Ramblings

I wonder why I bother with pseudonyms. Especially when no one will probably read this.

I wish there was some progress on the island initiative. But then again, if it's not the right time, I shouldn't rush it. After all, it ain't like the best of times to cash out.

Which makes me wonder what's in store for me, looking at the way things are.

I am so muddled today.

I was again amazed today at how the CEO manages to not take ownership of the biggest problem in our corporate history. I mean, if you don't own this one, which one do you think is worth your time then?

I know what could happen. He will start thinking of me as a negative person. But heck, thank god I'm leaving.

I am ready for some detachment from nonsense office politics really. I just want to help the boys build their business, and spread my own business wings and really call my own bluff.

Aaargh.

I should really go to the gym. Why wait till December. It's just a psychological excuse I keep giving myself. I am becoming like the other half. Bad.

There are so many things I don't like, so maybe I should just vent. Get it outta the way:
- I hate that the Government is full of corrupt assholes with narrow racist minds.
- I hate that big businesses don't care - not even for themselves beyond the immediate paycheque.
- I hate that leaders are so weak.
- I hate that people are driven by power and greed.

It'd be nice if some day being rich and powerful was no longer cool. Maybe in a couple generations. ALready some young folk reject it.

Hey, if geeks can become cool, why can't the rich and powerful be tomorrow's geeks?

I am rambling in the biggest way.

Here's what I like:
- I have dreams that have already opened doors.
- I have the outline of a novel.
- My loved ones are alive and happy and healthy.

OK I'm not getting anywhere with this.

I wonder about Ms E. I hope she grows up strong.

Happy birthday M

Happy Birthday Marli. I find it hard sometimes to believe you are now seventeen. I wonder what you would have looked like if you had actually lived. The closest reference I have is of course Elle, who is beautiful and broody and secretive. Someone who sometimes opens up to me and even at times reacts to me like I would hope you would have if you were alive.

I think I would have been a good mother, actually. Now, maybe not then. Or perhaps then. I don't know.

But now, I know I would be a good mother. I don't know how I'd cope. I would probably find someone else to be my partner in life for something like this, or go it alone. But not who I am with. Not her. She can't handle it, I don't think, not in the larger sense.

But I digress. This post is about you. Or the you that would have been.

You would have been almost on your way to college now. At the age I was a little before you were made. Unsure, excited, impatient about what life is really going to be like for you and you alone, away from your parents and the other people who have been with you all your life.

I wish you all the very best. Know that you are loved and remembered and missed by me. Know that I know you are beautiful. Know that I can still recall the feeling of you kicking inside my belly, making it hard to breathe. That I spoke to you, that you were my only friend who shared the secret of you for many months. That you were the one who actually gave me the strength to go through things on the outside with you in me. That long bike ride. The ride on the bus to places I've never been. That long, long night in our bed and the frightening episode at the hospital.

I love you.

Falling In Love

Dear You

It's funny. Even when writing here, in cyberspace, under cover, and without anyone's real knowledge, I hesitate.

But here goes. Deep breath.

When I first saw you on Facebook, I thought to myself - what a sweet, cute, darling man. You don't exactly make my toes curl, which is what I have been grappling with over the last few days. But some part of me, the part that hums quietly in the background, is attracted to you as if an imaginary string has been tied on either end to each of us.

OK that sounds drastic.

I like you. I like your smile, your mind, the way you looked at me as if I was half loony but quite extraordinary when I told you I wanted a golf buggy. I think you actually thought I was cute then, and you were slightly amazed.

Since then, you and I have struck up a strange little correspondence. While discussing work, personal details have easily slipped in. Maybe that's just your nature. Maybe. Obviously, I've done my snooping - trawling through your Facebook pages, your online journal, your web page. I don't get a sense you've done that. Of course you haven't, why would you.

Anyway, I find myself looking forward to hearing from you. And wanting to tell you about my day. As if it's of consequence to you ha ha!

SO here goes.

Today I woke up with the left overs of a migraine, or at least I think it was one. And Mom dropped in on me. Trust her antennae to pick up on when I play truant. Even now!

Last night, oh last night, I watched a hokey moview and fell in love with a man in it. Oh this man! Not so handsome but rugged, sweet, love written all over his face. And he reminded me of you.

OK, this confirms it. The me in a parallel universe is having a mid-life crisis.

LOL.

You

Hello You

I have decided that since I have an other half who is rather uncommunicative, and that sometimes she makes me wonder whether I should leave her, but yet I love her, I should just have an imaginary affair with You.

So here goes.

Since we won't talk about these things in person (it would be improper), I am going to put them in here.

Loving

Sometimes like today, you are affectionate and it makes me happy. I love you in all the right ways because you kiss me and actually look glad to see me emerge from the bedroom.

But these are rare occasions. Most days you are unacknowledging, no display of joy at the sight of me. I know it's not because of who you are. I watch you with the dog and know you are capable of more affection, outbursts of joy. And I wonder if on most days you don't love me as much.

It' silly, some would say. But for someone like me, who craves affection and touch, who likes lying next to someone when she can, it is hard.

I wonder then, what he would be like. He looks like someone who would not let you stray too far when in the same room. Whose face would light up every time you enter his space.

I want that. That feeling of being loved from the inside, from the subconscious, the gut of you.

Thing is maybe you do love me from your gut. I see it when I need it most. Perhaps with you it's the middle that sometimes goes to sleep and forgets I am there.

Weird.

You

I am committing this little fantasy I have been nursing over the last two days to memory. So it stays here, in this twisted, public, private space because feelings are exactly that - private possessions of one's own that are actually insidiously publicly displayed by your tone of voice, twinkle of eye or sway of hips.

I like you. I liked you immediately. Even before we met, I saw your photographs, I read between the lines of your Facebook entries and got to know you. The only thing I didn't expect was that you were shorter than imagined.

But you were every bit the creature I had conjured in my head. This loving, and that's not a word I often use, intense, at times boisterous, thoughtful, eager boy. In a different universe, one where I am not attached, I would probably even care to venture further and make you curious.

Of course, even in that universe, you could not respond. But that's someone else's story.

In mine, we are at one time, curled up in bed, the dog next to us, sharing secrets and dreams and futures of our own with one another. We lead a full life, full of lvoe and hand-holding, kissing and little surprises at the dinner table. And a gorgeous little wedding.

