Supporting gay marriage: a note on acceptance

I posted a link on my Facebook wall to an article by Amanda Vanstone on the debate on gay marriage.

Gay marriage, I am excited about. Perhaps it is because I got married and then realise that hey, it can actually be pretty good, despite the bad rap that it has received over the years, you know, divorce ugliness and all that. This marriage, to me, is like an act of faith that there is still goodness in this one person that I have decided to spend the rest of my life with. That, plus the legal recognition of our relationship. Yes, you may laugh all you want, but this is nothing to sneeze about. Prior to this, I have been largely nonchalant about marriage. I did not grow up to be one of those girls who fantasized about what their weddings are going to be. Then again, I took it for granted that it would be an option that would be available to me should I decide to walk down that path.

I admit that I have never given gay marriage a lot of thought other than this: it is just a matter of time before gay marriages are recognised in the eyes of the law. Until then, I hope that not too many people embarrass themselves in the process. My stance on the matter is neatly summarised as: we have no right to deny another human being the right to have a union that is recognised by law by the mere virtue of his/her sexual orientation, topped with a generous borrowing of this quote from Vanstone: "Society is built on relationships of mutual dependence. In this era of me, me and more me, the more that people are prepared to commit to one another, to be responsible for each other and dependent on each other, the better. High divorce rates tell us heterosexuals are more and more discarding this. But the gay community want it. Open the gates and cheer, is my response."

Except that I forget that I don’t keep a streamlined friends list on Facebook. Some of these people are people that I used to know once upon a time, because we used to go to church together.

That.

I have not been inside a church for a very long, long time. Yet to these people, to openly declare my support for gay marriage is like spitting on my religion. By their standards, I am a stray-er. I have forgotten God, or some even go as far as labeling me as forsaking God. No matter. I am used to a lot of labels in this life, so these just get added on the list. That said, these are no ordinary label. Plus once upon a time, these happened often enough that I have a strategy. To clarify, the contexts were different, but the labels were the same. The context was, well, my extended absence from the church. For those with an I am holier than thou attitude, for those who were involved in some form of activities, like the church band, or choir, or dancer, or whatever, for those who have taken no time to get to know me and are obviously not interested in my answers, but said the labels anyway for whatever reason, it goes something like this.

It starts with an invincible eye roll. Come on, you can’t deny me out of this pleasure. Then, a polite answer: Yes, I have been absent from church. And yes, I would like to go often. I’ll try to make the time.. By the time I am done being polite, I am exhausted, my interest of attending church has fizzled out, just in time for a quick exit. Moving on.

That people need to stop judging those of us who seemingly cannot make time for God, that attendance at church does not always correlate with kindness, and that holiness can be a valid goal, but is not something for human beings to judge, are a small part of the series of sentences that I often hold my tongue for. Just because you don’t see me or hear me praying does not need to be reconciled with my religious-ness, or lack thereof, because deep down, we all know that your views are a reflection of you more than they are a reflection of me.

For these people, I cannot be both a Christian and a supporter of gay marriage; I have to choose between them. I don’t need a counselling session with a pastor to pull out biblical verses that are frequently cited as condemnation of certain queerness. This is not to say that I have analysed all these verses, nor scrutinised all the explanations and interpretations of some renowned religious scholars. Out of the ones that I have had the pleasure of coming across, some are convincing, some, not so much; some feel like stretching the meaning through manipulation of the words. In one of the churches that I used to attend regularly, I was told that I should not rely on my own understanding, but that of God. This line I struggle with till this day because I find it difficult to believe that the God that has given us a functioning brain actually intended us to forgo their use. As Galileo Galilei put it, "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them” .

But what this has highlighted for me, again and again, is that the Bible is essentially a collection of texts, written by some people, a very long time ago. Yes, it is possible that these people were enlightened, which subsequently, made the resultant text, a source of enlightenment. And it is also useful for us to be mindful of the fact that any piece of writing comes with contexts, and interpretations, and everything else in between. To take a piece of text out of context is to essentially, misquote, misinterpret, mislead.

So, now what? The Bible is not completely irrelevant and it is also should be utilised accordingly. The main themes inherent in the Bible, to me, are love, faith, mercy. These are the things that speak to me louder than anything else, and in turn, I rely on my faith, on God’s love and on mercy. And to extend these things to the world in general, independent of religion, race, or sexual orientation. To give others the freedom to choose and do what they see fit them best, namely, in this case, to get married, or not, and give recognition of these choices in the eyes of the law.

I am not actively involved in any church, nor regularly attend one, yet I get the sense that when it comes to churches and Christianity, there exists a certain element of homophobia, and this is more prevalent in social circles that are largely homophobic, which still exist in a country that is so far removed from homophobia. I don’t want to defend my stance on gay marriage, I don’t need to. I don’t want to establish a distinction between how ‘forward thinking’ an individual can be. I do not want to marginalise these social circles. These imperfect communities, just like any other community embroiled with insecurities, struggle with foreign concepts and new ideas, and in all likelihood, are probably scared in losing their identities (or perhaps, just doing whatever they can to preserve their current identities). It is easier to say all the right things to preserve order than to actually believe them, let alone live according to them. It is easier to give up and pretend that the issue doesn’t exist and will never eventuate to reality and if it ever does, then you would revolt: get divorce just to make a point.

