Restructure- on your own terms

It's been awhile...

since yours truly have the notion of dying...

or even feeling that unbearable anxiety in me rising, the heart palpitations and the tormenting heart squeezes that sent me to thoughts of suicide.

I must say, it's been a while.

But today (I think it is today or maybe yesterday or maybe the day before yesterday on my birthday- I can't remember cos my days are getting longer), I felt the slow rising of my anxiety...

It started off dully, lurking at the back of my mind. Then I felt it slowly rising in my chest.

Today, I felt like I have enough of my business. Most importantly, my cash flow problems.

I mean I am so fucking over it!

I felt that unbearable feeling coming over me in the car. I glanced sideways at DL as he drove on. We were on the way to my sales presentation.

Then it dawned on me that this must be how he has been feeling for the past 6 months or so.

I held my breath for a split second and slowly exhale, careful not to dwell too much on my at-that-moment feeling for if I did, both DL and I would go down. His morale has been low enough lately. We don't need to fan each other's misery up.

My phone has been ringing with automatic messages from the bank to pay despite having done so. My debts seemed to follow me like a curse... then there's more to come. DL went to thue letterbox and received 2 credit card bills- he informed me that the 2 cards are busted.

What's new, I thought.

Then there is the other part of me that is bubbling with excitment within me. I have got news that Sad Town is setting up a shop for independent designers to sell their handmade creations and they could lease a space as little as $20/week. I can hardly sleep thinking about it.

I told DL, Daisy and anyone who cared to hear about it.

I mean, I am truly excited!

Each time I sit at my studio, I get this sense of excitment I never experienced in my life except when I was in Paris.

I wonder what I have done to DL and me?

We could have used the $300,000 we invested in this business for a restaurant and then for my fashion creations and still have leftover.

It shits me but I am shutting my mouth up.

No point lamenting because it is going to get DL down- he has been very angry lately and I have been trying to be positive whenever he mentioned about the restaurant that we should have set up, not this lousy business that is taking a toil on us physically, mentally and emotionally. And DL is hardly the type of person who talks in the "could have, should have, would have" tenses. It sounds more like me. All I could do is to focus on the future or what we would like to make it out to be.

Or we could have paid up a fair bit of a mortgage for that one bedroom house in the dress circle location of Sad Town that was going for cheap. And I could still have taken up a humble retail job and life could still have been great.

The choices we make- now there is no way but to keep peservering on, only we are running out if cash and steam and for once, I am feeling what DL has been feeling- it's time to get out...

Lowpoint

So I have officially turned 31 yesterday.

What a day! In the worst sense- I fucked up and broke a client's something from Debmark. Spent what was supposed to be my leisurely afternoon all around town to look for its replacement. Only of course, there wasn't one in the whole of Sad Town. Had to order one in.

Then there is the cash flow problems. Everyone's wanting a piece of us- so many invoices raised our way and all due this week. Freaking marketing expenses.

I have never felt worser.

I recalled my life.

I always had a birthday party thrown for the first 11 years of my life. And more birthday parties and parties after I turned 15.

My life should have been great.

The older sibling sent me the first birthday wish. Nano must have been second or third in line.

I knew the Nano would remember. But I was right that the Old Boy would have forgotten. Ah well, such is life.

Then lots more from friends around the world on facebook and smses... and there was my old friends from the Parisian days. The Lark, my all famous principal, Talla and Lina...

Lina always remembers and sends me an email each year with some updates... it's funny how some of us never quite write to each other and it becomes an yearly affair, like a summary of what has happened to our lives in the year that has just passed...

Even M remembers... in fact, M remembers my birthday all these years except I think, last year and I thought he was dropping out for good... he wrote the usual pleasantry and asked for me to inform him when I am next back home...

Lots of old high school friends wrote me too...

It's all very heartwarming given that I felt like I had the worst birthday in my life...

Getting older and poorer. That sucks.

So we didn't have much $ and having spent the whole afternoon running around town, I was exhausted and drained. I dropped on the mattress in our living room and took a short nap and dragged myself up again for my last sewing class in the semester. DL and the dog did the same beside me.