It must be the strain of the last few days that have led me down this overgrown path in my garden.

Thing is, when I think about you, and you have been the favourite subjecto f my mental wanderings lately, I can imagine nice things. Affection, but not passion.

And no, I wouldn't leave the person in this life for you. Despite her weaknesses and her seeming lack of affection.

But it's nice to think about. And nice to realise that somewhere out there, there are people I am attracted to at some level. I thought they didn't exist anymore.

They do. You do.

And that is enough for me.

BIG

I wonder about you often, since you are my top dog boss in this place.

So many things here seem wrong, and are seemingly easy to put right if only you would make the hard decisions.

Here at least is what you have taught me about leadership:

People want to be led. And they want to be led like children want to be led my their parents. Fairly, with dignity, but with a clear direction. They also want role models, leaders who behave the way they want their staff to behave. Leaders who do what they want their staff to do.

It is not about being nice, it is about being fair.

It begins with a belief that the people who are already with you on the wagon want to be with you and do your bidding. Not with the assumption that they cannot.

People will surprise you if you allow your self to be surprised. They will rise to the occasion, and sometimes even go beyond.

People will also be blinkered, coloured by the baggage of the past, the legacy of everything they feel have gone right and wrong in the past. If you want a clean slate, you have to do the cleaning and not let the past colour your own judgement about what needs to be done.

Because in the end, you are judged with what you leave behind, not what you create today. You are remembered by how you changed other people's lives and not how you changed yours.

Women and The Art of War

Having spent now close to two decades in the corporate world, I am beginning to realise certain things about us women in the work force.

Despite our outcries at being put down and subjugated, one of our biggest failures I think is perhaps our inability to realise that we do it to ourselves.

Where I work now, and in other places I have worked as well, the majority of personalities that leave a lingering distaste in my mouth and keep me awake for unproductive reasons are sadly, more often than not, other women. Not men, who generally (and I generalise here) tend to fail themselves and their subordinates through actual fallibilities in leadership, egotism and short-sightedness. But women, like myself, educated, articulate, achieved at a young age, or not so educated yet successful worker ants who have sweated enough to be promoted through the ranks.

The problem often lies in what they do when they get to the top because who cares how they got there to begin with. Instead of using their positions of power, as men do, to elevate their own, mentor other women, lead with integrity and by example, they instead choose to engage in a vicious game of self-defense, even when the closest warring enemy is two continents away and will probably only reach their door-step once they retire.

They subjugate other women by putting them down.

They gossip and spread lies or coloured assumptions.

They use their wily womanly ways to coo their male colleagues into submission.

They cover up their weaknesses with a flip of the proverbial fan, a bat of the mascara-ed eyelashes.

They promote other women as a means of control rather than to open doors.

They seek, above all, to be the flower among the thorns, and take pride in their success at keeping other women at bay.

This is why we are still faced with a glass ceiling. Because without us male leaders will not have to face the complexity of team dynamics that take into account the baggage women carry with them from being female and constantly under threat.

It is a vicious cycle, but one that unfortunately, only us women can break. The men can't help us here, ladies. We have to do this by our selves. And do this by being the essence of what we are - mistresses of the collective, the builder of strength in numbers, the rearer of children by community and not the individual.

If it takes a village to raise a child, what does it take to raise a woman? The answer, is other women, in the plural and not the singular. Women of different shapes and colours and beliefs who are united by a common goal to better ourselves as a gender, as one half of the human race.

Because our nature is to nurture. Let's not forget that. Every time we go against it, we must realise we play into the hands of masochism and the sexism of men. The very thing we battle, or think we do.

Stupid

Some people are stupid.

And lately, I am surrounded by a multitude of them.

I play hookey from work, and when I finally get there already I am irritated by two women who just want to pick a fight.

I am pretty damned sure by now that the Bulldog wants my job, or at least my portfolio to report to her. Heaven knows why, since she can hardly hold her own team together.

So she picks on the silly Chinese chick who has no class. Because she understands this creature and how it will work. Maybe it is because they are alike.

Why are there so many damned stupid people on earth?

If everyone just tried to work together instead of protecting their own asses, backyards and bank accounts, there'd be more than enough to go around for everyone. In fact, I am pretty sure that's already the case, except some folks hoard the lot so the rest have to scrabble around for scraps.

I think communism has its advantages.

Oh and sign language.

I bet deaf people who sign never misunderstand each other. Or at least not as much as people who speak do. Because you won't get a Chinese educated woman trying to speak to a Malay educated woman in English and lines crossed. Deaf people no matter where they come from use ony one dictionary.

Maybe we should all sign. And be communists.

Three

They say death comes in threes. And so I have observed.

I go to sleep gripped in fear now of the next one.

I think we have all endured enough, dear God. We cannot take any more. At least not for a few more years.

I think of A as I lay down to sleep, wondering how she must feel, the weight of her sadness overbearing, extending even to my own shoulders, pressing down on my chest. I wish I could help lift it from her. I do still love her deeply, as my dearest friend and life companion, one of the closest to me.

I see how she has forged a bond so strong with M and I am thankful. Thankful that she has now a rock to lean on when she cannot stand on her own. I mourn the loss of my place, that place in her life. Yet, I am strangely happy.

And you. You have become in this time of chaos, a still floating pontoon on which I rest whenever I feel I cannot tread water anymore. You have surprised me with your unassuming ways. And shown me that you will be there, weathering the storm with me, your fear on your sleeve, and your face braving it. You are truly courageous, in reality. It took me a while to understand that, but now I do.

Uncle J, we will miss you. We will miss you and we bear the weight of your absence together. Me from the periphery, just taking my turn to shoulder the stone disc of grief when those who shoulder it most are too tired.

We smoked a cigarette on J's grave today. I still think it's the best piece of real estate she has ever lived in!

I find joy in small things now. My mother's voice on the other end of the line. Leaning on my Dad while he reads. Spending time with my sister. And I understand, watching A and her siblings come together, how blood is thicker than water. How brothers and sisters, in the end, are what count in keeping family alive and well. And how elastic that notion can be, when it has to. How it can include, over time and with love, people who are not of your blood, but with whom bonds are so strong you will soldier on with them, through the mud of life and the gravel of grief.

