"People are like lice - they get under your skin and bury themselves there. You scratch and scratch until the blood comes, but you can't get permanently deloused. Everywhere I go people are making a mess of their lives. Everyone has his private tragedy. It's in the blood now - misfortune, ennui, grief, suicide. The atmosphere is saturated with disaster, frustration, futility. Scratch and scratch - until there is no skin left. "
Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller
27/05/2012
22/05/2012
No one has been holding me back from speaking my mind, but it was out of courtesy and the lack of necessity to pass judgement that I've been doing so. I'm genuinely happy about the news that I learnt of today, you have no idea, however strange it may seem. But I guess I was wrong when I said we're on the same page.
We had a good run, for the past handful of weekends, and hell I had an absolute blast. I don't remember a whole lot from all these alcohol-fuelled nights, but I was so conscious that morning to not let our lips touch, to not make any gesture that suggested any more than a drunken fling, and to fend off questions knowing that the most honest answers I could have given were just something that I should keep to myself.
But I quietly enjoyed you breathing down my neck and running my fingertips down your spine.
Bathroom hook ups and goodbye kisses were awesome, repeatedly awesome. Every now and then, I thought about moments that we shared. We had fun, but from day one, that was all that I'm up for. All along, the rational part of me has been wide awake, so awake that the slightest interaction of you with my sober self rung alarm bells.
One can do a lot, or very little, in two years, it all depends. "Age" as I said it, is half the truth. It's not about numbers. It's just...wrong on so many levels.
Not everything that needs to be said has to be heard.
We had a good run, for the past handful of weekends, and hell I had an absolute blast. I don't remember a whole lot from all these alcohol-fuelled nights, but I was so conscious that morning to not let our lips touch, to not make any gesture that suggested any more than a drunken fling, and to fend off questions knowing that the most honest answers I could have given were just something that I should keep to myself.
But I quietly enjoyed you breathing down my neck and running my fingertips down your spine.
Bathroom hook ups and goodbye kisses were awesome, repeatedly awesome. Every now and then, I thought about moments that we shared. We had fun, but from day one, that was all that I'm up for. All along, the rational part of me has been wide awake, so awake that the slightest interaction of you with my sober self rung alarm bells.
One can do a lot, or very little, in two years, it all depends. "Age" as I said it, is half the truth. It's not about numbers. It's just...wrong on so many levels.
Not everything that needs to be said has to be heard.
11/05/2012
Rejection, psychologically, is like physical pain: the same part of the brain is activated. And we have evolved to avoid that. What we do instead is to pretend we give less of a sht than we do or we rationalise it and blame it on external factors.
Some people fear rejection more than others, but even the most secured people put on a facade. That's the rule of the game, they know it, and that's why they (seemingly) ace it.
She's so open about her fondness of me, even though we barely know each other (She's not crazy and I hardly deserve it save for the fact that I'm somewhat of a novelty to her, I think), that it's just sweet, refreshing and turns me into a putty. I suspect it's because she knows that it'll never be more than making memories, riding on the waves of what we shared in that brief 72 hours or so. At least that's how I feel.
A couple of messages that I received over the past few days came close to turning my life upside down. What I thought, believed and took for granted as the one stable thing in my life that was my safety net appeared to be disintegrating, like a spider web in gusty wind and rain. I'm far from knowing the truth, and I'm not sure that I do want to find out, at least not right now. It all seems like a bad dream: irrational, out of control and unstoppable. I hope that it goes away, or that turns into a kind of deja vu supported by context, reasons and rationality.
So there it is. Making good memories seems to be the way to go, cos as much as good times' gonna come, the bad ones will stick or come around again.
Some people fear rejection more than others, but even the most secured people put on a facade. That's the rule of the game, they know it, and that's why they (seemingly) ace it.
She's so open about her fondness of me, even though we barely know each other (She's not crazy and I hardly deserve it save for the fact that I'm somewhat of a novelty to her, I think), that it's just sweet, refreshing and turns me into a putty. I suspect it's because she knows that it'll never be more than making memories, riding on the waves of what we shared in that brief 72 hours or so. At least that's how I feel.
