March 07, 2005
Embracing the Painful Silence
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Somehow I expected it. Somehow I did not. Whatever it was, it happened and coupled with all the career and life questions that were threatening to drag me down to the pits, I found myself deep in the pits over the weekend. It certainly did not help the fact that I had to go to work on the Saturday and having, at the back of my mind, the knowledge that I would have to haul myself to work this coming Sunday.
Read a comment somewhere about how someone preferred reading personal sites which offered personal insights on everyday observations, instead of ones which offered loads of rants and the usual me-mes. A wry smile flashed on my face and immediately all motivation to pen a short story (no fucking big deal) dissipated.
Sorry, I have nothing inspirational to offer at this moment, or I suspect, in days or even weeks to come. I spent a lonely weekend rehashing over and over in my mind all the pertinent questions I had for my life or where they were leading me to.
I told her about how I usually dealt with stress. Either I eat excessively (primarily reason why I have become more obese than ever before) or I mentally berate myself for all the bad things that happened to me, from 1975 (or as far back as I can remember) to the incident last week when I absentmindedly forgot to activate the flush at the public toilet urinal. On very rare occasions when I snapped at people, only my mother would get the brunt of my throwing of a little tantrum if she crossed the line in irritating me after a long and bad day at work. Other than that, I try to be as civil as I can to everybody.
So I spent the weekend thinking about celibacy and how I could pull it off for the next decade or beyond, if I decide to live that long. I spent the weekend linking the lack of planning for my career and life to how I might have subconsciously decided not to live beyond thirty. Most of all, I was alone when thinking my thoughts out since I believed that I had gone past the stage with my friends that any additional elaboration of my issues would surely bore or irritate them.
Maybe it is my destiny that I should live out this life alone. This way, I will not be a burden to anyone. Just provide for my family and to be a filial son to my parents by seeing them through the rest of their lives and possibly my job is done. This may just be how I will spend the next decades of my life, popping those pills every night to make sure that I get the sustenance to live past each day, and thinking about how the best periods of my life came during my adolescence. At least, Divinity did not rob me of something special during those times of my life.
Love? If anyone were to ask, I would tell them that I still find the concept of love very foreign. Perhaps I am more comfortable with crushes and dealing with the sad aftermath of each one of them. Perhaps the pain of every dying crush would remind me that I am still alive.
***
I cannot imagine myself being a husband, a father and, most important of all, a lover. Maybe I have no capacity from within to love just the one and only someone. I can do things (or acts of love) to people whom I have grown emotionally attached to (i.e., close friends, grandmother) but in that department where more is expected of me, I think I will fall short.
And so reading those personal sites, I came across someone who was (rightfully) gushing about her wedding preparations and another person who recently learnt that guys were actually not as emotionally sophisticated as she would like to believe after being in a relationship with the man she loves for a year. Just last evening, when taking an innocent glance at the ex-sarong kebaya girl’s mobile, I caught the words “Dear calling” flashing on the screen.
“All the women in love… “ I smiled wryly to myself.
***
It took a simple chorus to break open the floodgates on Friday. That was moments before I received a call informing me that I was closer to getting myself out of the hellhole. That was roughly a hour after I got myself into a mild shock. Despair can bring about an accumulation of negative emotions, threatening to break loose if not for the fact that I was a male and men were not allowed to cry openly. Yet, for the heck of it, I allowed them to flow. It made me feel temporarily better.
The dam almost broke open again on Sunday and once again, it was the result of another simple chorus. However, the same evening was spent singing sad Hacken Lee songs.
***
Maybe memories are meant to be cherished or forgotten. Maybe there is no point in trying to recreate them or stretch their existence way beyond their expiry dates.
***
Now, I yearn to listen and sing along to Mr. Cobain’s vocals…
Posted by D W at March 7, 2005 03:35 PM