Angel

I am warmed by your fortitude.

I know this past week has been difficult for you, a person of solitude and insularity, to deal with the noisy presence of these others. These others who are ragged from grief, and still crumbling, crumbling every day from their letting go of their father.

I know death is something you cannot even see sideways. You shut your eyes to it. I can barely look it in the face. But you, you turn your back. I know that deep inside, you are as terrified of it as I am. And I understand.

I understand how difficult it is for you to deal with it, which is why those who don't know you may think you don't care. But I know that you do. And that you feel bad for those grieving. But you don't know how to say it, without delving into the depth of death itself. And the prospect is too frightening for your heart.

I know.

I hope you know how much and how deeply I know.

And that it has made me love you more, watching you courageously put up a brave face and try to cope with things. For unlike others, your methods of coping are limited, and I sense you already reached your last option on Day 2. But yet you have persevered.

I also wonder, and I think I dare say I almost sense that all this is starting to affect you somehow. Perhaps it is a blessing in disguise for you.

How The Story Ends

I've been doing a lot of thinking this past week, about life and death, your life, your looming death, mine, that of others I love.

I can't help it. My household is filled with your death impending, its energy sapped, tired and drawn, sighing like a tired horse dragging its worn carriage.

Uncle J, whose turkey and stuffing are the very symbols of Christmas for me. I want you to know that my definition of Christmas will always be one with you as the central figure. Your food, made with those kind hands, the whispered prayers of love from your heart and those lips that were always ever-willing to kiss a silly girl hello and goodbye.

I know you and I don't. You have been so generous with your stories. Yet I know that I didn't see the most of you, the other younger parts of you that your children know.

Your life has been one of kindness. I see it in the throng of people at your hospital door, generations in tow, come to pay respects to your sleeping self.

I hope it is painless till the end for you.

And us, us who are left behind, don't you worry about us. It's not your place to. It's our turn now. To carry this burden of remembering you, this memory that will bring back such happy memories they will make us cry for the absence of the real you in the flesh.

You have loved and you are loved.

And I think in the end, that is the measure of a man, woman or child.

Day 1

So far, so good. This vision of a skinny me is quite intriguing, especially since it seems within reach. At least for now.

I need a good kick up the ass LOL!

Only thing is the damn shake takes so friggin long to drink, by the time I am done it's time for the next one. I presume that's meant to be good news. I am not so sure.....

Things at home are back on an even keel.

The sky outside is black.

The book is coming along slowly. Characters beginning to come to life. But am struggling still with the structure of the whole thing, how it should start and how it should end.

My dreams are so vivid these days they wake me up.

I Am A Rock

I am convinced an angel looks out for me.

First, I get up, and because you have deserted me, last night I was invited out. And tonight too, and I have to bake a pudding.

I do groceries, the laundry and then people come over to fix the door and the gutter and check the leaking ceiling. It takes all afternoon, after which I am running out of time.

Now I have to go.

I want to cry. But I can't. It's like I'm holding it all in, trying to be brave and strong for my self. This other half of me that is made of rock, that is like a corset that reins my emotional half in is still in one piece. But I feel it fraying at the edges, unsure if we can together make it through a night of smiling and pretending everything is okay and that you are really just paying your mother an obligatory visit. Nothing to worry about.

The truth is farther than the lie than it has ever been. I am alone this time, in my contemplation of giving it all up, of walking away from you. I guess this is what happens when you grow up. You have to be alone to make the painful decisions.

I hope this time you will have the courage to either walk away or stay for good.

Because I do not think this other half of me, the rock that holds me grounded and together, can withstand another storm.

What I Will Miss About Us

The rolling around in bed on a weekend with the dog.

The exchange of SMS-es about the dog's antics, imagined real.

The comforting silence in the house, the feeling that spaces between us are occupied when both of us are quiet and in separate rooms. The lack of emptiness.

The luxury of collapsing, unmasking and just being a vegetable, nurtured in your tender hands. Without you, I have to remain strong for myself. I don't get any time off.

But here's what I already miss:

Your excitement at doing something with me or discovering something new.

Your reaching out for me to cuddle, your telling me of stories to put me to sleep.

Your random SMS-es or phone calls to tell me that I am on your mind.

Your little surprises.

Your being happy. With me, with the world.

Why I Love You

Because you make me laugh, in an out loud, silly way over things only you and I will probably ever find funny. In a continuing, staccato of hiccups when you do something that is endearingly quirky, something that only you can do.

Because I know deep down inside, that I know you in an instinctive way that I have never known anyone else. I can tell your moods without you saying a word. I can tell if you like someone. I can tell when you like me.

Because I already know what it's like to grow old with you and it makes me look forward to the prospect of doing so.

Because you take care of me.

Yearning

If I were the main character in a short story, what would my greatest yearning desire be?

Perhaps, to be at peace. At peace with this burning need to express myself and be published.

At peace with you.

At peace with me and my status - be it single or attached.

Someone told me perhaps when you and I finally talk I should just be there for you and not try to help. I know this is going to be very hard for me to do, me the chronic fixer.

Unfunny

I understand now, after eight years, your need to sometimes withdraw into a cave, even though you are not male.

But to disrespect and disregard me by not calling, not telling me where you are and why you don't come home, even when we haven't had a fight, is inexcusable. I am sorry, but I cannot accept any reason for not doing this one little thing I ask.

Is your perception of me so warped and twisted and beyond repair that I have now become an ogre in your head?

When we fight and you don't come home, and I don't hear from you, I have now learned to shut my concern for your well-being out. To assume that you are okay and not somewhere dying in a ditch. I avoid crossing the river that churns, the one that holds the possibility of you actually being hurt and in need of help, the one time I choose to ignore you. I blind myself to its lurking presence and hope that I never have to cross the chasm.

But when we don't fight. When we sign off on a phone call cordially, with you promising to head home in fifteen minutes and then you don't show up till the next evening, I cannot help but feel outraged. Angry that your only sorry excuse is that you were tired and thought I wouldn't understand if you rang to say you weren't coming home. Angry that you didn't think enough of me to call and say goodnight, I am alright, don't worry.

