Wednesday, May 16, 2012

 

Grown Up Matters

V came and left Sad Town last weekend for six days. It never feels enough, especially we have not seen each other for three years. My best friend got married and have had a baby during my absence. But the funny thing is, with good old true friends, you always pick things up from where you left. We were as familiar with each other as ever and I almost couldn't detect any signs of "grown up" changes in her as someone who now holds the status of a mother. **** Last week, I learnt the death of another friend. At age 42, he is too young too die. I heard it was lung cancer that took him where it was detected at a late stage. My friend is a health and gym freak. Tall, buff, health conscious, part time model and vain (read gay and you get the picture), who would have guess? I didn't recall he smoked. I met him formally during a groupie trip to Malaysia with the smart set when I was last back home three years ago. We were allocated to sit together on the plane and during the flight, we realised we had common interests in Buddhism and meditation. We shared the same hotel room and had a ball of a time at the club where we danced till the wee hours of the morning to 80s disco music and he spun me round and dip me backwards as we danced. The last I saw him was the night I left to return back to Australia three years ago. Ironically, he sent me his condolences for Fluffball via Facebook in May last year. And now he is gone. **** So being grown up leads to one facing first hand experiences of mortality. WHen I was younger, I thought death occurs only to really old people. While someone departs from earth, another life is created. My friend, DS just announced that his wife is pregnant and the baby is due in November. DS is a big kid at heart and it is funny when the people you grow up with starts having a spouse and then babies. I wonder if my life journey will ever take me there.

Friday, May 04, 2012

 

Julio

The name that evokes a lot of memories. Sadly, I am slowly forgetting my passion and impulsive excitement of my night in Havana. Rather, it has reminded me a time in my life before Julio. My life with DL- we were your typical university sweethearts, rather passionately in love in an innocently monogamous manner. My brushing with the half Cuban Chinese historian, Julio opened up a can of worms of what I was or capable of being. During that brief week, something ticked. I morphed easily into what I knew since I was a child what my soul was meant to be- that bohemic artist who believed in free love and being bold and wanting to have a taste of life in the form of passion and pain. I found me. It was to forever alter my dynamics with DL and in domino fashion, I was no longer the disciplined and tunnel vision young adult with a one track mind. My imagination fired up with infinite possibilities and hope for my life as one big romantic adventure- I wanted to run away with a poor scholar or elope to an exotic land amongst other things. My innocent infidelity (no sex or even French kissing) with Julio has subsequently left DL and I with irreparable consequences that we still bear till today in our joint and repressed lives. So after close to a decade long of emotional angst and pain, I no longer long for passion or excitement. For the most part, I want peace- externally and internally. I often feel disengaged from any real emotion, especially during an impassioned argument (typically one sided) with DL. I sit there feeling numb and empty, wondering if this is where my “romantic” relationship is heading to (ie dumps). Just a couple of nights ago after a late enough night back from work and my mind pre-occupied with a challenging business situation, our business discussion turned agitated, DL had a major meltdown about the business and about my alleged "selfish" treatment and lack of acknowledgement of his efforts. He decided to thrash the house to prove a point. Shattered glass everywhere and a broken window at 1am in the morning. I bidded my time for him to re-treat to the bedroom so I can clean up the mess. All this while, I was thinking how I could go about cleaning up the mess and effacing any traces of this imperfection in my house and my property. I was fast calculating if any serious damage that could affect my future rental returns of this property. I went about scrubbing and cleaning the house till 4am. The next morning, DL was still on strike and refused to go to work. The show must go on and I set about doing the damage control and ringing up the affected clients, as well as sorting out the window situation, which was fortunately covered by the complex's body corporate. Times like this I wonder if I could ever get out of this relationship black hole and trust to feel that lyrical excitement in my heart and mind (for this person who is supposedly the person I am to spend the rest of my life with) once more? Or have we done all the damage we could to each other that we are growing numb but reliant to co-exist in our often antagonistic but ironically dutiful lives for as long as we live? We have shown each other our darkest sides so surely something's got to give. Question is when? Julio has long been gone in my life. But the impact he has left DL and I continues to haunt us and have triggered certain actions of ours that do not look too great in the annals of our own histories. Oh Julio, we are slowly forgetting you- were you ever real or just a figment of our own dark imagination?

 

Ghosts

The ghosts of my past creeps up every so often in the form of a dream or a random text message. Yesterday, Big M buried deep in the back of my memory decided to re-visit me in my sleep. Just five minutes or so ago, the Man decided to find out when I was next in Sydney so we could “make a night of it”, as he puts it. I kindly declined and put it across to him that there are some experiences in my life that I am no longer interested in partaking. I am keen to exorcise those ghosts and live at present.

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