After class, it was close to 9pm. DL and I went to our local Chinese restaurant and had a meal.

That was it. No excitment or surprises this year for me.

He is really down with the money issue.

We had been broke before but maybe the adult responsibilities is just too much for us at the moment.

Back then, he even so much as squeezed out a Longines watch with the diamond dial for me. That is, from without paying the rent. Things you would do for love when you were young and bold....

We came home and he watched DVDs with the dog next to him whilst I used the laptop in the living room to chat to my folks and the younger sibling.

Then we both retire to our respective rooms where he read his before bedtime book and I read mine.

Then we fell asleep separately.

I didn't want to be reminded I am getting older and in a more sorrier state.

But ironically, I seem to be at my most popular this year, remembered by more friends than before.

Makes me miss home.

Partner in Crime

I think that is what I have been looking for.

All my life.

In a life partner.

A relationship that bore out of playfulness, as with the beginning of most of my affairs and relationships.

Someone that I could have adventures and misadventures with.

Someone whom I can discuss things with, negotiate and debate.

Someone who could make me young again.

I see abit of this someone with the relationships and affairs I have been with- the fun and funny encounter with the Koran, the romantic excitment with M,the erotic hunger the Aura had of each other, the ease and silliness of my relationship with DL, the intensity felt in the love letters between J and myself and telepathic emails that the Old Boy and I once exchanged.

They all, perhaps except M first started off with friendship. I mean platonic- at least on my end, I feel.

So yeah, I reckon I was always hoping that somewhere in my life, I would chance upon my partner-in-crime. Someone whom I could laugh, be silly with, make love to ravenously and carelessly and grow old with.

Well, I reckon it would be my version of a soulmate. A modern version one that is and what I would call my partner in crime.

In a Matter of One year...(Part II)

So I was telling you before (in my last post) about how I went to the United States for work in 2008. I took the opportunity to do my social rounds and one of the places I stopped was San Francisco.

San Francisco was where my friend, The Lark from back in the Paris days lived.

The Lark is a typical old moneyed southern belle from Texas. No actually, her mum was but her dad was from Chicago. One a Republican and another Democrat supporter until his dad defected over...

The Lark is a through and through hippie and a pothead and it was through her introduction that I got into the world of smoking good weed (a conoisseur and ex-cultivator/ dealer she was) in the old bohemic Parisian apartment that I rented in the 18th arrondissement.

When I visited her in San Francisco, she was about to launch her own collection. She was engaged to an equally old moneyed East Coast Dartmouth graduated Institutional Equities Broker. There was nothing much in common between them but my guess was she liked being with a safe pair of hands. That night in her prime suburban apartment on top of a hill, over weed, we caught up, laughed and cried over our lives with the familiarity of our camaraderie back in Paris like we have never left.

When we were in Paris, the Lark was a vegetarian and by the time, we met again 3 years later, she had converted back to an omnivore and changed a few boyfriends over.

Anyhow, the Lark got quite famous with her fashion label, being into the eco friendly movement. Her designs in the high end marktet. She got some good coverage in fashion magazines like Vogue and was showing off her collection in L.A. Fashion Week and in New York.

She dropped me a line on my facebook last night to come visit her in Copenhagen. I thought how very apt with all her eco friendly designs and the anti-carbon emission talks by political big wigs around the world last year, she must have moved there for some business strategic reason.

But no, she wrote to say she got married to a Dane in December (she had always promised to invite me to her wedding!!!???!!!) and a baby is due in June. Of course, it was marriage out of a wedlock and the preparations must have been hasty. The Lark is going to become a mum!

I wonder what happened to her all-American instuitional sales broker boyfriend.

Anyhow, so much can happen and just like I said. In a matter of a year, my friend, The Lark got famous, fell in love for someone new, got married and is soon to become a mum.

All in a matter of one short year.

In a Matter of one year...

I notice that many things can change or eventuate.