I dig and dig and dig, and turn the dirt and sift it, trying to figure out why. All I find are worms, real and imaginary that I then hold up for you to examine and explain. But all I get in return are accusations of being high-nosed and psychotic, beyond moral reproach, beyond all manner of normal human understanding.

I don't think I am a snob. I have values yes, and I cling to them fiercely. And I am proud of them. Because I have never taken the easy road, and chosen instead the quiet one where people encountering me will not know who I am at first glance. Because I know that at my age, everything I have has been obtained by my own efforts, my own two hands, my own hours of lost sleep and worry and frustration. These are the things that help me sleep at night. And yet I don't sleep well, because I worry. I worry about you and me, and you without me.

I find increasingly, I sleep more soundly when you are not there. When my body is spread-eagled across the bed, all pillows to my self.

Does this mean I am selfish at the centre of my being?

I cannot help but think that somewhere in the recesses of your mind you have already betrayed me. Even if you haven't kissed another girl. Or said things to them that you shouldn't. Your mind has already wandered and rendered me insignificant. Run away at the first sign of pressure, of commitment, of needing you to deliver and deliver correctly, on time.

You really need a big, fat mirror that hangs off your shoulders so you cannot run away.

But someone told me, you can't change a person. You can only change your self.

So maybe, since I find this part of you so difficult to swallow, I should face the facts. That as much as you make me laugh, the underbelly of our love is unfunny. There is no humour in resentment and fear. No joy in the knowledge that I am farthest from your concerns.

I feel dead inside. The part of me that is us feels dead. Numb. Lifeless. Unmoving. And when I try to shift it, it feels like a dead ox, decaying, rotten and stinking, yet heavy beyond my ability to move.

All I want from you is a clear answer of your expectations and what you want.

But obviously, you don't have the capacity to figure it out since your head is buried so deep in the sand of your own universe. You don't want to see.

I feel bad. Bad for wanting to abandon you in your hour of need. That's not what a friend does.

But I don't know anymore how to help you without dragging myself into your drowning abyss.

The knife is out. All I have to do now is to be brave enough to cut the cord.

Tired

I drove home from the ghost capital feeling weirdly sad today. Like I was alone and didn't have someone to come home to.

I couldn't shake it, all the way home.

Strange.

I loved the way your face lit up at the sight of me when I came home earlier in the afternoon. You must love me.

Life is pretty awesome.

Requiem for J

This is the year that I think will force the changes.

J, the friend we all worried about, who was often fixture in our homes and lives, the dependable listener, the inadvertent matchmaker, the soothing pick-me-up who never it seems was able to cheer her self up.

I wonder about you now. I know you have gone to a better place, and are now free of all those ghouls that haunted you on this earth. I catch myself wondering still, two days later, about the depths to which those demons chased you and caused you pain and fear. You withdrew from us, I think, in the last year. I sensed it and I told Swee'pea that you were shutting your self in.

Should I have knocked harder on your door? I think not. I think somehow this time you wanted to be left alone, to interact with the world at arm's length. To deal with humanity in smaller doses, in the dead of night, by slipping them tiny signs on Facebook for them to discover when they woke up in the morning.

I think you were slowly letting us go, my friend. Maybe subconsciously, it was your way of helping us stand on our own two feet without you around to fall back on.

In the end, your passing accomplished the finest moments of your best ability. People whom you love and were afraid to face, who had fallen out with you because of disappointment or frustration, who had not spoken to one another in a while, who had distanced themselves from each other on purpose or by circumstance, all came together.

You became the balm once more, that soothed the old wounds.

I know I will still miss you and shed tears. Part of me almost expects you to re-appear once more.

I love you, J. We all do. You saw the chapel. It was the biggest party of your life. I hope you liked it.

I also like your new home. I hope you do too. It's that pretty place you always imagined, with a serene view and a peaceful breeze. We piled all the flowers on top before we left. It was a pretty sight.

We're not done yet, not by far. We will remember you always.

Men

In all my life, I have known you. And yet the ones that put me to sleep at night are those I hardly know.

F, the oil man
Sometimes, in my aloneness, I wonder if our story is yet unwritten, set for some distant future when you and I are in the right place to contemplate one another.

I wonder about you once in a while.

New York
Ah, New York. The beautiful boy in the subway. I thought of you last night and how we seemed to see the universe in each other's eyes across the crowded subway train. Both of us were trying not to laugh at the two big mommas yakking loudly for all the world to know their biznes.

And then you came up to me, almost careful and conciliatory. And half of me felt like it walked away with you for a coffee, a random chat, a stolen kiss in a park that would have been left at that since we probably had lives half a world away from one another in reality.

And then there is the New York of my dreams. This man of my origins with long hair and a deep tan, whose New York affectations were tinged with the exotic residue of your heritage. The perfect man for me?

It's not that I'm not content. But a girl likes to think about what ifs once in a while. It helps me stay adventurous and not stray.

The Prince

In the swirl of dust that continues to saturate our capital, one figure stands still. His outline is visible only if you care to look through the veil of grit and grime that confusion has stirred up in the aftermath.

He is quiet. He speaks selectively and in broad terms, words clothed in the fine fabric of history and evangelical leaders of the freedom and emancipation movement. He borrows from the closet of the history of mankind.

I have never been one to accord any respect to royal lineage until now. I think princes and kings or queens are not born, they are made. This one, this one seems to have come out shining, sans armour.

If you come out to play, and shake our hands, and tell us that you will lend your powers to empower us, I too, the silent majority, will meet you half way.

16

Last weekend was a belated gift in some ways to my former 16-year-old self.

It was to say the least, a bizarre experience. Me, enjoying the moment, hugging my old self inside like a proud mother, and telling my older self to be joyful, and dance. Around me, the aged faces of yesterday's party scene also I suspect, doing the same.

Let's be honest. I had a blast. I wished I was young again standing there.

M

Hello M my sweet,

Your aunt says maybe I should acknowledge you. I wonder what that means.

It has taken me more than ten years to come to terms with your presence in my life. I think I have, although the fundamental purpose of you has yet to become clear to me.

I know that you have been the most difficult test of my mettle. It makes me wonder why I was put to that test. Whether I have yet to undergo another one - an epic battle of battles that will either undo me or see me barely surviving.

