Fancy Words

What kind of place is this, beloved?

You have brought me here and left me all alone.

I am cold, frighten and lost without your hand.

Where am I standing now, beloved?

I don’t know where to go, and I cannot find my way back

The pathway we have taken together has disappeared into black

I mistaken every whispering wind as your voice calling out my name

Is the promise broken now, beloved?

I kept my word, and waited here for your glorious return

But this place is not the same without you.

I cannot hear a the choir of birds celebrating the sunrise anymore

The wind breeze has now become strong and the chill penetrates my bone

The sun hides behind the cloud, and now I am lost in the darkness

I cannot breathe, beloved.

I can only remember the clasping kiss we had under that pale moon light.

I miss the days when our souls moved in one motion

I don’t know how my lust for you changed into this devotion.

Voices of my love ones are calling me to come to their places

I don’t want to answer to their call for I am so afraid to break my promise

As I said I would, obediently wait for you here under the shadow

I will not make any sound even if I hear a voice calling out my name

Unless it is yours.

But those voices of my close ones are my only guide to my path.

The pain I feel is making me bleed inside, and tears roll down my cheek

Understand me, beloved.

I have to see the sun again.

My heart needs to sing with the birds again.

I need the wind to caress my skin again.

Come and find me before the next sunset comes.

“Singlehood” is a tricky condition & situation… I find people are difficult to accept that some people may feel it is okay to be single. As an unmarried woman, I have to come out with quick answer for all the questions that people are showering me. I have no idea why people think that asking question about your marital status is part of courtesy. Maybe they’re just trying to be polite. But when it seems that it is the first question that anyone asks you on public, it gets pretty annoying and it is just plain nosy. ‘Why don’t you have a boyfriend?’ I don’t think they have any clue that the answer to that question is as complicated as the expanding universe. I usually answer that with a polite smile, and ask them to hope for the best for me. These days I have think of some more creative answers, from I’m still searching for the right one, thought an imaginary boyfriend who is currently abroad, even to a quick sour and painless reply that I’m gay. And the look on their faces when I say that might become the unmarried type is totally indescribable. I’m not sure whether it is the look if they see a child with severe leukemia or the look if they see a Martian walking down the street.

As today, I went out to have a lunch with my office colleagues. The conversation went as boring as it supposed to be, office gossips, celebrity gossips, fashions statements, and finally it flowed not-so-surprisingly to my relationship status. They were aware that I’ve been out with several guys. I told them that I decided to quit all of them (it’s not dumping when you’re not on a steady date). Of course they nosily asked what the reason was, and I said I learn to accept singlehood as a part of my life. They gave me a pitying look as if I had just received a 5 more months to live prognosis. Honestly I was offended by the look. What is so wrong about being a single woman? Am I that sad?

One of the girls told me not to be so desperate and pessimistic. Boy, out of anger, I would love to scream at face telling her I have a fulfilled life. But it would make me seem like I need a restraining jacket. So I decided to shut up just to keep our relationship as saccharine as it was. I told her, in a much respected tone of voice that I’m not desperate. I’m just learning to accept life as it is. They all started to preach that I should never give up searching and looking for the right guy because I have limited time to give birth, now that I’m nearing 30. My reply was I didn’t loose anything, so I didn’t need to look, and where to look anyway? Looking for a significant other is not like looking for a landmine with a metal detector, D’oh! As I expected, one of them start blabbering about divine intervention and religion…Oh, yeah….Bring the parade in, bring God into this too…

What really annoys me is the way all of those question, remarks, and facial expression had made me feel like a disappointment. Despite all of the achievement I have, graduating school, university, having a job, earning my own money, speaking more than 2 languages, my recent promotion, my friendliness, my wittiness, my smartassness, my compassion for others, and my so damn good look, I still seem like a failure to them because I cannot find a man who I want to marry? Is the total worth of a woman is her ability to lure a man and breed his offspring for the rest of her life?