That aside, I believe, or at least, would like to believe, that it is also possible to find a happy medium: that of a revolutionary break through; that supporting gay marriage and be a Christian are not mutually exclusive, to let go of what we should be, and just simply be.  

When it ends: a note on relationships

I have not seen her nor spoke with her for months, years, and from time to time, I do miss her, or more likely, the version of her that I etched in my memory. Once upon a time, there was this one person that I loved so wholeheartedly. I believed that she would, and allowed her to, do whatever she saw fit for us. Yet the questions. What is love? What makes something love? What makes love, love? How do you know what someone loves you? How much devotion is involved? How much of a daily grind should we share? How much involvement should someone who claimed to love me have in my life? How much approval should we seek of each other? What if we disagree? Should we then strive to mend this ‘gap’?

These questions, I had never asked her openly; at least not with words anyway. But I asked them to myself on a very regular basis, and I began to use them as a framework of analysis of this mysterious thing called love. Because I felt ‘love’ was choking me. Why I had to be perpetually available whenever she called, or why could I just not say that this was not a good time to talk. She was always relentlessly insisting; it was as if I was filing not just a loneliness gap, but more like a crater in her life. She wanted involvement in every little thing. I just wanted space. I mean, really, if this was what love was all about, then I would rather pass, thanks.

She probably had never come across something similar, so it was somewhat understandable that she was ill-equipped to deal with the issue. While the battle was primarily mine, and struggle was perhaps largely in my mind, they were as real as they come, and ignoring them wouldn’t have made things easier. The sad thing was that instead of using this opportunity to engage with me on a different level, she chose to assert herself in a way that felt belittling me. To be fair, I probably deserved it since I was somewhat self-absorbed; I made it all about me (instead of us), and at the same time, there was also cluelessness in her part that she wasn’t willing to address. It is useful to remember that she is only a human being, who was, more likely than not, also experimenting with the relationship. I painfully came to the conclusion that it was not her fault that she didn’t know how to handle the situation. Equally painfully, I chose to believe that perhaps, she was trying her best.

At the end of the day, if I could put it into words, then this would be it: I have spent a very long time negotiating a relationship with her. She wasn’t exactly absent, she was simply mostly unavailable. She wanted a relationship with me, there was no doubt, but she wanted this relationship to exist in a particular way, a way that suited only her, with little regard for anyone else. She wanted me to play a certain role in her life, to fulfill a certain gap. It was this role that I was unwilling to play. In all honestly, the gap, I could probably fill, at least a little bit, but I refused to do so because I didn’t believe that it was my responsibility to fill that gap in her life. Furthermore, if having a relationship with her came with such unrealistic expectations, then it was better not to engage at all. I could never bear that burden of responsibility that was imposed on me so absent-mindedly, so selfishly. The irony is of course I ended up being the one who was labelled selfish because I refused to participate in this relationship. That also became the defining point, in my life at least, that every relationship is subject to its own terms and these terms are always open for negotiations. These negotiations are bound to happen throughout the course of the relationship because it is one way of asserting boundaries, and boundaries change with time. Without these, the relationship would be based on someone else’s terms. I think I am a little bit too independent to allow myself to participate in such an arrangement.

So, to put it bluntly, I got tired of negotiating this relationship.

She is loveable, and she definitely deserves to be loved, but maybe, not by me.

I still miss her. And I will forever miss her. I will have to live with that gap in my heart from where she used to be. 

Learning finance from Dad: a note on money management

Every so now and then, Dad and I got to talk about money. When I say talk, what I really mean is this: he talks, I listen. As such, most of these stories are not exactly mine to tell, they are his. This, coupled with the fact that talking about money is regarded as something taboo, result in me becoming uncomfortable writing about them. And no, we don't talk about the power of compounding interest or the like or which asset class represents the best investment given the current economic conditions. We talk about the real deal, money stuff.

My Dad is a good person, and I don’t just say this because I am his daughter, although it is very possible that my views are biased because of that. He is one of the most generous persons I’ve ever come across in my life, and he certainly has his heart in the right places. If one day I get the privilege to be in his position, I would be doing most of the things that he is doing.

The older I get, the more I realise that there are similarities between us in how we view the world. Generation gap be damned. We don’t always agree on everything, and I know this not just because I disagree with him (albeit not openly), but he would disagree with me openly, and at times, rather bluntly. I don’t mind this approach at all; in fact, I find it easier to know things upfront, although in the process, it was like ‘da fug?’ Despite having quite a few of these in a lifetime, the latest one was no easier than one prior.

Suffice to say that his life experience means he has plenty of stories to tell, plenty of views to express. Plus he is a parent, something which I probably will not experience in this lifetime, so I try to understand that he might come from a different angle than me. I have watched enough friends becoming parents, and I have noticed the change that happened in them. Most of them insist that they are not that much different, but deep down, they know they have changed in ways that even they didn’t think was possible.

Because of my Dad, I won the genetic lottery, through no effort of my own. I didn’t know what I did in my previous life to deserve such good fortune. If I were to pick a dad amongst all the dads in the world, I would pick mine – despite how rocky our relationship can be. I owe much of who I am to him, his love, his generosity, his impartation of knowledge.

The other day we got into a conversation of the difference between frugal and stingy. Why we ended up discussing this I am not at liberty to disclose, so I am trying to focus on the conversation itself. He said that when someone does not have enough money for himself, he has no choice but to be frugal. In this situation, he cannot be labeled stingy, because he has no money to spare. In contrast, a stingy person is someone who hoards his money, and does not want to share that with anyone, including people who have sacrificed for him in the past (e.g. his parents).