The birth of a child is one, then a wedding anouncement, the change of one's heart or you could put on 10 kilos or you could become bankrupt. In some other cases, you become really rich and/or famous.

It is the time of the year that I become yet again aware of my own mortality. Another year of growing older- I turn 31 in less than a week.

I haven't done much thinking lately, simply because I have been way too busy. Doing twelve hour days of physical AND mental work is no joke, I come home feeling drained on a daily basis. I haven't have much of a night, let alone day off for as long as I could remember.

I must have had this blog for a good four years now. It was inspired by a certain Big Boy I once wrote about.

I remember that year quite vividly for a few reasons- it was the year M came to Singapore to visit me and we spent the new year gazing at the fireworks, and Big M came out for a drink (unbeknownst to me, he had some erotic designs on me), left disappointed and then we lost touch, only for me to track him down for work and thereafter he wrote me an email to suggest meeting me in that low cut halter neck lace dress I wore the last time we met. That was more than a year before. Then M left and B and I were out, me masking my sorrow by having a girly night out. I met the Big Boy, we kept in touch, some erotic electronic tennis we played and this blog was born...

Some of you have been following my blog for a long, long time, perhaps since the beginning of it... From 2006 till now, much have changed in my life- it has been a gradual metamorphosis of my disturbed life to something that seemed rather calm or I dare say, dull juncture that I am now in.

Today, I woke up and it dawned on me that I have known the Old Boy for a good three years now. Where was I at in my life 3 years ago, I wonder?

A string of affairs raced through my head like a strip of black and white film unrolling itself. The experiences seemed blurry, even a chore to recall, like I have let go, or rather, too ashamed to remember. My life is now, I feel.

I find myself less excitable these days. Being excitable takes too much out of me. I wonder if I could find myself in an adventurous state ever again or will life be one straight line from hereon?

Two years ago (2008), I was in Hanoi and then I went on to the United States for work. I recalled taking a short jaunt back home to Singapore. By then, the damage had already been done between the Old Boy and I. There was also the Koran on the side. Then there was my frail nerves and unbearable self that I felt trapped in. It was already two years ago, I marvel today.

One short year and what transformation there can be.

That same year of 2008, I went trekking up the Everest Base Camp. The meditation at the monastery and the trekking transformed my life beyond words I can describe. It was gradual but it changed the essence within my hitherto disturbed soul. I am less anxious, less tormented. I cope better with the world, or rather with myself.

That same year after this grand trip, I met the Koran when I got home to Singapore. He told me he was seeing someone and "it was the first time I...", he said.

"that you are serious?" I asked innocently.

He had a taken aback look and said "no, not really." He just didn't know how the long distance thing was going to work out, he said.

Two months later, he got married.

People told me it was pretty much out of the blue. Only eleven months before that, whilst we had our little affair, he wondered if he was ever going to get married.

How things can change in a matter of one year.

Or 52 weeks.

I often think about the Koran in a disturbed sort of way. I recall fondly his spontaneiety to hang out and party- company for that once insomniac in me was hard to come by. Koran helped me recapture one part of my youth during that dark part of my life. I did love holding hands with him and our kisses reminded me of my high school days. He was acually a rather sweet boy.

Oh yes, I digress. I meant to say I think of Koran quite a bit in a disturbed sort of way. I wonder about his vulnerability behind his funny persona. I wonder if he had been affected by my callousness in some way or another...

Last year when I was back home, I texted a long lost friend whom I heard got married (as with many others I caught up with over my high school reunion thanks to Facebook) and told her I heard about the good news and I was back. In the dark light of the disco, I must have accidentally sent to him instead of my friend since their names was next to the other in the alphabetical order of the phone book. I forgot about it.

The next day, I received a nasty text from the Koran at something along the lines:

"Do you not understand English???? Yes, I am a happily married man. Stop contacting me and I don't give a damn that you are back!!!!"

I was on the train when I received this shocker of a text. Strong and harsh message he was trying to get across to me, like I have been stalking him.

What have I done to him for such great spite, I wonder?