A couple of messages that I received over the past few days came close to turning my life upside down. What I thought, believed and took for granted as the one stable thing in my life that was my safety net appeared to be disintegrating, like a spider web in gusty wind and rain. I'm far from knowing the truth, and I'm not sure that I do want to find out, at least not right now. It all seems like a bad dream: irrational, out of control and unstoppable. I hope that it goes away, or that turns into a kind of deja vu supported by context, reasons and rationality.
So there it is. Making good memories seems to be the way to go, cos as much as good times' gonna come, the bad ones will stick or come around again.
03/05/2012
"I seem to be really good at this accounting stuff," I said. "But I don't like it."
"It's easy to find a job as an accountant but it's hard to be brilliant and stand out from the crowd," he replied. "And if you don't like it, don't do it."
Yes, brilliance is the aim, and let's hope it's worth the pain.
"It's easy to find a job as an accountant but it's hard to be brilliant and stand out from the crowd," he replied. "And if you don't like it, don't do it."
Yes, brilliance is the aim, and let's hope it's worth the pain.
26/04/2012
Do we all get on with life without the kind of warnings that would have served us good? Maybe it's just me.
No one ever warned me when I turned 18 that my dreams would make life difficult for me, and that I should have followed an easy, straightforward path doing what I hate in exchange for enough savings in the bank, fancy suits and good enough prospects for a mortgage when I turn 25.
No one ever warned me that by immersing myself in the culture of the city and country that I have come to call home that I would have the biggest reverse cultural shock when I return to my technical home, where I have the so called home advantage. The slangs that I didn't get, the popular press and opinion that I didn't agree and the way of life that prompted me to think, repeatedly: are you for real? Even the way they said my name made me cringe.
No one ever warned me that when I reach my mid-20s, my fear and disappointment when I realise that I am nowhere near where I thought I'd be can be so overwhelming. Where you thought you'd be may not necessarily be better, but at least there was hope, and goals, and faith that you'd get there, somewhere.
No one ever warned me, that despite having coming to terms with being a minority on so many levels and having figured things out things on my own, that wedding photos of people (who I'm only connected to on a social media level purely because we shared some kind of past that in all honesty would have dissipated had it not for Mark Zuckerberg) representing the kind of life that is not mine can still make cringe, and question where I am now.
Some people warned me about many things. I just didn't listen.
21/04/2012
The scent of your hair on my pillow...
On a dreamy Saturday morning, with hazy memory of the night before and a semi stranger in my bed, I felt at ease and at peace as I put everything else on hold. I knew how fcked up I'll be for my exams but I just didn't want to care. For the past few weeks, it's as though I reverted back to September 2008, when I coped with what life threw at me by partying it all out and forgetting all my troubles, forgetting why I left loved ones behind on a lonely adventure, and forgetting how she ripped my heart out. Except that I'm not 23 anymore.
All the moving, exams, interviews and stress from September to February have worn me out. I don't want to remember how lonely it was to have to deal with everything on my own, how ridiculously stressed I was that even making plans to catch up with friends was a stress factor I avoided. I rushed through everything so that I could give her my full attention when she came to see me, and rushed through everything before I hopped on that plane in December.
It has been almost five years since I lived with someone, and she could not have been more wrong for me, but somehow I put up with it for almost a year. I remember getting sucked in by her inertia, frustrated with boredom attributable to her unwillingness to do anything apart from sitting at home watching crappy TV shows, and her emotional immaturity that drove me insane. It suffocated me.
Fast forward four years, I rushed to the airport after work every few weeks, went straight to clubs with her in another country while smelling like the flight cabin and spent the whole weekend rolling around in bed until one of us complained of being hungry and we'd drag our lazy asses out of the flat for food, more partying and then back for more sleep until I had to get to the airport again. One Friday night, I was alone in a hotel room in the southern part of the country waiting for her, except that she missed her train, but she showed up in the morning bringing the best and funniest surprise that a lover could bring. But now, all this sounds very tiring, and I don't know how we did it.