I pointed out the possibility that it was very possible that this person whose context we were discussing could earn a lot more money than what my Dad thought. After all, apparently, Dad did ask him how much he earned, not because Dad was nosy, but because he was concerned. The answer that he got was a typical Generation Y response: it is a secret. To be fair, if I were the recipient of the question, I would’ve done a similar thing, but worded nicely. What can I say, I like words. I can string them to convey a meaning that I want while simultaneously flatter the person asking the question. And why not? It’s nice to thank the people who care about you.

Typical of the money-related conversations that we usually have, Dad just brushed away the possibility that I presented. I don’t exactly care, to be honest, because whether this person is stingy or not doesn’t have any bearing on my life. I don’t see him on a regular basis, nor do I talk to him on a regular basis. In fact, I haven’t even seen him for a long, long time, and I don’t know if and when I will get to see him one day.

The important thing is that Dad and I agreed on the definitions of frugal and stingy, although now that we had this conversation, I can’t stop wondering what he thinks about me when it comes to my money. He doesn’t ask for much, and whatever he asks, I usually give him. I accidentally told a friend about this, and this friend promptly got irrationally pissed off, and I was like, chill dude, he wasn’t asking for an island. I am very careful in sharing stories like that from that point forward - at least with that friend.

When it comes to how other people spend their money, it is very easy for us to judge. It is even easier for us to judge when it comes to other people asking for other people’s money. When you are a parent, of course you want your children to be financially sufficient; but how exactly do you teach them about money?

Some eleven odd years ago, he told me that I shouldn’t save all of my money. I must remember to spend it too, in a way that would bring betterment towards my life. I remember this advice quite vividly because it happened first thing in the morning at the breakfast table, and it was the first holiday I spent with him after I started working full time. The irony is that about four years prior, he told me to save some of the money that I earned, don’t just spend it all. We never discuss savings and spending after that, or I should say, my savings and spending.

I may not be a millionaire just yet, Dad, but I am doing fine.

***

me: hey Dad, happy father's day!
Dad: thank you, no mention of father's day here!
me: oh. it must be just the internet then.

Labels, love and lies: a note on an important life lesson

I drafted something this morning, only to hit the delete button. I do that sometimes when I feel that the topic that I write is a little bit too "personal" for my liking, and I have one too many of those topics. It is also ironic that since I don't write about them, they are the ones that yearn to be written, stories that are begging to be told.

When someone gets to know me, they almost always uniformly come to the conclusion that I am an extrovert within 30 seconds of meeting me. But I did one of those online personality tests recently, and my result was the opposite. So I went, yeah right, and did another test, and got the same result. Or I should say, consistently the same result. I was ready to write off these tests as inaccurate, obviously, but when I looked at my friends who are true extroverts, I realised that those test results were correct. I am clearly not an extrovert, who obviously gives off the impression that I am. Either that or people are severely mistaken.

Not that I mind being mistakenly labelled as extroverts - there are far worse labels that one can be subjected to in this life. In fact, being labelled an extrovert is actually a nice label to have, if only for the mere fact that I give off the vibe that I enjoy people's companionship and eventually friendship, if I am lucky. This is why I think it is so easy for us to think that we are lovable because so many people love us, at least appear to love us. It is easy to regard this as the truth. It is easy to believe that love is easy, that it is a free commodity that is given ever so sincerely, just because you can give, and there's someone to receive.

I wish love were this easy: you give and someone else receives. When I was younger, I insisted that love was meant to be this thing that made you feel like you are ... flying; kind of a similar feeling that I experience when I run these days. I naively believed that love is the one thing that would lift the whatever heavy burden that I had on me at that point in time. And conversely, the person who put the heavy burden in the first place, well, that person surely hated me, even when they claimed to love me, publicly. I hate when people do things publicly like that and expect their audience to take it as truth. That's what politicians do and find me a politician who has a clean record of not lying about their publicised messages. It must be hard being a politician, because one must lie on a very regular basis, and at the same time, convince people that they are not lying. I wonder how many of them lie awake at night thinking about how many people's lives they've destroyed with their lies.

My husband has this theory on love that goes something like this: in life, you have to go through at least one really really really terrible relationship and survive coming out of that relationship so that you can truly appreciate what love really is. I dislike this theory very much, because it infers that a lot of people who have never experience a terrible relationship from appreciating what love really is. I refused to believe that in order to appreciate the good, you have to experience the bad. I insisted on believing that life does not have to be bad, albeit temporarily, so that one can start feeling grateful for one's blessings. I desperately clung to this belief because I wanted it to be true so badly.

Looking back, it is obvious that almost every single guy I was with would eventually ended up controlling every single thing that I did or didn't do. I thought that asking for their permission to go out was a normal thing to do in a relationship. Yet they claimed that I was the one who 'prohibited' them from doing certain things. But really, all I ever did was giving them a taste of their own behaviours. I hated them for having double standards and I hated myself even more for letting them get away with it. They wasted no chance in putting me down because they derived their sense of superiority by seeing me fail. I found myself constantly apologising for my achievements, apparently a crime that I didn't even know I had committed.

