Catching Up

I’d like to think that I haven’t been writing because I’ve been busy out there living my life

It would be an understatement to say that “things have changed around here“. I remember thinking to myself, about one and a half months in, that I had forgotten what it was even like, living I mean, before this. Things seem to have come a little more alive these days. From stacking groceries in the black basket swinging off an arm, scurrying around the aisles of Safeway, to meticulously mincing garlic over a chopping board, to labouring over a stack of dirty dishes with soapy hands – The little mundane activities of my everyday seem to have taken on new purpose.

And I have this sneaking suspicion that it is because everything is for a certain someone.

Of course, a wave of apprehension briefly catching my breath, just ever so slightly, when I realize the weight of my statement, and check myself before I utter the next. Then again, it seems silly to talk it down, to undermine the true quality of this experience I’ve been blessed with.

I am happy.

For the most part of it, anyway. And I’m determined to make that the part that counts.

So now, we’re approaching the next marker of 2. It’s still small, and very, very young. It hasn’t been perfect. It hasn’t been without its tears. And yet, it’s a moment nonetheless, significant in itself.

It still is a little unnerving to me though, how time seems to have taken on the elastic nature of a rubber band – months in name, years in actuality. On hindsight, it now seems like it was a progression so natural, that it would have almost been absurd if today hadn’t arrived. That small voice that insisted on persistence in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds is now amplifying a loud “I told you so”. And the better (more cautious) half of me scrambles to stifle it, like a superstitious granny wagging one finger disapprovingly, the other hand rapping the table, all the time hissing sage old sayings along the likes of, “Touch wood!” and “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch!” or “Pride comes before the fall!”

I think it would be wise to take heed.

On another note, I seem to be accummulating a small fortune, maybe the better word is backlog, of latent unresolved issues. A well-meaning friend gently nudges, nags, and then not so subtly prods me to speak up, to air my mind. So  I keep setting myself deadlines, scenarios that I conjure up in my head that would be most condusive, when he would be most receptive.

And I know it’s tired, but the truth is I really don’t know what to say. For heaven’s sake, where do I even begin?

After all, I’ve had 2 years practice in being what I’ve affectionately dubbed, a ’silent sufferer’. There is this curious part of the human condition that seems innately conflicted with the natural tendency to seek pleasure, or to pursue a self-centred happiness. I guess, you could call it, the act of ‘martyrdom’ for dramatic poise. And dare I say, some days, it feels like the martyr in me is almost working full-time.

But hold your horses. Is it? On closer inspection, I think I’ve misattributed my denial of self and meekness of character to a notion grander that it really is. Fear masquerading as sacrifice. Cowardice hiding behind selflessness, a facade so magnificent that the shameful face of the former is completely obscured.

Righteousness, or perhaps, the act of ‘feeling righteous‘, can be blinding.

Maybe what I really mean to say, is that I’m afraid to lose this, to lose you. It seems more convenient to sweep everything under the carpet, a quicker fix to haphazardly shove the mess into an old forgotten closet, almost temptingly easier to just pretend that everything is fine and dandy.

It’s just that I get so damn tongue-tied when I’m around you. It’s just that your straight lines of cold hard logic bore holes through my already-ineloquent discourse, exposing the gaps and inconsistencies, uncovering unfounded yet deeply-seated flaws and insecurities, dismissing emotionally-laden words and statements as erratic and, well, crazy -

… when all this time, what I’ve been trying to teach you is that love is anything but rational. I’m sorry to break it to you, but I am one of those crazy, neurotic girls you vowed to run the opposite direction of.

I dream of a day to come where the words aren’t so hard to come by, and to speak freely, without fear of repercussion. I would like it if you could ask the questions sometimes, just so that I know you’re thinking about it, that ‘we’ at least hang somewhere in the periphery of your mind, if not at the forefront. I wish you were that little bit more intuitive to the way everything you say or do, deeply affects me. I anticipate the day you find it in yourself to go extra-ordinarily out of your way for me, like I do for you, only when you’re ready.

But everything in it’s good time, yes? I think I have enough hope in me yet to let things , to wait for you to catch up to me in certain respects, to continue trekking through this passage of life – me learning from you, and you from me, trying to put the destination out of my mind for now, and move along, ever-forward, thinking of nothing more, doing nothing beyond simply,

putting one foot in front of the other.

So for now, I shall release myself into the bliss of the right here right now, and to baby-back ribs.