The night before I left Hong Kong, we had dinner with my parents and she passed with flying colours. It was still dark in the morning as I got up the following day and got ready to leave for the airport. She stood up in my bed and whispered "hey, I'm gonna miss you". A month later, I went through all the emotions that come with break ups in the span of a week, put everything on hold and got on with life. Some people said that we didn't love each other enough to compromise on where we want to live. I never agreed with that. We're not that young anymore but I think we are too young to give up our personal goals just to be near each other.
The trip to Poland started out as a solitary exercise, but it turned amazing because of her. I barely knew her, and I still have trouble pronouncing her name, but she looked at me with such fascination that I was amused beyond words. She was kind, attentive and fun. When she walked me out of the hotel reception and stopped at a spot without surveillance camera, she kissed me and said she'd miss me. It was very sweet and I was very smitten, but I probably won't see her again.
It won't be long until my pillow case will smell like laundry powder, and who knows how long it'll stay that way. When some people walk into your life, you just know they won't be around forever, or even long enough to matter. But others, they stick around for longer than you ever anticipated in the first place.
On a dreamy Saturday morning, with hazy memory of the night before and a semi stranger in my bed, I felt at ease and at peace as I put everything else on hold. I knew how fcked up I'll be for my exams but I just didn't want to care. For the past few weeks, it's as though I reverted back to September 2008, when I coped with what life threw at me by partying it all out and forgetting all my troubles, forgetting why I left loved ones behind on a lonely adventure, and forgetting how she ripped my heart out. Except that I'm not 23 anymore.
All the moving, exams, interviews and stress from September to February have worn me out. I don't want to remember how lonely it was to have to deal with everything on my own, how ridiculously stressed I was that even making plans to catch up with friends was a stress factor I avoided. I rushed through everything so that I could give her my full attention when she came to see me, and rushed through everything before I hopped on that plane in December.
It has been almost five years since I lived with someone, and she could not have been more wrong for me, but somehow I put up with it for almost a year. I remember getting sucked in by her inertia, frustrated with boredom attributable to her unwillingness to do anything apart from sitting at home watching crappy TV shows, and her emotional immaturity that drove me insane. It suffocated me.
Fast forward four years, I rushed to the airport after work every few weeks, went straight to clubs with her in another country while smelling like the flight cabin and spent the whole weekend rolling around in bed until one of us complained of being hungry and we'd drag our lazy asses out of the flat for food, more partying and then back for more sleep until I had to get to the airport again. One Friday night, I was alone in a hotel room in the southern part of the country waiting for her, except that she missed her train, but she showed up in the morning bringing the best and funniest surprise that a lover could bring. But now, all this sounds very tiring, and I don't know how we did it.
The night before I left Hong Kong, we had dinner with my parents and she passed with flying colours. It was still dark in the morning as I got up the following day and got ready to leave for the airport. She stood up in my bed and whispered "hey, I'm gonna miss you". A month later, I went through all the emotions that come with break ups in the span of a week, put everything on hold and got on with life. Some people said that we didn't love each other enough to compromise on where we want to live. I never agreed with that. We're not that young anymore but I think we are too young to give up our personal goals just to be near each other.
The trip to Poland started out as a solitary exercise, but it turned amazing because of her. I barely knew her, and I still have trouble pronouncing her name, but she looked at me with such fascination that I was amused beyond words. She was kind, attentive and fun. When she walked me out of the hotel reception and stopped at a spot without surveillance camera, she kissed me and said she'd miss me. It was very sweet and I was very smitten, but I probably won't see her again.
It won't be long until my pillow case will smell like laundry powder, and who knows how long it'll stay that way. When some people walk into your life, you just know they won't be around forever, or even long enough to matter. But others, they stick around for longer than you ever anticipated in the first place.
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