Needless to say, I struggled with this concept called love. I had difficulties understanding how these people who claimed to love me become the very people that I sought protection from. How could the same people say one thing in public, only to do the opposite in private. How could these people who said that they were rooting for my success be the same people who had been deliberately and discreetly plotting my downfall. One in particular was so apologetic publicly, but was continuously threatening in private; I have never had anyone wished that I were dead to my face, I guess now I can tick that off my bucket list.

I resisted the temptation to wish him dead; I knew that once I said it, I would mean every single word. The things that I say out loud have a tendency to come true somehow, so I refrain from having shitty thoughts like these blurted out to the universe. Although if I do end up saying it out loud, would that be a good enough retaliation? Hardly so; to wish someone dead because that person wished you were dead screams juvenile and not to mention, so un-creative. What would be more suitable and definitely more deserving, was a disproportionate response. But that takes too much effort; I abandoned the idea out of laziness. Plus I refused to accept some terrible person influenced my choices in life. I actively make the conscious decision every single day that my choices are mine to make, and my life is mine to live. I do not wish to relinquish this control to other people because I can't never control other people. I don't even want to begin trying.

The biggest mistake I have made in my life is letting people stay in my life far longer than they deserve. I don't regret the things that happened because they filtered out the bad from the good. I insist on being with the good. And no matter how many bad ones I've come across in life, people are mostly good. As inconveniently obvious as the bad ones are, they are the exceptions, never the norm. They exist because they are the ones that make good people good people. Or at least appear to be.

And because I have enough of these good people in my life, whose companionship has been invaluable, I happily go by the label extrovert.

The forgiveness experiment

So you’re broken. And then what?

I have said this previously: some people are malfunctioning, malicious and broken beyond repair. This is because, I think, they’ve been broken one too many times.

I also think that I am one of these people. I don’t know how to un-break myself. Like when I am confronted with a person who has caused me immense pain and an opportunity to be forgiving, I almost always choose the unfavourable end of the spectrum. Forgiving is like a foreign language to me. [Clarification: key word is immense. If there is no immense pain, I can forgive relatively easily.] This is made more difficult when that person is not exactly repentant, or at least, acknowledge the extent of pain that was caused, although I admit this is difficult to ascertain from the outset.

I often wish that I am more Mother Teresa:

“People are often unreasonable and self-centered.  Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives.  Be kind anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you.  Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous.  Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow.  Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.  For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”
― Mother Teresa

A lot of people probably know what forgiveness feels like, but may not necessarily be able to define it. We can say that it is about letting go of anger and disappointment and eventually moving towards the territories of something more positive – and hopefully reach a point of conciliation. For some, it goes even further: forgetting the offence, or even, pardoning the said offence, and eliminating resentment. Or that forgiveness can only be extended when the harm done on the part of the wrongdoer has been recognised. Notwithstanding all of these 'criteria', almost in every case, forgiveness is an option, we may take it, or we may leave it. There is actually no right or wrong because the nature of this act is so personal, but we live in a society that expects certain things to be forgiven simply by virtue of love, and conversely, certain things are deemed unforgivable because forgiving in this situation is perceived as a sign of weakness, submission, lack of boundaries or something along those lines. If you subscribe to a particular religion, of course, you would be exposed to an emphasis to forgive just like [insert any prominent religious character] forgives.

There are two parts of forgiveness, seeking forgiveness (otherwise known as apologising) and forgiving. I don’t need to point out that they do not always come hand in hand, but just bear that in mind. Other than this, I don’t know much about the science of forgiveness. I strongly suspect, though, that it is more about us than the other person. This is true whether we are the party seeking forgiveness or the party forgiving. This is because we can almost all agree that forgiveness feels better. This is especially true when it comes to forgiveness in the context of close, ongoing relationships. Someone who is around us can be confronted, but this does not guarantee any form of conciliation because there is always a probability that this person would reject the said confrontation, resulting in a compounded anger, disappointment and basically, well, further (unnecessary) pain.

It is worth noting that what matters is the reason that we forgive or apologise. Let’s draw from a personal experience. I sought forgiveness from someone recently because I’ve caused this person immense pain. And this is the only fact that mattered, how I did so was not relevant, at least in the eyes of the person experiencing the pain. Despite the fact that it wasn’t my fault (a fact that was subsequently commonly agreed), I chose to apologise because this person was and still is one of the most important persons in my life, whom I’d like to be a part of my life for years to come. This person is worth fighting for. I got lucky and was forgiven (or at least, it felt that way). It doesn’t matter whether we are talking about a friend, or a lover, or any else, if we are not willing to fight for them, to go out of our way and make an effort to hold on to them, then we don’t deserve them because hey, obviously, we don’t want them badly enough. I hate to put it this way, but our willingness to fight for it, suffer for it and give up for it ends up telling us how important it really is. This is the kind of forgiveness worth asking for – because anything short of that just doesn’t cut it.

That said, it would be nice if someone who cares enough about you would say sorry, seek forgiveness because he/she is concerned about your welfare more than relieving his/her guilt. This possibility does exist, no matter how remote. In fact, I think most people would structure their apology so that they can be perceived this way. Very few people have the guts to say their true intentions out loud because society.

***

I think a relationship (in the general sense, including the romantic ones) that is dynamic and growing almost always requires a lot of energy, simply because it often involves more than two people, one of which is you. It requires you to learn to stand up for yourself, to fight for yourself, and to pick your battles, so that you’re not completely flat out before you get to accomplish your goals. Of course we all want a relationship that’s relatively low maintenance, but remember that a relationship that’s not being maintained is essentially dead.

