory senses than one’s ability to balance the books.
Like what I do best in my profession, I have observed for a long time that he has a good innate ability to get it within the financial markets.
We attended a seminar that he was interested in and we or rather, I devised a plan.
In order to enable him to fish and make himself useful in the household (as he has learnt from our prior years of co-habitation how I loathed idleness), I had to first invest in his education. I will pull out a couple of thousand bucks for him to learn the ropes of options trading within a sensible environment.
Then he could learn to make money within the confines of our four walls at a faster rate and at his own pace. He was to take this opportunity of being a man of leisure (i.e. not bounded by a rostered/ desk bound job) to save some money and source for ideas and plan for his own gig.
When I finally find the ideal inner city Eastern suburb pad to buy, we’ll set up home together. He can continue to be that man of leisure who will take Fluffball on her usual daily stroll, albeit being in a more fanciful suburb while they stop by at an Italian café for his daily tea reading his papers. Then he can sojourn home to trade online when the markets open. By evening, I return home after a hard day’s work and I know that my man has a sumptuous dinner prepared ready for us to tuck in. We would discuss about our day, ideas and inspirations to build those little solid steps towards a strong foundation of what is to come for our grand plans. Then in another year or so, we’ll buy another place. We might then finally come together…
He is a man who loves to have a set daily routine and to be able to feel a sense of being close to home i.e. moi. I figured he might find this lifestyle quite appealing.
“So what say you, Darling?”
“Oh Baby is cunning!
Heh, heh…She is trying to ‘cheat’ me by paying $4000 for a lifetime ‘Maria’ (maid)!”
He replied in his mischievous tone. No doubt, he was pleased at the offer.
What can I say? He knows me best.
I loved to be serviced.
He knows his good value as I know mine.
Guess we complement each other that way.
*****
At the eleventh hour when I was resolute to kiss our relationship goodbye for good with the final straw incident, as usual, he turned up at my doorstep with the Fluffball, unaware of the extent of the grief that he has caused me.
It was Fluffball’s tenth human birthday.
I gave him the cold shoulder initially and later told him that I had meant to sever our relationship there and then on that fateful Friday night.
He tried to explain himself and we kept our tones hushed before the older sibling as the three of us headed out for breakfast.
Later in the afternoon when we had time to ourselves, we bought a bottle of wine and fresh sashimi and sat in the car by a harbour at a wealthy northern suburb. We fed the spoilt little Fluffball her favourite sashimi by hand on her special day and recounted the years that have gone by…
It was exactly five years ago that day where we brought our little Fluffball home from the rescue shelter. From there, our lives went downhill. We led a precarious life, what with our over-spending first as we started moving in together, then trouble with a neighbour that nearly led to our eviction because unbeknownst to us, Fluffball suffered from separation anxiety and would not stop barking till we came home, a crashed car on a highway accident that left us in an even poorer state, cycling in the cold winter with Fluffball in his jacket as we headed to university, taking turns to baby-sit her between attending classes, the opening of the Pandora’s Box from all those hidden frustration and anger, more trouble with the law and finding money for the best criminal lawyer in town, finding money to replace a fridge and a washing machine that had to be returned to the owner when money was seriously draining out of our pockets at a rate faster than we could have made…. the list went on….
For many years, it didn’t rained. It just poured.
We sat there and we talked.
I told him I was disappointed with him that night. Very. In my serious tone that always instils fear or anxiety in some people.
He kept quiet.
I spent many years being there for him.
And on Friday night, he could not even lend me his listening ear.
I could not be with someone who could not give me that basic support I needed when I talk about my work.
He depressed me for many years.
I finally told him. I asked if he had realised the extent of grief he had caused me all those dark years.
He broke me apart. The countless of tears he had caused me to shed- did he realise that?
I will never be the same person again. I guessed I have changed, I continued.
I have contemplated on leaving him way too many times. But I thought for him, psyching myself that perhaps when he is ready on his own.
But then I reckon by the time he is ready, why would I leave him?
I have done a lot of hard yards with him, did he realise that?
I believed in his abilities more than he did in himself and it took us so long to be on the same page. We are only slowly coming together.
I learnt a few good things from him and I did hope he would go away learning a few things or two from our relationship if we ever to exit from each others’ lives.
