Before I Go,

I don’t really know what to say, but I feel like writing, so I’m just going to run with it okay?

Since buying this Macbook (which I love, despite some of its inconveniences and incompatibilities), I’ve been utilizing iCal. D said it would change the way you live, and I think I can kind of see what he’s talking about. It’s strange, I feel like so much has happened in the last 3 weeks, and yet, looking at it all, reduced to dot-points and colour-coded tabs, neatly tabulated in a grid… it hasn’t been that long at all, and there’s not long more to go before I have to say goodbye, and hello, and goodbye again.

So yes, I’m trying to re-count what the past 3 weeks have been about. Let’s give this a whack.

Well, I went and -

Infiltrated the other camp. I still can’t decide whether it was calculated or if it really fell into place oh so naturally, as I like to think that it did. Did I imagine it, or have I tried too hard to force the pieces, guilty of my classic crime – where I’ve once again, orchestrated things the way I want them to turn out. But I like it. I liked it when it was just the 4 of us cooking out on a sunny Sunday afternoon. It reminded me of the old days with N. I like it when we can be around other people, and I can be secure enough to let you go, and in doing so, let myself be.

Got myself new friends while I was at it. It is no act that I’ve inadvertently found myself in good company and meaningful conversation over the finer points in life, more often than not, extending into the wee hours of the morning. It’s nice to know that G understands. He’s probably the closest thing to D since, well, hmm, me. I also remember again how much I like Melbourne at this time of year. The streets are a little less busy. We set out less chairs at church on Sundays. The seats at our dining tables shrink in number. Somehow, noise and complication is ushered out along with the departure of people, one by one, after they hang up their academic hats for the year … until the city grinds to this sort of standstill, or rather, slows to a comfortable lull. Yes, I think I like this pace. I can manage these people. I am well-suited to this routine. I also know, that it doesn’t last. So, I’ll soak up what I can, and treasure it for what it is.

Lost hope; Only to find it 2 days later, and revive it to its full glory a week after that. I’ll say it again, it was a good lesson. A wake up call. A slap to the face. I had to face a split second of utter devastation. I had to be brought to my knees, crippled by powerlessness, driven to cry and rant and pray. I am aware though, of the part of me that was still indignant, that refused to believe it. They must have made a mistake. That’s what made me pick up the phone to verify it anyway. But still. In any case, I am thankful that I was cornered into embracing the possibility of change, stripped of petulant pride and arrogant airs; To finally come to fear a God that gives and takes away, and to trust that He directs my path.

Got my heart broken, again and again, and a 1000 times over. Expectations are a cruel, cruel… thingamajig (for my lack of a better word), I have to say. Y’noe how good things only happen to you, when you least expect it? And when you anticipate and anticipate, pine and pine, it’ll just never come? I’ve fallen prey to that too many times to count, and I’m absolutely sick of it.

Finished reading Twilight in 2 days. Edward is too good to be true. I find it exasperating how the narrative is so deceptively simple, the plot so blatantly straight-forward; and yet manages to ensnare my attention, enthrall my imagination, encapture my emotions. I guess Stephanie Meyer’s secret is quite elementary really. She appealed to the fantasies that every adolescent, or single and remotely lonely girl wants to realize. It’s a tried, tested and sadly, true way of getting it in the bag.

Speaking of ‘too good to be true’ are the double engagements over one weekend. I know, I know, we’ve been through this. I still can’t help the surge of envy that overcomes my better sense of well, civility and politeness. And as I courteously extend my ‘congratulations’ and ecstatic ‘I’m so happy for you’(s) and chirpy ‘I can’t wait for the wedding(s)!’ I think about the incredible act of laying down your life for another human being, and the immensity, the grandiosity, the audacity of that notion. It seems incredibly difficult and distant. Not because I don’t believe that I’m incapable of it, but because I can’t imagine that someone could, would do it for me.

Learnt how to play DOTA with the boys. I think I might be addicted. Now I can understand why boys can waste away spend hours upon hours holed up in cyber cafes. Time does seem to slip away much faster during game-play. I’ve also learnt that stew is the best dish to cook while DOTA-ing. In the midst of heavy battle, there it may lie, simmering all its yummy goodness into the broth while it sits forgotten on the stove. That being said, I kind of suck at it. I’m still at the stage where the goal is simply, not to die. Maybe I should spend the holidays secretly honing my skills and come back with a vengeance and astound all the boys. Heh.

So yeah, those are but some of the things, I went and done.

And now, I’m thinking of -

The amount of money I’ve spent trying to fix my face. I can’t begin to express how much it’s been bothering me. I feel tortured flipping through magazines, walking along the streets and having to meet with flawless, porcelain complexions. I can’t even look him in the eyes. What must people think, when they lay eyes on me? Please… go, go, go away

How I’m annoyingly finding myself at the exact same place as I was last year. A little more bruised, a little more battered. But still, standing. Same same, but different. Same talk, only with added attempts at outlining boundaries with chalk, rubbed away and drawn over with ease, as and when pleased. Same incapacitating insecurities, same hyper-sensitivity, same heightened paranoia, just different girl, different song. Same sliver of possibility, this time on a different land, in a different room.

What it means to say, I love you; and the tragedy of uttering it to move impassive eyes, cold rationality and a stony heart.

Home, and how it might be strange to return to ‘homes’ that I’ve never lived in (or not for long anyway), and what it might feel to live under the rules of the household again. But of course, I’m looking forward to running into the arms of the people who have loved me their whole lives; where there is no condemnation, no shame.

Only love, freely given.

The Big Move

It is a strange process indeed, packing up 2 years into boxes.

It is a strange feeling indeed, being in possession of another set of keys, knowing that while I come back every night to this loft, there is another space waiting to receive me – Ready to be filled and furnished, soon to be deemed ‘home’.

But till then, a lot has happened in this house. So much has changed since the first day we moved in. Some endured the fires, some got burned away like chaff, some simply just weathered away with the winds of time. It’s funny how it occurs to me that the way my past is remembered is very much a cognitive shift. I can choose.

It’s true, history is anything but objective.

Tonight, the air is thick and damp, like something died. The bunch of dried roses that hang over the rail look tired and wilted.

Can I just say, how afraid I am of what is to come?

Life as I know it, is completely going to change. It’s a 50-50 gamble. It could go horribly wrong, or perhaps, it might take flight like never before. Cutting the threads loose is admittedly a temptingly liberating notion. It’s been what I’ve been waiting for, all these months haven’t I? But it’s still a free-fall into the unknown, the treading into un-chartered waters. I’m hovering in that split-second of doubt, of apprehension, of everything-that-could-go-possibly-wrong, just before the sky-diver wills himself to take the plunge into the clouds.

But for now, what I would give for every day to be like this… counting down the hours till 5.30 till I knock off work, wait for you to call me after you’re done with yours. I come over with the groceries in my white blouse and black pencil skirt, tempted to affectionately call out at the doorway, ‘Honey, I’m home’. And we just spend a quiet evening, squabbling over how to cut the onions and chop the garlic, dishing out dinner for two, asking each other how your day’s been and lounge in front of the tv, enjoying a good movie.

I feel like evenings like these are drawing to a close, and it’s imperative that I condition myself against them.

Numb myself to feel absolutely nothing at all…
The days are running out.