The best relationships are often labelled ‘easy’ – but trust me when I say that they are still a lot of work. And even the best of relationships would have its broken moments. This is not just an example of ‘nothing is perfect’ (but it can get bloody damn close to it though), rather the persons who are able to break us are the ones that we love the most. Yes, it sort of sucks, really, because loving someone opens up the possibility of being broken by this other person. We do it anyway because love is worth fighting for; because anything short of that is quite possibly not love.

If you really think about it, the whole reason that we chose to engage with people in our lives, in addition to companionship, is to have someone who is willing to fight for you, or when they can’t, remind you to fight for yourself when it matters the most. These people may not necessarily fight for us with their fists (or kukri) in a blood-bath battle, but fight for us with the choices and decisions they make, especially in the way they plan and live their lives, how they forgive, and how committed they are in doing everything they can to grow the relationship.

For a lot of us, if we were completely honest with ourselves, because we hardly ever have to fight for anything, we never understand what is worth fighting for. This is certainly true for me. When things get too hard, I chose to walk away, jump ship, whatever you want to call it.  Walking away is a valid option, and more often than not, an easier option. Staying put, and forgiving, well, that’s a completely different ball game altogether.

This is often why being broken tends to be so devastating for us: being broken makes us momentarily forget what we were fighting for in the first place, and more importantly, it questions why we were fighting for it. We also forget how to fight for those things that are important to us. Or at the very least, we have to invent new ways to get up and get back to fighting for what we want, again. And again. And again. It is definitely a hard battle, most of the time, it is unglamorous, at times unnecessarily dramatic, and is fought over a lifetime. Now that’s a very long time.

Yet I feel that this battle is the only valid option, and it is not about saving the other person, it is about saving yourself. Forgiveness is when we love someone wholly, weaknesses and all – and this someone includes you. I believe this is the first step in how to unbreak: change your mindset and fight for yourself, because you need to trust that you are enough: good enough to fight for, and equally important, strong enough to fight for what you want.

However, some battles are not meant to be fought; some battles we need to walk away from. There are instances whereby our forgiveness happens in the form of us letting go. This usually happens in situations whereby we are mature enough to have perspective on someone else's life, but this same person isn't mature enough to have the same perspective on ours, whether this is due to insane jealousy, unrealistic demands, excessive selfishness or any other form of unreasonable behaviour. This is immaturity; this is not love.

I have said this previously: I have been lucky to have a loving stepmother. Anyone who's been in a similar situation would come to the same conclusion. A marriage with children that ended in divorce, that's subsequently followed by another marriage, would involve the presence of stepparents in the children's lives. When this happens, the best possible outcome is when the new stepparent becomes a positive influence in the children's lives. Anyone who's in their right mind would be thankful for this.

There are circumstances whereby one parent would strike at his/her children with emotional threats and blackmails in an ugly and completely unwarranted way, along the lines of "if you love me, you would not be nice to your stepparent". This emotional reaction is understandable, but its inherent childishness is not, and cannot be, excusable. As a child who are stuck in between, I would say from personal experience that this sucks, and it makes having a good relationship, or any form of relationship, with the parent playing these emotional games impossible. I do not wish to regress into an emotional black hole over and over and over again; I just want to be able to move forward without being bullied constantly. Seriously, the world is a harsh enough place, and it is made significantly more painful when disapprovals and frustrations come from someone who are supposed to set an example, but turns out to be the party who needs to quite literally grow up.

I guess sometimes we forget to grow up. Sometimes walking away is the only thing to do. The sad thing is that the person we walk away from often don't recognise that their unrealistic demands and bad behaviour are the very things that turn us away. Forgive them, anyway. And forgive yourself for preserving your mental health.

On how far I've come (and why I write)

Seven years ago (at the time of writing) I finished a meeting and walked into the Queen Victoria Building on George Street to meet a bald man. I had no idea what I was doing, no idea that it was a moment that would change everything. I certainly wasn’t imagining any kind of future for myself. I would not use the label desperate, but perhaps that would have been a somewhat accurate description.

At this point in my life I was tired, jaded, spent. Up until a few months prior, I was spending far too much time with someone who was literally sucking life out of me. This man was charming in public, but not so much in private. Just like me, he was emotionally volatile. Towards the end of our separation, he had called me every available name under the sun, created a website to tarnish my reputation and did everything else he could have possibly done to make sure that I would commit suicide.

I obviously did not die, but this was only part of the reasons why I decided to leave. I am not going to explain them right now. But this is what I will say: leaving was the only viable option to me. It certainly wasn’t easy; it was navigating the realm of the unknown on both personal and professional fronts. I had no idea what I was doing, where I was going and how I managed to survive all that.

Miraculously along the way I learned to let go of some of the old sorrows and started thinking about the person that I wanted to become. I got reacquainted with myself all over again. I found my way through the jungle of emotional mess, processing what I was feeling and got through in one piece. I admitted to myself that a lot of things were not in line with my desires, needs and values that I upheld dearly – and more importantly, I wanted to change this. What I eventually realised was that I was largely uncommitted to myself; I was, for whatever reason, unavailable to myself. Consequently, I needed to address this issue so that I could actually be available to myself and stand by own side when things get tough. Or in other words, I had to learn to love myself all over again; I learned to be happy with me and accepted myself the way I was, and started appreciating my life like I was meant to. 