I told him I had to learn to take a step back, to teach him to fish instead of giving him the fish. It all didn’t come easy for me too. I used to nag at him so much I felt like his mother (or maybe the school mistress). I was also very good at laying down a safety net for him. I caught him while he fell and I must have crumbled under his weight.
Then there is my sentimentality for the Fluffball and him. Guess the Fluffball has a big part to play in this- she made it hard for me to leave. You see, I placed too much attachment to that little creature like how a parent find it hard to divorce his/her spouse because of the existence of the child. The thought of never ever seeing my dog again is too hard to bear in those days (as I knew I would have gladly given up custody of her because she would definitely have been happier with DL; like the man of the house, I made a better provider but I reckon I suck at being domesticated and attentive to young things) so I gritted my teeth and made our joint arrangement work because the thought of not seeing my precious little girl again was too hard for me to bear. I could feel the pain in my heart at the very thought. Then there were also other survival factors. We had only each other as we got quite cut off from our families for a long while…
“I didn’t have your maturity in all those years when you saw all the trouble coming for me.
We have come a long way so don’t leave just now.
I was upset and angry too when you left… It took me a while to understand…”
“I had too because you killed my soul. I couldn’t live like that.
Look at me now. I wouldn’t make what I have made if I continued living there…
Two years ago, I came with nothing and made $x and then lost my job. But two years on, my income has doubled. I couldn’t have if I stayed with you and I’ll continue to wonder about my potential… plus living with you depressed me, you were wearing me down and I figured it was best that you figure out what you want to do on your own or you’ll always view me as your safety net while I continue to feel unhappy without having a career. I always knew what I wanted out of my life…”
So it all ended well. It was a heartfelt talk. I tried to get as close to the truth as I could.
I told him I have since been a different person. I don’t think I could ever reverse that again.
He recognised he had taken up a good part of my youth and I saw through his years of mule-headedness.
Sometimes I sensed a glimmer of his inkling about me. Perhaps its his leeway for making up for all the foolhardy grief he had caused me, that impact has only dawned upon him in the past recent year or so.
“I never pun on the wrong horse. But you got to believe in yourself.”
I told him I loved him enough to stand by him and bring the best out of him, not forgetting that I have put a great amount of my social ambitions on hold. He has always been sort of my “risky” investment. Well, sort of like a distressed debt that I am trying to turnaround. I see some good value there and perhaps love the meaningfulness of it all.
But even then, some days, I confessed that I questioned my decision to stick to my guts and wonder if I know when to exit a lost cause. Isn’t it true that it isn’t hard for an investor to learn when to buy but the challenging bit is when to sell?
There are days when I think there is very little need for words. I feel that he understood the poignancy of my words and decision.
I love living larger than life. Going forward, if things were not to work out, I would continue to reach out for the type of partnership I have always sought. Start on the intended higher baseline and stick to that business plan so that I could finally kick off my life on my own terms.
I too, have communicated that to him.
But I recognise therein would lie the trade-off. I’ll never find one who loves me in the smallest, sensitive little way again. Someone who puts my interest before his and pamper me in the silliest little ways- puts on my favourite jazz music to facilitate my waking up a little bit less grumpier, manicures and shapes my bitten nails to look like a lady’s fingers, whips up the nicest dishes, ensures that our joint abode looks more like a home when I return, surprises me with a diamond studded watch while the rent remained overdue (much to my great dismay and anger when I received the call from the agent), the best parent and husband one could ever have…
I have never been emotionally needy. His little actions were criteria that I never factored in when I looked for a partnership.
I reckon my life would go on should an unfortunate day as such ever arrives…
But then again, when one chances upon something better than what one ever knows what would one do?
*****
At the start of our relationship in 2000, we learnt about our very first childhood aspirations.
“I wanted to be artist.”
“I have always aspired to be the best husband in the world.
I have been ready to be a father and a husband since I was 23”
I sneered at him and thought it was so stupid.
In my youthful smart-ass know-it-all precocious cynicism, I didn’t know better.
He has always been a lot wiser than me that way. He has an old-fashioned and simplistic view towards bliss. He follows his heart and has little expectations of the world and much affection and love to give wholeheartedly and unconditionally.