No, I don’t think I’m desperate. If I am, I would lower my minimum standard down to a penis and a pulse. People need to learn to accept that it is okay to be single. There is nothing sad or strange about a single girl who is happy with her life, a single girl who does not feel weird shopping alone or eating in a restaurant alone. I don’t want to be to optimistic that one day price charming is going to sweep me off my feet and carry me towards the sunset, I don’t want to face the disappointment when it finally didn’t happen. I don’t want to be too pessimistic either thinking I would be all alone in my deathbed, I know I still have the chance to meet somebody, to fall in and out of love. I’m drawing a straight thick line between being too optimistic and fooling your self, also the very same thick line that separates preparing for the worst and being pessimistic. I’m keeping both of my feet on that line.

Either way, I’m just going go living my life the best as I know how and have the greatest time in life. That’s it.

By D&H

I think patience is one of the virtues that I do not have. You will often find me taking the ojeg everywhere because I am not patient enough to wait and sit in the bus, stuck in traffic. I remember blowing up my electric mixer and short circuited half of the house because I wasn’t patient enough to wait for the butter to get soft. It was still as hard as a brick and colder than the North Pole when I forced to whisk it with the mixer. I remember. I patronized so many cashiers in the check out counter because I wasn’t patient enough to let them do their job at their own pace. They usually stare back at me with a sharp glare or a nervous smile. I reproach my significant other because I am not patient enough to wait for him to progress his part of the relationship as fast as I would like to. Maybe if I was patient enough to circle the dots evenly on my test paper, I would’ve gotten better grades in high school.  Maybe If I am patient enough, my dog would learn more tricks other than sitting down, the only trick I’ve managed to teach him. Maybe If I am patient enough, I would have experienced more things in life.

Someone told me that life is about waiting. Waiting to grow up, waiting for your wisdom teeth to grow, waiting to graduate from school, waiting to get a job, waiting for a raise or a promotion, waiting to get proposed, waiting to get the bus, waiting to get there, waiting, waiting, and waiting, and then you’d die. A series of things that I hate the most, to wait. If I remember all of that time I spent on negative energy, what a waste. I have wasted some money to pay the ojeg driver. I wasted my relationship, missing out the best part of it because I was too busy feeling the anxiety of being impatient. Who knows how much wrinkles I have now on my face for growling at all those poor cashiers at the counter. I could’ve been a pastry chef by now, if I have the patient mix the ingredients at the correct time and pace. I realized that a lot of things cannot be forced, they have their own time. So when I have done all my part, all there is left for me is to wait.

*sigh*

I love this anonymous poem :

Sólo tú le das brillo y Amor a mi Corazón.

Sólo tú me miras con tanta pureza y belleza interior.

Sólo tú llenas de Alegría a mi Alma.

Sólo tú conoces mis secretos, deseos y anhelos.

Sólo tú me transmites calor con tus manos.

Sólo tú me das fuerzas para seguir viviendo.

Sólo tú me hablas con tanta dulzura.

Sólo tú me escuchas con tanta paciencia.

Sólo tú me acaricias con tanta delicadeza.

Sólo tú me besas con tanta ternura.

Sólo tú me comprendes con tanta sutileza.

Sólo tú haces que me sienta el Ser más Feliz del Universo.

Sólo tú me das tanta seguridad en mí misma.

Sólo tú me calmas y tranquilizas cuando estoy mal.

Sólo tú eres el que puede entrar en mi Corazón y en mi Ser.

Sólo tú me abrigas cuando tengo frío.

Sólo tú eres y serás el Dueño de mi Corazón.

Sólo tú eres mi Sueño hecho realidad.

Sólo tú eres y serás el que me ama y me amará siempre.

Sólo tú eres al que amo y amaré eternamente!

Last week, I cleaned up my dressing table. I threw away all the half used bottles of creams, toners, astringents, and cleansing milks. I realized I have used so many brands, and all of them are anti acnes. Yes, even though this is the last year of my twenties, I’m still struggling with acne.