So yeah, I do think of him every so often in a strange, disturbed way. If I have ever hurt him with my callousness, I am truly sorry.

I hope he is happy-he seems to be though- his wife looks gorgeous on his Facebook profile and actually, they do make a cute and compatible couple.

I often wonder about him and his strong comeback smses and his hasty marriage.

Is he afraid of loneliness, I wonder?

As with many other people, both male and female I met in my life.

Then I start to wonder about me- am I afraid of loneliness?

Not really, I don't think.

Now that I have overcome my phobia, I just need my own car and I reckon I would be just as happy taking a leisurely drive around Sad Town. A nice book sitting at the cafe with my dog or even without- I would still be contented.

So in a matter of a year, there were a few transformations that took place in our lives. The Koran and I shagged, had some fun, then I got crazy and couldn't bear working in the corporate world any longer, in the meantime, he met someone he fancied getting serious with, I quit my job and went to search for myself in the mountains of Nepal, he got more serious with his girlfriend and his job got busier, then I suddenly had the opportunity to head back to Sad Town to start a restaurant and reunite with DL and then he got happily married and went to the Middle East for work and then I left the restaurant partnership.... whilst all this was going, I was still waiting for my broken heart with the Old Boy to heal, I thought it never would and god knows how many new girls the Old Boy made acquaintances with and shagged, I didn't want to know then... I couldn't bear to know...

(Deep breath out)... it was a full on year-that 2008. In a matter of a year, so much have taken place. I haven't even begin to talk about 2009 and it's already 2010.

Koran has been already married for more than a year. The Old Boy and I are a thing the past (two years). I had gone from a corporate rat wearing rich rags to a daggy housewife to someone running two businesses, trying my darnest to make ends meet with a good honest living.

My oh my, what a difference a year makes.

You should check out the new number of freckles on my nose. Going on 31, I realise that sunscreen is my new, absolute best friend.

Dearie Me

I have been having a case of bad indigestion or tummy discomfort whatever you call it. I mean for the past few weeks.

Now I am being kept awake all night because the wind in my stomach is causing me to bloat and hurt. I just wish I have diarrhoea to detox all the crap in my system but no, it seems like my stomach is bent on torturing me. Perhaps because I have been too much of a gluttony.

After all, food and dining out at the end of each day seems to be the ONLY highlight of my day and DL's.

Then we would pretty much call it a night.

*****

There isn't much to tell in my sad world here in Sad Town.

I wake up, go meet the same prospects and get my brains working so that the money can start rolling my way, then move on to do some mundane physical work with DL in our other business (which suddenly seems rather therapeutic to me) and feel warm and fuzzy that we made yet another few hundred bucks that day (only to blow it on a good dinner that evening YET again- and we have three maxed out credit cards that need to be paid and the TV invoices are billing us at a rate faster than what I can barely keep up with).

So yeah, there isn't much to tell.

Bedroom wise-it's non existent, in case any of you are STILL wondering.

I even now have the queen sized bed to myself. DL likes to sleep on another bed in another room where he claims that it is more comfortable. He also hates sharing a blanket and feel like he has been strait-jacketed.

Any attempts at arousing his manhood is responded with irritation.

So yeah, I kinda give up.

I mean give up on sex althogether. If I choose to be with this man and further more, choose to stay monogamous.

Do I miss my old, rampant and spontaneous sex life from the past? I have been asking myself.

I even try to fantasize about the Old Boy, Big M, Koran, the Aura and other grey or random arrangements I have of the past.

Still, I stop feeling excited.

It's like P is not that P from the past.

I don't even know if I could bother myself with exchanging scintillating messages with propositioners. A polygamous online friend tried but it just wasn't working.

I am feeling like a prude-heh!

I just hope this isn't the end of the journey of my short life.

I am about to turn 31 in 2 weeks, V reminded me since hers is arriving this weekend. She asked me what I was going to do. Oh and I still have sewing lessons to attend.


****
Now I am feeling even bored with myself.

Any great ideas out there to get me back in shape?