On the other hand, my mind has always part governed my actions and I have always been goal oriented.
He earned my love and time (for me to want to do the hard yards) as I earned his is what I am wont to say.
But over the years, I too, came to the enlightenment for a few things or two.
Try to reason love and you would lose your reason.
*****
I have a curiosity for fortune-telling, clairvoyance, palm-reading and the like.
A good four years ago, I went to an Indian palm reader.
The first thing he said was, “ You have man. You have a man who loves you very much.
I don’t know about you but he loves you very much.
But you’ll never leave him…”
Then there were a few other people who read my aura and my palms at different junctures in my life. Like the Indian, they seem to allude to my affairs and emotional disturbances.
However, they all tend to adopt a similar pensiveness, like they were trying to make sense of my palm lines or aura. Everyone concluded that I would end up with the second serious boyfriend, which I would have brought home to meet the parents.
That’s him. The first boy I brought home was the pilot.
On two occasions, two different clairvoyants said with a half sigh (seemingly feeling confused themselves), “Perhaps your current boyfriend is your soul mate after all…”
But of course, DL is the Designated Love of my life. This wandering ship will return to its harbour unless of course, the harbour no longer exists to welcome it home.
“Daddy, I missed you sooo much…” I whined and mock sobbed.
“I am such a poor baby, no one loves me…” I continued my whining, my poor puppy eyes downcast as I pouted and then sucked in my cheeks to don my usual pathetic face.
“Oh come here, Darling loves you lah…” he replied affectionately in his child-like manner as he continued playing with the dog.
He is a sucker for my lost pathetic schoolgirl look (perhaps because in other usual circumstances, my tone and topics are usually serious and heavy).
“Well, Mummy is only missing Daddy now because there is no one else who is loving her at the moment…”he said half kidding, perhaps half seriously as he looked up and our eyes met, his hands continued to rub Fluffball’s tummy playfully.
“Says who?" I retorted lamely.
I was guilty as charged. I had no real action in my extracurricular social life.
I gave him a sheepish smile.
He reciprocated with his knowing wisdom, disguised underneath that child-like mischievous smart-ass smile.
****
About two months or so ago, I have it in me to re-new my internal commitment for us to come together.
We were on the topic of his non-existent career development and the inefficient allocation of our joint financial resources.
I have invited him to come live with me.
But first off, the usual pragmatic me has pre-empted the foreseen challenges.
His big move inter-state will prove to be a double-edged sword. Although that would save him forking more than half his monthly pay in rent (since he would pay none living with me) monthly, he would have difficulty in securing a job. He has no real qualifications in what he does despite his talent, which made it hard for him to compete in this great big city as we have zero contacts here. On the other hand, he could try his hands at getting a day office job bean counting, which was what he is qualified in doing but that might too prove difficult given a combination of his bad university grades, short employment history in that field due to haplessness and having graduated a long time ago with a CV that is filled with experience that has more to do with using one’s taste buds, visual and olfactory senses than one’s ability to balance the books.
Like what I do best in my profession, I have observed for a long time that he has a good innate ability to get it within the financial markets.
We attended a seminar that he was interested in and we or rather, I devised a plan.
In order to enable him to fish and make himself useful in the household (as he has learnt from our prior years of co-habitation how I loathed idleness), I had to first invest in his education. I will pull out a couple of thousand bucks for him to learn the ropes of options trading within a sensible environment.
Then he could learn to make money within the confines of our four walls at a faster rate and at his own pace. He was to take this opportunity of being a man of leisure (i.e. not bounded by a rostered/ desk bound job) to save some money and source for ideas and plan for his own gig.
When I finally find the ideal inner city Eastern suburb pad to buy, we’ll set up home together. He can continue to be that man of leisure who will take Fluffball on her usual daily stroll, albeit being in a more fanciful suburb while they stop by at an Italian café for his daily tea reading his papers. Then he can sojourn home to trade online when the markets open. By evening, I return home after a hard day’s work and I know that my man has a sumptuous dinner prepared ready for us to tuck in. We would discuss about our day, ideas and inspirations to build those little solid steps towards a strong foundation of what is to come for our grand plans. Then in another year or so, we’ll buy another place. We might then finally come together…
He is a man who loves to have a set daily routine and to be able to feel a sense of being close to home i.e. moi. I figured he might find this lifestyle quite appealing.