I took a look at my face in the mirror, I could see acne scars. But nothing that a dab of foundation and powder couldn’t cover, so I’m still good. The only zit I have left is this itchy volcano on my left cheek. I don’t have that many zits anymore. Whoa, maybe this is because of all of that anti acne products I’ve been using since I was fifteen. That is fourteen years of Clearasil, Oxy, Seba Meds, Extra Derms, Acne Derms, Biore Anti-Acnes, or maybe it’s because of thousands of visits to the dermatologist. Or was it my age? I AM going to be 30 next year. Darn, what am I doing with anti-acnes? Most of my friends were already using anti aging products since one or two years ago. So, may be this is my time to cross the border. It’s been a while since I had one of those ance attack. I think I can see crow’s feet when I’m smiling wide enough (or in tremendous pain). I don’t know if I need anti aging cream yet, but just to be on the safe zone…. My first anti-aging cream.

Hmm….am I that old? Am I old? When I was a lot younger, early thirties would look like soon-to-be-fossil to me. I still feel like a kid, but I’m an adult. Am I a kidult?

A friend of mind texted me a definition of a kidult : postpone marriage to avoid greater responsibility, making parents as his/her own private financial institution, obsessed to look younger. Let’s see

Symptom #1: I’m scared of the idea of marriage. I always thought that getting married is something you can do later in life, like reading Anna Karenina. My mother already had three children when she was my age. I can’t even hold on to a relationship. Symptom #2 : I make my own money. I’m making quite a lot for a single woman, actually. But why at time to time, I still ask my mom for taxi fares? I think I need a better financial management. Symptom #3: I hate it when someone calls me ‘Ibu’. In my closet, I can find pink, bright blue, purple, and other candy colored clothes. I have pink fluffy stuffed piggy. But my friends gave it to me for my birthday. Ok, I do feel a little scared of getting old.

Geez, I AM a kidult. But so what? Staying young in the heart cannot hurt. I’m making my baby steps towards adulthood. I just bought a tube of anti aging cream, that’s a progress, isn’t it? I know I have to take greater responsibility in life, and I will, doesn’t matter whether I am ready or not. When life shoves it to me down my throat, I have to swallow it. I have to learn to see that these new responsibilities are a natural part of living, I can’t avoid them, and I have to face them. This is all a part of being alive.

I’m going to grow up, but in the mean time, I still like to keep my pink piggy close.

When you try your best but you don’t succeed

When you get what you want but not what you need

When you feel so tired but you can’t sleep

Stuck in reverse

When tears com streaming down your face

Because you loose something you can’t replace

When you love someone but it goes to waste

Could it be worse?

Do those words from Coldplay’s song, Fix you, remind you of anything? Have you ever felt that way? If you have, I bet you feel like you are the most unfortunate fool in the world. I hate to break this to you, but you are not. Everybody will come across moments in life where everything seems wrong. No matter what you do the world would just crumbles on the top of your head, and you wanted so bad to let go. But so what?

Every person you see in this world, your family, your friends, your boss, the beggars on the street, the guy who drives your bus every morning, the richest man in the world, the prettiest woman in the universe, they too suffer at a lot of time in their life. The pain of losing a parent, a grand parent, a sibling, a child, the pain of rejection, the pain of disappointment, all are elements that shape your life and compose the person you are today. But please don’t forget that lives are made of other elements too. It’s also made of love, compassion, empathy, laughter, friendship, and other things. They are two different sides of the same coin.  Do you remember how good it is to feel that?

When our steps get too heavy to take, take little ones, one by one. Feel the pain, embrace it. It is absolutely no use of running away from them, because you just simply cannot. It will come after you to haunt you back. All you can do is brace yourself and confront it, and take life by the balls.