Sometimes, I feel you are a validation of everything I know about me. My strength, my weakness, my tendency to throw myself headlong into whatever catches my fancy at the moment.

Surely you were not there just to help ease my separation from him. That would be too small a purpose for someone as central as you are to my life.

Mother says now that she thinks I should have been a parent. Should have been as if it is already no longer a possibility. I suppose, it is. Or she presumes it is because it is my will. And I suppose she wouldn't be wrong on that count. Because there is nothing really, stopping me from being one if I so chose.

What did I dream for myself that has not come true? I used to wonder a little about having a husband and maybe a little less about having a child. I wasn't a teenager who could even tell you how many children she wanted to have. Maybe it is my self-centered nature. My dreams were always about me. Becoming a rock star or someone famous.

That has changed with little regret.

I realise now I have regressed, back into the chambers of my childhood when I dreamt alone and played alone, content with my own company, too busy with my own thoughts to bother with other people, other playmates. There are few who tickle my interest enough for me to reach out. I make friends with difficulty now. Acquaintances easily, but friends, no.

Friendship is such a messy thing. Full of obligations and layers of intrigue that complicate life. So much so that often the rewards are very easily forgotten.

Family, is a different thing. In fact, I have found in my older age, that family is an easy environment in which to make a friend. Maybe the very premise of it is the reason. When you start off a relationship on the premise of forever after, friendship develops with fewer presumptions and more ground rules. It provides parameters of trust on which you tread more carefully.

I am beginning to wonder whether the only places I can absolutely be myself is here and with the dog.

Miss Thang

Sometimes, during the inbetweens of thoughts, I wonder about you. When I see you've added new pictures on your Facebook page, of you and her and people who are no longer part of my life. Like you. And her, somewhat.

I wonder.

There has always been something about you that has never quite sat right with me. Your intent and your motivation. Towards her in particular. Maybe it is my residual protective instinct surfacing.

Then I realise that you can only be to her what she allows you to be. Same as when she was with me.

And my thoughts then turn inwards to you and me, and what you allow me to be, and vice versa.

And the images of you and her, of a symbiotic pair turns to that of a rock beneath a small waterfall that is constantly beating on the hard stone surface, relentless but not quite brutal.

Is that what I am? Brutally relentless, or relentlessly brutal? Some days I think you see me as the former, and some as the latter. It wavers, I feel.

Some days like recently, I find it is I who is feeling more disconnected from you than sensing your distance from me. And I wonder what that means.

Whether I am really drifting away. Or whether I am becoming numbed to this lack of feeling or opinions from you beyond the occasional grunt.

There are lots of moments when I really, truly feel like kicking you. Physically kicking you just to get a real reaction, one that is substantive. Not just a grunt.

That I haven't already is at least a little solace for myself, that I am not physically violent in nature.

Maybe I am just fed up and tired and need to sort myself out.

Days

From my window, I hear sirens. Outside, it is a cloudy Dubai spring day. Or a sullen reprieve from a tropical storm. The roads are still damp, the sun not yet fully persuaded to get out of bed. Days like this are for lazing between the covers in a sea of pillows.

Life should allow for luxuries like that. I've always wondered why days like this aren't automatically holidays.

Girl in a bubble

At home, you have retreated once more into your universe of silence. This opaque world where nothing penetrates, but everything swirls, dirt, dust and clean all together until it is one confusing quagmire.

Every time I look at you I come to a stronger realisation that you represent everything our discriminatory policies have shaped. A person of little personal ambition. A being that is only shuffled along by the tides and has no concept of her own ability to contribute to the decision. A powerless human being, whose shackles are mentally created by a dominant power and reinforces at every turn of the head.

You live in a bubble.

And when it bursts, it will take you a life time to recognise it.

There are days when I wonder whether I will be around to watch that happen.

The winning position

In the days that follow the surprise defeat, many questions linger.

One which I find personally curious - if asked to vote again today, would the outcome be the same?

I hope so.

There is fear now among some parties that they as a race will lose their privileges. Undoubtedly, by a slim genetic shadow, I am subsumed into that mass - unconsulted, unvolunteered, but unopposed.

I think as one of the many, that if you have nothing to fear, then you have nothing to lose. If you have always held your own life principles as personal, unrelated to race and religion, then you should have confidence in your own ability.

The problem is, many have benefitted from the skewed advantages. Many who are intelligent and cannot now turn their backs on all the gains they stand to reap in maintaining the status quo. And in today's day and age, where I am convinced citizenship does not preside over the preservation of self, survival could, if the balance tipped in the other's favour, cause those who subscribe to patron-politics to flee the ranks.

If I had a child I would teach him or her to be the best person he or she can be. Not the best person in a particular race or religion or country, but the best person he or she can humanly be. Then it won't matter. This mad scramble for power and position using everything one has to one's advantage would become white noise. Because then you will be the one who is too good to pass up despite your race, religion, gender or creed.

The one they cannot afford to lose.

That's the winning position ultimately, when the chips fall. Not your skin, your God, your lover or your bank account.

Change

We slept as the winds of change swept through the country.

We ate dinner as I palpitated listening to the results, and you, along with the other two sat silent, a little dumbfounded at my fervour. It is as if you did not understand the far-reaching impact of what was happening.

You sat, dumb-founded as we stared out to sea, wind whipping through the umbrella that shaded us, and I launched into a cautious tirade about how you need to step up your game and stop helping me as if it's a favour you're doing this mad woman.

Sometimes I realise how representative you are of the sleeping race that I am part of. And I cannot fathom how I have come to love you. You who will never take matters into your own hands but instead wait to be told. You are the classic product of political patronange.

You told me once that you saw what was happening but didn't get as upset as I did. Quite honestly, I find it hard to understand how one can not be moved. Especially when money is thin, everything costs more and the rich get richer. Despite your university degree, you are often times no better than the below-average local university graduate who has no critical thinking skills.

Human nature

It seems to me that these days, people here can no longer see the forest for the trees.

You, who won't do a woman who is virtually a single mother a favour just because she won't do one for you. You (and I) who cannot pretend to even understand what it's like to be mother of an infant. In my weaker moments, I too have judged her. But I think we need to draw the line somewhere and put our own feelings aside and reach out with our helping hand. If not for anything, because it makes you the larger person. Not someone stooped in hate and a fucked up mental accounting system that keeps tabs on who is nice to you and who is not.