I stopped writing about relationships for the longest time because I couldn’t make sense of most of mine. I didn’t want to write out of anger; I really didn’t want another story that served to testify the ugliness of certain human beings out there. I stopped writing about being broken until recently, and the irony was that as soon as I made the choice to start writing about it, I ended being completely broken, so broken that I was incapable of writing anything.

I have said this previously, the things that I write are my understanding of them at that particular point in time. I notice the concurrent themes that are overlapping. The situations may be different, but the feelings are similar, if not the same. There is a reason why people with broken hearts have difficulties breathing. It is very possible and undisputed (by me) that others would have their own version of ‘the truth’, edited to their own understanding and preconceptions. But this does not negate the value of your own take on things, because self-reflection can help you understand why your life turned out the way it did, and perhaps, geared you into taking action and strengthen your resolve. Far too long, I write because I felt powerless, angry and misunderstood. I will not write that way again.

This is why I write: to make sense of my own story, while drawing from others’ stories, examining my own stories and to encourage others to examine theirs. They say that experience is like mirrors; they serve to teach us more about ourselves. We have this tendency to attract and be drawn to people that reflect things that we believe about ourselves, such that being involved with these people often end up being a self-fulfilling prophecy. I want to get comfortable questioning my life and to get comfortable talking about this openly, while thinking about the possibility of living in ways that are actually rewarding rather than merely tolerable, and be surrounded by good people in the process. 

Over time, we all change, some of us evolve at a different rate and end up in a completely different state than we originally were. Part of this journey is simply accepting that what we want over the years change. Once upon a time, the idea with this one person was so intoxicating, until we realised that the reality of being chased by someone who you’re not sure when you might hear from next was in truth not all that exciting. You kept on second guessing where you were in relation to his life, any kind of connection felt forced because it was impossible to forge a real connection when it felt like you were perpetually grasping for air. The drama of bad boys and its novelty just wore off eventually. You came to a point whereby you had enough of regressing. And this got tedious the older that you get.

Life is dynamic; if anything, it is a constantly changing destination. It does not owe us anything, but has everything to give. The question is how do we receive these gifts? Growing up, I was deprived from stability and spent a good chuck of my early twenties yearning for stability. I abandoned this fruitless search eventually. Stability is something that parents give to their children, and that’s about it. Once you’re grown up, you eventually come to embrace that life is a series of risks: the higher the risks that you take, the higher the returns that follows. And none of it is easy; it takes a lot of consistent effort, conducted in a persistent manner, overcoming exhaustion and the pain associated with these risks. Sometimes, we go through all of these only to realise that the rewards are not even worth it in the end. Then we conclude that change really stinks. Yet it is not the end of the story. What this really is this: a chance to rewrite your story. An opportunity to take your life in a different direction – you get to direct the course of your life rather than to live as reactively and passively as you once did.

It all sounds so simple and so clear cut laid out neatly in a blog post. You may not see it today or tomorrow, but you will look back in a few years and be absolutely perplexed and awed by how every little thing added up and brought you somewhere wonderful – or where you always wanted to be. You will be grateful that things didn’t work out the way you once wanted them to.  

Seven years ago, I did not imagine the life that I am living now.  Right now, I can’t imagine what my life would look like if I stayed.

On letting go

It takes a certain skill and commitment to have a certain kind of people in our lives. After about three decades of people coming and going, I must say that age certainly does not make certain things easier. When I say certain things, I really mean life in general. It is not that life gets harder as you get older (some things get easier), it's just that certain things do not get easier. To be fair, they don't necessarily get harder either.

I have had my heart broken in the past by various ex-lovers and ex-friends, and each and every single one of these was no easier than the last. (The only one that I ever wrote about is this one here.) It never gets easier, but hey, at least you can get used to it. And this is where I am now: spent. I am spent on all fronts. I do not know what it is that I could have done differently that would have resulted in a different outcome. Fate can be cruel like that.

I realise that there is a lot of things in this life that I legitimately do not have options in, no matter how badly I want a different outcome. This painful fact is exacerbated by my brain, which likes analysing things to no end, for it keeps on replaying conversations and events and trying to put a various combination of things, while at the same time trying to extract meaning, or I should say, anything meaningful, anything to hang on to. Ah, the futile search for meaning.  The endless merry-go-around of nothingness. The emptiness in the end that makes you wonder, why did I waste so much time on it.

I made the decision a long time ago that I shall cease to be around people who do not make me feel good about life. Life is about growing, changing, rising to new challenges, trying new things and hopefully becoming better persons in the process. I have learned to appreciate those whom I have known for a long, long time, not because of our history, but because of how these people have kept on continuing to somehow make me a better version of my previous self.

Yet lately, this belief I have had for a long time has been challenged because of this:

There is a certain truth in that statement. It is very possible that the person you are yet to meet will have a better intention than anyone you've known all your life. This possibility exists, no matter how remote. And if we are lucky, well, we get to meet this person, and our lives will change for ever for the better, like this. I called it serendipity. But for all I know, it might have been a part of some elaborate plan that I could not comprehend. And that doesn't matter, really. Because what matters is that it happened, and it changed me in a way that I think makes me a better version of myself.

It has taken me a very long time to understand this, but perhaps most people we met are not meant to stay in our lives forever. No matter how intense a love we felt for some of these people (and this love is not restricted to that of the romantic kind), no matter how strong we felt our bonds were, they can be easily snapped by something that we thought we could withstand. Or in other words, what felt so strong and enduring is actually very brittle. Or in other words, I was wrong.