To make it your pain more bearable, find your comfort in the little bliss of life…. You will find it in your mother’s cooking, your father’s laughter, your lover’s kisses, your friend’s dirty jokes, your group hugs, your boss’s compliment, the smile from the kid who brings your newspaper, in the pretty flowers you see in the park, the spaghetti you eat for lunch, the gratitude that the beggar you give coins to, the cool ice tea that you drink in the middle of a hot day, or the warmth of the blanket you take to your sleep, and there is so much more. Life can be beautiful if you know how to appreciate the little things it’s made of. 

Life sometime sucks. But remember that it is us, the lucky ones who get the chance to experience life. Out of the six million sperms that our father sprayed the night of our conception, we were the sperm who were chosen by our mother’s egg. That is six million to one. Imagine! We were winners right from the first millisecond of our physical existence in this world. We are all born as winners.

Who knows what we would get out of all this? What we know is we are the lucky ones to be here. Let’s not waste this opportunity, let’s not wallow in our suffering.

Of course as the song goes….. ‘I will try, to fix you….’. And I will, you betcha!

I went through my journal yesterday. I realized that in my past relationship, I had this naïve idealism that ours is going to be the greatest love story of all time. Every gesture, every laughter, every stare, every kiss was some sort of a sign that we were going to overcome all of the obstacles and live happily ever after. Just like fairy tale movies. But in the reality, there were no dragons to slew, no witches to kill, no princess to save, no prince to sweep me off my feet and carry me towards the sunset. There were only two people with different dreams and expectations, trying to figure out if the expectations were the same. When I finally stopped seeing the world in pink, I hit rock bottom… ouch…. They were not even similar.

Why would I want to be a part of a great love story anyway? Most great love stories end in tragedies. Laila died of a broken heart, because Majnun cannot bear the thought that she’s finally his to have. Romeo and Juliet died together because of misfortune and miscommunication. Sampek and Engtay became butterflies. The little mermaid turn itu sea foam as soon as she found out her prince had married the princess from across the sea. What a lovely choice, I don’t want to be sea foam. I don’t want to loose my primate status and join the Lepidoptera family either.

How about Walt Disney’s saccharine sweet fairy tale? Cinderella? A domestic goddess who fall in love with the price she had only met once? A prince who chose her over the whole maiden in the kingdom out of a glass shoe? I don’t want to marry a prince with a foot fetish!

Pocahontas? She married to a guy twice her age, left her mother land to die in some foreign country because of Tuberculosis before she even reached 20. I guess old world germs were too strong for the Indian princess.

Snow white? She ran from her evil stepmom, found a refugee in a house full of dwarf bachelors who worked in an underground mine. Ugh…too creepy, she had to clean and cook for them too. I don’t do domestic work. Pass me please!

Rapunzel? I have tortured my hair enough with coloring, flat irons, and curling irons. Now it is too dry, too frizzy to be climbed, even by the leanest prince in the world. I’m going to kill my only chance to be happy, because I’m sure, my hair will break.

Hell, I’m going to write my own love story. It’s not going to be the greatest love story of all time, but it’s going to be ours. There will be no dragons, no dwarf, no talking mice, no prince and no princess. My story will be made from hope, dreams, courage, sweat, laughter, tears, and of course….love.

Dearest, you may place the trophy among your other accomplishment, now. Well done conquistador! This song goes to you :

Like anyone would be
I am flattered by your fascination with me
Like any hot-blooded woman
I have simply wanted an object to crave
But you, you’re not allowed
You’re uninvited
An unfortunate slight

I don’t think you unworthy
I need a moment to deliberate

On my way to the office, I accidentally stepped on someone’s toe in the crammed bus. I gave her a sincere apologetic smile and excused my self. She didn’t reply, and she gave me this piercing look like she was about to swallow me whole. I had hurt her so bad, since I was wearing my construction boots. Inside I felt some kind of remorse, I have hurt another person. I was being sincere when I said I was sorry, hoping it would reduce the pulsating pain in that woman’s toe. But it didn’t and it kind of made me feel bad. Well, that’s me. Why is it so hard for that woman to accept my remorse? A short simple smile would have made me feel better. Why wouldn’t she appreciate my effort to make amends? Did I hurt her so much? Maybe she didn’t believe that it was a sincere apology.