“So what say you, Darling?”
“Oh Baby is cunning!
Heh, heh…She is trying to ‘cheat’ me by paying $4000 for a lifetime ‘Maria’ (maid)!”
He replied in his mischievous tone. No doubt, he was pleased at the offer.
What can I say? He knows me best.
I loved to be serviced.
He knows his good value as I know mine.
Guess we complement each other that way.
*****
At the eleventh hour when I was resolute to kiss our relationship goodbye for good with the final straw incident, as usual, he turned up at my doorstep with the Fluffball, unaware of the extent of the grief that he has caused me.
It was Fluffball’s tenth human birthday.
I gave him the cold shoulder initially and later told him that I had meant to sever our relationship there and then on that fateful Friday night.
He tried to explain himself and we kept our tones hushed before the older sibling as the three of us headed out for breakfast.
Later in the afternoon when we had time to ourselves, we bought a bottle of wine and fresh sashimi and sat in the car by a harbour at a wealthy northern suburb. We fed the spoilt little Fluffball her favourite sashimi by hand on her special day and recounted the years that have gone by…
It was exactly five years ago that day where we brought our little Fluffball home from the rescue shelter. From there, our lives went downhill. We led a precarious life, what with our over-spending first as we started moving in together, then trouble with a neighbour that nearly led to our eviction because unbeknownst to us, Fluffball suffered from separation anxiety and would not stop barking till we came home, a crashed car on a highway accident that left us in an even poorer state, cycling in the cold winter with Fluffball in his jacket as we headed to university, taking turns to baby-sit her between attending classes, the opening of the Pandora’s Box from all those hidden frustration and anger, more trouble with the law and finding money for the best criminal lawyer in town, finding money to replace a fridge and a washing machine that had to be returned to the owner when money was seriously draining out of our pockets at a rate faster than we could have made…. the list went on….
For many years, it didn’t rained. It just poured.
We sat there and we talked.
I told him I was disappointed with him that night. Very. In my serious tone that always instils fear or anxiety in some people.
He kept quiet.
I spent many years being there for him.
And on Friday night, he could not even lend me his listening ear.
I could not be with someone who could not give me that basic support I needed when I talk about my work.
He depressed me for many years.
I finally told him. I asked if he had realised the extent of grief he had caused me all those dark years.
He broke me apart. The countless of tears he had caused me to shed- did he realise that?
I will never be the same person again. I guessed I have changed, I continued.
I have contemplated on leaving him way too many times. But I thought for him, psyching myself that perhaps when he is ready on his own.
But then I reckon by the time he is ready, why would I leave him?
I have done a lot of hard yards with him, did he realise that?
I believed in his abilities more than he did in himself and it took us so long to be on the same page. We are only slowly coming together.
I learnt a few good things from him and I did hope he would go away learning a few things or two from our relationship if we ever to exit from each others’ lives.
I told him I had to learn to take a step back, to teach him to fish instead of giving him the fish. It all didn’t come easy for me too. I used to nag at him so much I felt like his mother (or maybe the school mistress). I was also very good at laying down a safety net for him. I caught him while he fell and I must have crumbled under his weight.
Then there is my sentimentality for the Fluffball and him. Guess the Fluffball has a big part to play in this- she made it hard for me to leave. You see, I placed too much attachment to that little creature like how a parent find it hard to divorce his/her spouse because of the existence of the child. The thought of never ever seeing my dog again is too hard to bear in those days (as I knew I would have gladly given up custody of her because she would definitely have been happier with DL; like the man of the house, I made a better provider but I reckon I suck at being domesticated and attentive to young things) so I gritted my teeth and made our joint arrangement work because the thought of not seeing my precious little girl again was too hard for me to bear. I could feel the pain in my heart at the very thought. Then there were also other survival factors. We had only each other as we got quite cut off from our families for a long while…
“I didn’t have your maturity in all those years when you saw all the trouble coming for me.
We have come a long way so don’t leave just now.
I was upset and angry too when you left… It took me a while to understand…”
“I had too because you killed my soul. I couldn’t live like that.