When it comes to human relationships, or human beings in general, I am forever at the mercy of my own limited understanding, so much so that I have given up trying to understand it altogether, and instead just accept that people are like that, and that would be my explanation for the otherwise unfathomable (to me). Someone else might have a different explanation, which I do not have to necessarily agree with - and that is fine, insofar as they do not insist on me sharing this same understanding. And no, let's not talk about what happens when they insist.

There are some stories that I thought I would never write, for the one that I had drafted was a much, much better version. The version that I wanted to eventuate to reality for no other reason than, well, it was a meant-to-be. In this version, if it so happened that we had to say good bye, then it would be because of something that neither of us can control, like a terminal illness or something equally terrible. In this version, there was nothing voluntary about letting each other go.

I have come to eventually accept that the version that I might eventually end up writing, the real life version, is one that could not be more painful. I have come to accept that if we were to continue our story from this day forward, that story would be very different than the one we used to have. But you remain one of the very few people that I liked at first sight. It was easy to feel this way because you were (and still are) very attractive physically. It was a bonus, of course, that you are smarter than me. So in short, my superficial side won and I fell hard, and you were worth falling for. In a lot of ways I used to feel that my prayers had been answered: oh dear God, please let the people around me be good looking. Because wefies.

And for what is now seemingly a brief moment in time, there was warmth. This warmth that once nourished my soul would eventually be reduced to a memory, and overtime, be reduced to nothing. They said that we never truly lost the things that matter. Whether there is truth or not in this statement is something that I would rather not explore. But I can't help wondering if, for reasons I am yet to fathom, we had lost each other long before you said good bye.

How to love

"Life is inherently a little depressing. Some people fill that void with religion; other people fill it with constantly trying to find something exciting and passionate. Some people just accept it and find joy within those parameters." (Seth Rogen, 2012)

2015 is the toughest year in my life to date. Despite only a bit over a quarter into the year, I have experienced days that is so emotionally volatile that left me, for lack of a better word, spent. (It doesn’t help that for two consecutive months, I was also financially spent.) There is too much to say on why I feel this way, and truth is that it might bore most of you. I am someone who writes about the things that happened in my life based on my understanding of the matter at that point in time. My understanding is dynamic, it changes as I experience more things, and it gets challenged on a regular basis, and I openly struggle with a lot of these challenges. I do not have the answers to everything, and as it is right now, I have more questions that remain unanswered – and one of these questions is how to love.

Often we ask the question ‘do you love me’, and the person answering the question would hopefully answer truthfully with a ‘yes, I love you’, but we often don’t ask why we ask that question in the first place, or why we are given the question. The short answer is that we don’t feel loved; and this feeling is independent of whether the person who is supposed to love us (or has promised to love us) actually loves us or not. And as the person who is given the question, it is easy to take this so personally, that the persons we have been trying to love with our every being do not even realize that we love them this much. To put it in another way, it is very possible that we have exerted all that we can in an attempt to love these people, and they, for whatever reason, just do not feel our love.

I admit that personally, when I ask the question (‘do you love me’) out loud, I never take it seriously. Because on a deeper level, I feel that if the question goes as far as entering my mental space then it is obvious that I don’t feel the love this person has for me, thus the question is redundant. This can be attributed to: (1) there was no love to begin with; or (2) there was love, but it was terribly expressed. I use the adverb ‘terribly’ because I, as the intended recipient, do not get it. If and when this happens, I am of view that this is not entirely my fault, because who doesn’t want to be loved? I believe that we are all equipped with an in-built love preceptor as part of our biological make up. In fact, because of this, the reverse scenario is a lot more dangerous – when you feel love (or thought you were loved) when you were, in fact, simply not. You are either self-absorbed or just plain delusional.

And when I am on the other side of the equation, when I find myself on the receiving end of the question (do you love me), I don’t take it seriously most of the time. As far as I can remember, it is rare, if ever, that I actually get asked the question; I don’t recall any occasion whereby I was asked this question. I would like to think that this is because the people whom I love know that I love them, although how they know this remains a mystery to me. I would not claim that I know how to love; I would only like to think that I love the people whom I love well. I only love a selected, privileged few. Contrary to popular belief that there is more than enough love to go around, I choose to deliberately limit the number of people I love. To me, it is not about how many people you love, nor is it about who you love, it is about how you love them.

So how to love?

Whilst talking about love the other day, we got to talking about intimacy, and specifically, about sex. This is not the kind of talk whereby you discuss this is my favourite position, or this is how I got my first orgasm, but more like how it is an extension of love. I mean, like it or not, for those who have had sexual relations, it is a pretty important part of this whole love experience. This is not to say that you gotta have sex with everyone you love (please, in some context, it is just plain wrong) – more like when sex is missing, then you can really feel that something is missing. This sounds twisted, and if it does, I attribute this to my terrible writing.

Having sex is essentially an action – it is an act performed by two people who hopefully love each other. It is an act longed by two people who are hopefully more than attracted to each other (it is actually more like two people who are horny, but anyway). Sex gets bad rep these days, because it has been casualised; and this is not to say that it is impossible to be so; fuck buddies exist for a reason. Before all of these casualization business, sex was (and still is) an expression of intimacy – you learn how to be intimate, you learn to engage on a deeper level – and not just physically, but emotionally, and more importantly, mentally.