I’ve been asking myself the same question since that incident. Do people feel remorse every time they say they are sorry? Do they try to make amends? Not all, I guess. Some apology is nothing more than a non-apology-apology, some sort of a political apology. Just like that Pope Benedict did sometime ago when he regretted saying all those things about Islamic faith. ‘Regretted’ but he did not feel sorry, no remorse, no amends. Would that make any difference? Would that make anyone other than himself feel better?

This is only a toe-stepping incident, folks… but nevertheless, it bothers me. Such a simple incident… Something that most people shrug off all the time. Now, I’m thinking about  bigger things.

How about betrayal? When someone stab you in the back, would it be hard for you to forgive? Would it be hard for you to confess to yourself that you have been a bad person? How far would you go to let the other person know how bad you feel? Would it made you feel better if you just hate the person who betrays you for the rest of your life?

How about abandonment? When you left someone who needs you the most, do you look back and feel bad about yourself? Do you keep on moving your own way, hoping that he/she will be buried in your memory someday? Would you regret? Would you go back and let the other person know how bad your action made you feel? How far would you go to make him/her feel better?

They are just more questions that have different answer for each person. Well, Folks… maybe all people are basically selfish. Please mean it when you say you are sorry. Your kind expression of remorse will make the other party feel better about their selves. And please people…. be a bigger person and grant them the forgiveness so that they too can feel better about their selves. Hating the person who has wronged you is just another way of revenge. And it will become a tiring feeling after a while. Because hate and dislikes are strong negative emotions that consumes energy. Why don’t we spend more energy on some other emotion, which is empathy. Try to feel what the other person is feeling.

Deep inside we all know that forgiving feels a lot better than holding grudge. A sincere apology feels a lot better than swallowing guilt. Let’s be kind to one another while we are living in this world, and let’s make this trip a more joyful experience.

I think that love between guys and girls are nothing but chemicals, released by the brain to indicate that they’re ready to mate. Some say that when a person is in love, the brain would start to release some sort of a hormone called endorphin. This hormone would create a sensation similar to the sensation created by narcotics. What makes it so hard to fall out of love? Maybe it’s because chemicals are chemicals, after a while the body would grow an addiction to the chemicals, and they would suffer a drawback once the brain stop producing them.

Hell! it is the only explanation I can think of for broken hearts. No matter how old we are, 18, 28, 38 or 68, whether you are man or a woman, rich or poor, beautiful or ugly, it is always as hard when you or your significant other lets go and gives up the bond between the two of you.

The pain you feel in your chest is just so utterly uncomfortable, short and piercing prick to the heart. You also feel like there’s an elephant sitting on your breast and it just stays there, refusing to move, making you hard to breathe, and everything is so hard to swallow. Plus, your tear glands somehow just won’t stop working.

Yes, you would ask a million questions in your mind. Was it your fault, was it his, what did you do wrong, weren’t you good enough, maybe if you’ve done it in a different way he’d stay, did he meet someone new, is he thinking about you, what did you mean to him, did he feel the same way, when is it okay to move on, was it real? After a while you’d get tired, you just stopped asking. You pick an answer, decide that it is the answer, and move on. It didn’t work, that’s all.

I think that’s when the cold turkey period is finally over.

Well, I always say that you got to live your days like it is the last day of living, and treat your love like it is the last love you’re going to have. So that you will never have to say that you missed out on anything. Love was there, and I did everything that was in my power to make it stay. Alas, just like the song ‘Love is a rebel bird that no one can tame…’ it had chosen to fly. Today, I am able to say that I’ve tried and I’ve fought, therefore I don’t have any regrets. If I had the chance to do it all over again, I’d still do it the same way. Despite everything, I’d do it again, again and again. Why? Hey, because while it lasts, it feels so F%*#ing good. Love is one of the not-so-many bliss we have in this life. And to think that life is all we have, we’re lucky enough to experience it AT LEAST once in a life time.