Why do you carry so much hate in your head and heart?

To the nation, I ask this question: what is the real deal? Does it matter who is in power, if you know that the basis of human nature is to bend towards self-interest and preservation? All good men have their flaws and biases. The point is to keep these self-interests of leaders in check, so that they remain beholden and constrained by the populace. Otherwise, you might as well throw your vote away.

When a leader insults your intelligence, even if he's doing a good job, you should make him pay by demanding accountability that is put forth in an intelligent and rational manner befitting your own understanding of things. When that fails, vote with your feet. Make him understand that he owes you, and it is not the other way around.

There is a reason why even the most powerful person in Government is called a Government servant.

And when the next man fails, serve him the same medicine.

Until we realise that we alone hold the power over others to keep society on an even keel, we've lost the point completely.

Just as we ourselves hold the power to save the planet from deteriorating into a deluge of unlivable conditions. It's not the big Governments and businesses that will save us. It's our selves.

At the end of the day, accountability begins with the individual person who makes a choice. And it must, ideally, be an informed choice that has received the adequate amount of personal consideration and evaluation guided by one's principles and values. If we assume that people are generally good, then technically we should be alright.

But judging from the state of things, I think human nature is in essence otherwise.

Fairies

Here is what I see - a place built around the idea of the small magic moments in life. A place where you not only come to rest and release, but also take a vacation from your normal sphere of connection. Where you meet new people you wouldn't meet in your daily life. Where you let your guard down because you have to check it in at the door. Where you retreat not to hide away, but open up to new possibilities.

There must be a way of making that connection. Opening people up to new ideas/thoughts.

The idea of bartering - refraining from waste and rewarding people in small ways. Showing them that preservation can lead to new discoveries.

Wavering

I recognise now the patterns of my own behaviour. The rising of confidence on a given subject or project, then the dips in my own self-assuredness, accompanied by my lashing out at someone to get them to prop me up. Although I guess sometimes it may not seem that way to the person on the receiving end.

My fear, I know now, is what drives my sometimes unexplainable bouts, the out-of-nowhere whip of my crazy cat-o-nine-tails tongue that almost but cleverly never out-and-out accuses you of anything. But tells you in nuances how you continue to fall short of my expectations.

I apologise, I truly am sorry.

Truth is, this project and the one that I think this will create room for both terrify me perhaps more than I dare admit. Because this is about walking the line and actually taking the deep breath before crossing over. The totting up of all my wishes and pipe dreams, and all that I've worked for up till now, and making it work.

What if when I get there I don't like it?

Maybe what I need to do is take this as I have all my other jobs. Except this one is with my own money.

And I need to get serious about the writing. If I do skive from now on, I will write. It must be my new rule of life. Sacrifice one thing for another. Not just be a sloth at home.

Where the heart is

So here we are. Back from vacation where we didn't fight nor make love. Small matter. I enjoyed myself and laughed a lot. Sometimes I did wonder for teeny moments whether we would have run out of things to say without the kids around. But all the same, it was nice.

Today is Valentine's Day and I am here, on the net, with you reading on the couch. Somehow it all feels right and warm and safe and sound and loving. The dogs running about the house. It's all quiet and peaceful. Like old age. Being with you is like knowing what old age is. I like it somehow, at least a part of me does.

I know you never wonder how growing old will be like because I think a big part of you is already there. And I like it. Strange. This constant pulling, pulling I feel to break away, and yet, I know there's nothing else out there I'd rather have or hold in my hand. Because here is where the heart is.

Random thoughts on a Sunday

All is peaceful and quiet and loving in the house. I love it when things are like this - on an even keel.

Things with the island are somewhat frustrating. Going nowhere. And sometimes, judging from the conversation with Dyke Interrupted, perhaps a little out of my reach.

These are the times when I wonder if I should just forget it all and keep slogging at the 9 to 5 because it's easier and simpler and more obvious. I can see the future on this path, it's fairly prosperous and safe. And I could still afford my holidays and keep you and I and our life fairly intact.

Then I would just have to acquire more discipline and keep plugging away at my writing with a bit more gusto. But I am a slacker at heart.

Maybe all I need sometimes is a space to write. A place where I can retreat to, just you and me and the dogs, no Wonder Boy and his loopy space cadet of a girlfriend to make empty conversation with. No psycho lesbians up the road to gossip about and be upset about.

Maybe if we don't find anything worth pursuing on the island, I should just buy a piece of land somewhere that we can run away to. And call our own. And be at peace with the dogs and I can write and you can be alone with your games and books. Because even on our weekends we are dsistracted with company.

Boy Genius rang me over the weekend to report his sighting of a Roomba knock-off. He's such a dear. He warms my heart. I love, love, love him at this age, innocent and precocious.

We are off on our holiday next week, sans dogs, with kids instead. It will be a welcome break.

I re-read the stuff I wrote some months ago in my boredom at work, and I was surprised at how good it was.

Playing Hookey

I love days like this, despite the lessening guilt of not being at work where I am paid to be.

I sit and write and read and the world is peaceful in my home with the dog on her bed, asleep next to her favourite rubber toy.

I know there is a huge part of me that needs this. This being alone and free to just entertain my own private thoughts about life and world. And my putting it down somewhere, even if it is just for an audience of one.

There is a lot in this world to be unhappy about. My mother thinks I am an unhappy person. I don't think I am. I am grateful. Grateful for the things I have, the places I've been and will go to, the people I know, the people who want to know me. But I am also scared. Scared of it all going away one day because of factors I cannot control, like politics and world leaders and nepotistic Prime Ministers.

So many people who are not even as huge misfits as I am in this place are already leaving or have left. The depths of their disgust with the stink in this country are so great they are willing to leave family, familiars and relatively comfortable lives to go elsewhere for the sake of a little more peace.

Are they running away? Is the good fight better fought on the war-torn turf? There are many who think so. Many who think the thing to do is stay and persevere and try and change things by fighting the system. But I also think that those who leave are fighting the battle. They have voted with their feet, putting the latter before their hearts. And I think it is time the country listened.