Or to put it differently, when you engage in sexual relations with a stranger, the aftermath of such acts often involve a feeling of emptiness that is more pronounced than before. As in, you felt the emptiness prior to the act, and perhaps the act was done in an attempt to fill this void, it did not. But sex with someone you love is more likely fucking satisfying – literally.

In fact, I think, everything you do with someone you love is somehow more satisfying. This is why you want to spend some time with people you love. This is why you get this unexplainable satisfaction out of being in the same room as they are, even when you two are doing two completely different things. This is why you happily interrupt each other because this is an opportunity for you to affirm each other – see this? See how stupid this is?

But the question remains how do you love someone in a way that makes him or her feel loved and simultaneously makes you feel you have loved. How do you compromise without losing yourself. How do you exercise compassion and understanding while still preserving your needs and desires. How do you change yourself for the better and not expect the other to change the way you want them to change, and instead accept who they are, strengths, weaknesses and everything in between.

How do you keep trying when all that you want to do is just give up.

I was lost in love. I fell in love with this one person; being in love with him was easy because he was (and still is) beautiful. I lost myself, I forgot who I was and more importantly, I forgot how to love. In all honesty, I am still largely figuring this out. I hope to continue to grow my understanding on the matter, and get better at how to love.

Or specifically, get better at staying in love, with those I love and yet to love, including myself.

the necessarily messy complexities

I yearn for a simpler life. Approximately ten years ago, I caught myself saying this out loud out of frustration, and today, I catch myself doing exactly the same thing. Sometimes I think not much has changed, especially in the desire for a simple life department. But I’ll say this, there were short periods in my life whereby it all seemed relatively simpler, and I treasure those moments. Yes, those were the moments whereby I felt that my life was simple, boring and undramatic – exactly how I wanted it, and how I still want it today.

I have resigned to the fact that life is hard, and every so now and then, I get a violent reminder of how hard it can actually be; the kind that shook you at your core. Just to give you a few examples, these are along the lines of: that sometimes, despite your best efforts, you still get hurt; that terrible things happen to people who definitely do not deserve them. Why are the most patient girlfriends often the ones who have to put up with perpetually absent, workaholic boyfriends? Because these women are probably the ones who are in the best position to love these obliviously self-absorbed men. Why are the financially astute still can’t by-passed money-related issues in their lives? Why are people who have been seemingly faithful end up being caught in one of the greatest lies of all, and still blatantly deny it?

And who can explain these mysteries in life, other than the mere fact that sometimes, bad things do not discriminate, they too can happen to good people, to people who have been diligently following the rules, people who do not deviate from doing good things. This is where we all went wrong, because, well, while karma can be such a bitch, unfortunately, doing good does not repel bad things from happening to you. Not even the power of your mind can save you. Because fate. Lame. But true.

(and this is why broken people shouldn't attempt writing)

Broken

I am broken.

I have been broken one too many times, each one of these events seem to merge together to form one long winded tunnel of memory of broken-ness. I have been broken one too many times to even mind being broken, I got used to this feeling, to this state of being broken. I suspect one too many people know, or at least recognise this when they look into my eyes, and they spot something that sparks a cause for concern. They sit through my fake smile telling them that everything was all right, that I don’t sleep well these days because it is too hot, and I am not referring to the weather.

It is never easy to lie like this, but at times, they are convenient. I choose easy over and over and over again.

She is broken.

She has been broken one too many times, and these are the ones that she shared with me, not because she wanted me to help her pick up the pieces, but more like she knew I could relate to her state of broken-ness. And in turn, she knows that I am broken. Two broken people in the world, albeit for different reasons, some of which overlap.

Sometimes, words are just not enough. Because sometimes, it is words that break us, especially when they come out of the mouths of the people who supposedly love us. While the people that truly love us sit there in silence, listening to every word that we say, because the real message often lies in the things left unsaid. The things we do to the people who love us.

We are broken

We have been broken one too many times for all the wrong reasons, and each and every time, we manage to sticky-tape everything back together into something better. It can almost be forgiven that we think we are untouchable, except that we often forget that we are subjected to the usual human fallacies. We are ill-equipped to deal with what is regarded as one of the most common issues in a relationship. We laugh at them because we think, hey, we are better than that, right. Right? We are obliviously blind to the very same issues that creep up until they eventually cause a crack; a crack that break us.

We are broken and we are in pain. And the more we are in pain, the more we cause each other pain; the lame excuse we use to justify our shortcomings. We refuse to take responsibility for our actions and prefer to instead place blame on the person we said is the love of our lives. I guess it is true that we only hurt the ones we love.

We are all broken. But we are still here.

***

Lately, I have been thinking quite a lot about 'stories of struggle' - the stories that we often share to those nearest and dearest to us. When I first started this blog, I made a point to stick to the happy stories, because, well, those are easier to write. 

This year, I am going to write both happy and less happy stories. Stories that make us... human. Stories that would hopefully strengthen our bonds. Stories along similar veins to the ones that I wrote about in the past and promptly got me into trouble. I would strip all names and everything else that may potentially identify the people in these stories, strip all the details and stick to the themes. 

And if, by chance, you happen to figure out who these people are, please be kind and offer an ear. Don't talk about them behind their backs, don't say terrible things about them, don't break their hearts. They are just like us, struggling to find meaning. And to live.