Look at me now. I wouldn’t make what I have made if I continued living there…
Two years ago, I came with nothing and made $x and then lost my job. But two years on, my income has doubled. I couldn’t have if I stayed with you and I’ll continue to wonder about my potential… plus living with you depressed me, you were wearing me down and I figured it was best that you figure out what you want to do on your own or you’ll always view me as your safety net while I continue to feel unhappy without having a career. I always knew what I wanted out of my life…”
So it all ended well. It was a heartfelt talk. I tried to get as close to the truth as I could.
I told him I have since been a different person. I don’t think I could ever reverse that again.
He recognised he had taken up a good part of my youth and I saw through his years of mule-headedness.
Sometimes I sensed a glimmer of his inkling about me. Perhaps its his leeway for making up for all the foolhardy grief he had caused me, that impact has only dawned upon him in the past recent year or so.
“I never pun on the wrong horse. But you got to believe in yourself.”
I told him I loved him enough to stand by him and bring the best out of him, not forgetting that I have put a great amount of my social ambitions on hold. He has always been sort of my “risky” investment. Well, sort of like a distressed debt that I am trying to turnaround. I see some good value there and perhaps love the meaningfulness of it all.
But even then, some days, I confessed that I questioned my decision to stick to my guts and wonder if I know when to exit a lost cause. Isn’t it true that it isn’t hard for an investor to learn when to buy but the challenging bit is when to sell?
There are days when I think there is very little need for words. I feel that he understood the poignancy of my words and decision.
I love living larger than life. Going forward, if things were not to work out, I would continue to reach out for the type of partnership I have always sought. Start on the intended higher baseline and stick to that business plan so that I could finally kick off my life on my own terms.
I too, have communicated that to him.
But I recognise therein would lie the trade-off. I’ll never find one who loves me in the smallest, sensitive little way again. Someone who puts my interest before his and pamper me in the silliest little ways- puts on my favourite jazz music to facilitate my waking up a little bit less grumpier, manicures and shapes my bitten nails to look like a lady’s fingers, whips up the nicest dishes, ensures that our joint abode looks more like a home when I return, surprises me with a diamond studded watch while the rent remained overdue (much to my great dismay and anger when I received the call from the agent), the best parent and husband one could ever have…
I have never been emotionally needy. His little actions were criteria that I never factored in when I looked for a partnership.
I reckon my life would go on should an unfortunate day as such ever arrives…
But then again, when one chances upon something better than what one ever knows what would one do?
*****
At the start of our relationship in 2000, we learnt about our very first childhood aspirations.
“I wanted to be artist.”
“I have always aspired to be the best husband in the world.
I have been ready to be a father and a husband since I was 23”
I sneered at him and thought it was so stupid.
In my youthful smart-ass know-it-all precocious cynicism, I didn’t know better.
He has always been a lot wiser than me that way. He has an old-fashioned and simplistic view towards bliss. He follows his heart and has little expectations of the world and much affection and love to give wholeheartedly and unconditionally.
On the other hand, my mind has always part governed my actions and I have always been goal oriented.
He earned my love and time (for me to want to do the hard yards) as I earned his is what I am wont to say.
But over the years, I too, came to the enlightenment for a few things or two.
Try to reason love and you would lose your reason.
*****
I have a curiosity for fortune-telling, clairvoyance, palm-reading and the like.
A good four years ago, I went to an Indian palm reader.
The first thing he said was, “ You have man. You have a man who loves you very much.
I don’t know about you but he loves you very much.
But you’ll never leave him…”
Then there were a few other people who read my aura and my palms at different junctures in my life. Like the Indian, they seem to allude to my affairs and emotional disturbances.
However, they all tend to adopt a similar pensiveness, like they were trying to make sense of my palm lines or aura. Everyone concluded that I would end up with the second serious boyfriend, which I would have brought home to meet the parents.
That’s him. The first boy I brought home was the pilot.
On two occasions, two different clairvoyants said with a half sigh (seemingly feeling confused themselves), “Perhaps your current boyfriend is your soul mate after all…”
But of course, DL is the Designated Love of my life. This wandering ship will return to its harbour unless of course, the harbour no longer exists to welcome it home.