When someone takes a step away and flees, it is a signal often, of desperation. Of reaching a state where the person feels there is no other choice but to disengage. When a woman stops talking, it is because she is done. When a people flees its Motherland, it is because the Motherland no longer embraces them, or makes them feel like it is enough of a home for their spirits.

When a people turns its back on its own soil, it cannot be mistaken for anything other than what it is - a sign of pure, unadulterated distress. Distress with the knowledge that even they, those who have strongest legal and constitutional claim to the land, no longer buy into the Great National Dream. Distress with the understanding that they are now powerless to change things enough that a tolerable living standard would be reached in their lifetimes.

Yes, their lifetimes. For we are selfish, aren't we? In as much as religion teaches us patience, the limit of patience in most of us is our own life spans. If we cannot see things changing while we still live, the selfish in us will say, what's the point? Let someone else fight the battle in their own life time.

Last Night

Last night, we decided to talk. About the things that are raw, uncooked, not even sashimi-sliced. Just slabs of raw placed on the table for both of us to face and scrutinise and analyse and pick apart.

No seasoning, just plain raw.

And you know what? I think it did us a world of good.

I heard things from you that pierced my flesh and spirit, like a fine fish bone scraping its way down my throat with every swallow. Eat a ball of rice, the mothers tell you, swallow hard and it will go down gentler.

I think at times I managed to get through to you. To show you what I see in your mirror - beyond the smoky vagueness of the tomorrow in your head. I showed you what I see clear as day, this hamster-wheel you seem to have yourself caught on, this endless turning, turning and playing catchup with your feet. And I asked you to try and let go.

We ended with a feeling more so than words. A sense, I think, that there is a deeper, stronger current beneath the surface of our negativity. A knowledge in our souls that in the end, we do love each other, and we do want to make it work, and we do share some dreams.

You made me realise that. I think I made you realise it too.

This time the making up was gentler. No tempests, just plain talk. No make-up sex, just you deciding to sleep next to me and wake up next to me with the dog in between us.

I like that. It's what I want.

Endings

It is Sunday, and I have lost count of what day this consitutes in our silent war.

Early this morning as I was going to bed, after reading The Prophet, I had this incredible urge to go up to you and kiss you as you lay sleeping on the couch, and invite you to our bed. But then I realised that you may groggily comply and I will have to put up with your sleeping presence next to me, while my inner turmoil rages next to you, keeping me awake.

So instead, I let it go and went to sleep.

This afternoon when I woke, I snuck a look at the text messages on your phone. You are smarter now since I caught you the last time - you actually erase some of your messages. But I do know you've been talking to the ex, like you typically do every time we fight.

What is it with you and your blindness? You think you can run away and seek solace in her presence, when it was her presence you ran away from in the first place? You told J that the ex probably hates you, yet you keep going back to her, saying hello, reaching out.

I don't know any more how to sort things out in my own head, let alone yours.

There is a part of me that wonders whether it is me, me wanting you to achieve more, reach higher, dream bigger. I also realise at times, that it's not right for me to do this. That you are your own person. But at the same time, you resent me for it.

Maybe I should just be with someone else. Someone whose dreams and efforts are as big as mine. And as simple. Or at least someone who actually does something to reach for their dreams.

It's not like I want you to be a billionaire. But I do want you to worry about what will happen in the future, and how we will take care of ourselves. You live paycheck to paycheck. It's not like your family or mine is rich enough to support either of us if something happens. What sort of safety net do we have?

I don't know. Maybe I am just slowly going into a depression because of where my own life is.

Am I depressed?

I do sometimes feel like this world has gone to pot. Like there's little I can do to change it. And I want to change it.

But often, I think there is still a lot of beauty and grace in this world that makes it worth while living. I love living, I love life. I can't bear the thought of dying. I think it is such a horrible, frightening notion.

Yet, there is at times like this, a hole. A hole that is so black I don't know what's at the bottom of it. If you know the bottom, at least you'll have an idea how best to fill it.

Am I happy in this relationship of ours? Of late, I have to say no. No because things don't seem to be changing for the better. You seem to, in my eyes, be getting worse. This is my year of figuring out what to do with the rest of my life, at least in the medium-term, and having you regress is not something I can cope with.

I need you with me and in the moment, or perhaps not at all.

I don't need you to tiptoe around when I need to be my raw, unedited self, thinking aloud, coping with the every day in order to get to the next station.

I've been trying, in our quiet, to turn the mirror on my self and discern this reflection that looks back. To find out what it is I really feel about us. To uncover whether I really want us to go on.

It has been hard. My mirror is too clouded with the things I don't like about you.

I know that one of the reasons I persevere is probably because I am too afraid and it is too difficult to unwind our position. The telling of friends, the getting used to being alone once more. The getting on with life in the every day without someone next to me.

Aloneness, is a scary thing. I can endure it, but I'd rather not. At least that, is clear to me.

But then, for as long as I endur this, am I depriving myself?

Let me think about what it is I love about us.

I love that you make me laugh. That you are so weird and eccentric you make me laugh. But you don't like that. You think that I am mocking you when in fact, my laughter is a sign of fondness, of loving, of cherishing the oddities that make you the person you are.

I love that you calm me when I am stressed out. But lately, you don't seem to have the energy to do it any more, in the same way I often now am so blase about the things I hate about you - your inertia, your promising to do something and my assuming you won't.

You know, these days, I don't take your promises seriously anymore. That's what has become of us. I don't even give you benefit of the doubt. I assume you won't do it.

Because you have disappointed so many times.

So much so that when you do deliver, I am surprised.

There were many things in the early days that I loved about you. You took charge on vacations. You took care of me. You told me stories at bedtime, and held me. You planned with me and dreamed with me.

Now I do all the dreaming. And I think that is the saddest truth about us. That you don't dream with me any more. You don't want to go on vacations with me any more. You just come along for the Me ride. You're a passenger.

Yes, maybe that's what we have become. A cab driver and her passenger, except I dictate where we are going. You just sit in your seat and surrender.

Sometimes I wonder, is it the money? And often I assume it is the money. But I have also seen you spend, and find money and save when you want something. You're not incapable of it. I realise that now. Which means, in my mind, that you simply don't care any more. You don't care to save for tickets to a show, or a concert, or a holiday.

OK.

I think, more than ever now, that it's time we ended this.

Questions

Day 4 of not talking.

I have discovered of late that whenever we are not talking or you are not around, I sleep better. I wonder why.

The house is also cleaner - as if both of us make more of an effort to keep it neat.

I go to the gym more.

I am so torn between just ending things and persevering. Yet I cannot forget how you have ignored my birthdays two years in a row. Yet you can offer your ex a wonderfully lavish birthday present. I think there's something wrong with that equation.

I don't trust you. My gut tells me that when we are apart like this you wander, and entertain thoughts and possibilities of being with someone else.

This is what life without you would be like:

I would go to work, to the gym, see friends, have to scramble to feed the dogs, have no one to come home to and talk with, have no one to do groceries with, have no one to sleep next to and hold me and tell me that everything will be okay.

I am trying to figure out whether we persevere because we are both afraid of being alone, or whether we actually want to be with one another. I am beginning to feel perhaps it is the latter.

I still love you and want you but I don't think you feel the same. It is always me touching you and goading you into intimacy. Not the other way round.

I wonder why I persevere. Is it because I really love you or because I don't want to be by myself.

This is always confusing. This petering out of exhilaration that makes me question.

Is it my habitual questioning whether there's something else out there? I don't know.

I know that when I am apart from you I don't lie awake worrying about money. I don't worry about what will happen if something happens to me or you and how we are going to pay for it.

I worry less. As if a burden has been lifted from my shoulders.

Do I really have the strength to do this by my self? I think as I grow older, I grow stronger, and am able to face the possiblity of being alone for a while. Or a long time.

I don't like it. I want to be with someone. But I want to be with someone who wants to be there with me. Not someone I have to second guess, not someone who thinks breaking up is always a possibility.

I know that I sometimes think about breaking up - like now. But I also know that I want to work at this, as long as I feel you want to as well. Because there's no point just talking, talking, talking about things.

When you say you want to leave me, I will be sad. Because I know we could have been so much better if only you and I had figured out a way to be more supportive of this relationship than just giving in to our personal baggage.

Problem is, I feel like I am the one figuring out the baggage tags all the time. You just ride along with me.

Maybe I am just tired of having a passenger in my life.

Carpets

I had lunch with you today - my long time friend from high school. It's our almost now annual ritual, about the only time we ever meet.

And we talked about trivial things, like how there's not enough time, and how our bodies are starting to show their adulthood. And politics, and children (yours) and new things we are doing or exploring.

But we skirted around the usual topics that used to be fodder for our long telephone conversations in high school. The heartaches, the boys who gave us palpitations, the irritants that our other halves have sometimes become, the coping with wondering whether this is all life has to offer us, and whether we are content with it.

I wanted to reach across the table and grab your hands and tell you that I don't know if I am still in love with my other half enough to see things through. And over-analyse it all, what she said, what she did, what she didn't say or do.

Instead, we focused on our sandwiches. And parted ways, you off to work, me off to scout a handbag that I ultimately didn't buy.

So this is what becomes of old friends. A carpet underneath which everything is swept.

Half An Hour

Half an hour till the official end of the working day.

30 minutes before I have to decide for myself how to spend the rest of the evening.

We are currently on Day Two of not talking.

Maybe I should turn the mirror this way - see what reflects back.

What do I want?

I want someone with whom I can build a life time. Someone who will hold my hand, embrace me and touch me and kiss me for no reason other than their spirit needs to reach out so much it manifests itself in the person's fingers, limbs and lips.

Someone I can laugh and fight with, without the fear of the person wanting to walk out. With whom staying is a given, not an option. I guess perhaps that goes for me too - I should stop treating leaving as an option.

I want someone who will take part in the building of my dreams, just as I will his or hers. Not just watch on the sidelines. I don't need a cheerleader, I need a team mate.

Today is one of those days that make me feel like buying a giant eraser. Or hitting the 'Delete' button all the way to the first paragraph.

After six years, here is where you and I stand:
1 house, mortgaged, paid for and still being paid for by me
5 dogs, largely taken care of by you
3 cats, those are all your responsiblities since I hate cats
2 cars, on two separate accounts

In the grander scheme of things, that's what it boils down to.

If we split, the only points of discussion will be the cats - and you'll have to deal with those, and how many dogs I keep.

Everything else is cut and dried.

Here are the things that make me feel like giving up:

1. You seem immutable to any change whatsoever. Progress is something that sits in the realm of fairy tales when it comes to improving your quality of life and financial standing + future. Someday you will invest in this, someday you want to buy that. Some day. But some THING tells me those are just pipe dreams you are incapable of reaching due to your own inertia.

2. But on the flip side, you envy my position of being the financial provider. In fact, you plain and simply hate it. You resent that I make more than you because it makes you feel like shit. Well, deal with it. If you actually gave a bloody care about the house, then maybe I'd let you pick door colours. But you don't. Oh yes, you do the dishes and call the gardener, but if something breaks down I have to tell you to ring the bloody contractor. And you wonder why I don't ask you when I am picking new wall paint. I didn't think you cared.

Actually, I think the crux of my constant (of late) wanting to end this all is this feeling in my gut that you, deep down in the seat of your emotional cave, have built up such a wall of resentment for me that you cannot let go. And your internal coping mechanism is already edging you to leave. So one eye is on the door. The foot is tracing the line, poised to take flight.

The only thing stopping you is something to chase.

I don't deserve this.

Why

I suppose, like with all beginnings, I need an explanation, even if this is only to the ether.

This is my secret cranny, where the part of me that seldom sees daylight will live. It's funny - you carry this other person inside you your whole life, and in most cases, she never gets to have her say.

Well now, I do.

Not that I have multiple personalities, but I think I need somewhere to vent. About life. About the other half. About the job that is such a chore to wake up to most days. About the fact that as an adult, the political landmine of friends and family often don't permit a woman to be completely and brutally honest and wavering about her self and her life without the repercussions hitting you in the face later over a dinner or a tea.

This is what I've learned in over three decades: Everything has a consequence. Even those things we girls hold sacred, like crying on a friend's shoulder. In fact, at times, that's the worst of the lot. Cry, feel better for three seconds, and then pay back for the rest of your life by having to put up with 'I told you so's' at best, and at worst, some tangential judgemental comment six months down the road.

Enough said.