best friend

i miss my best friend.

or perhaps i should have said, my ex best friend.

these days i don't have a best friend. i am fortunate to have good friends, and i am thankful for these people every single day. but i have given up on this whole best friend thing.

the word best, when used prior to the word friend, is meant to denote a certain kind of special-ness. this person used to be special for me. this person i used to love and this person who used to make me feel loved (despite actually loving me or not). and this person is no more.

no, she didn't die. we just ceased being best friends. not sure if we are still friends.

i am mourning this friendship, or its lack thereof right now.

one of the hardest things is that during one of our last moments together, she somewhat predicted that this was going to happen because she knew who i am. i hate that she turned out to be correct and i hate that i could not be any different. i hate that i loved her and i hate that i was honest with her. in short, i hated myself when i was with her.

in contrast, she used to be the person i went to when i wanted to feel good about life and mankind and everything else. she had the ability to assure me in a way that made me realise that being human can never be something that we apologise for. imperfections make us part of who we are. they are ok, especially if we take active steps to work on them.

when there were so many shit that happened in my life that basically destroyed my faith in humanity, she was present as a rock that helped restored it.

i hate that it was quite possibly me who destroyed her faith in humanity.

i am sorry.

i do not know how to fix this.

on my parents' divorce

anonymous blogging has its perks. one of these perks is the ability to talk about things that i would otherwise not write with my name written all over it.

my parents are divorced. they've been separated like more than a decade ago and somehow manage to successfully not to talk to each other. my dad is pretty honest about this fact and i give him credit for this honesty. my mum, on the other hand, manages to maintain the damsel in distress persona all through the years, starting from the separation and until this day claims that she is still waiting for him to return.

except that he is not returning.

i used to feel sorry for my mum until one day, i just stopped. i have always known that she wanted me to feel sorry for her, she wants everyone to feel sorry for her. her whole life is centred towards getting everyone to feel sorry for her. so much so that i am pretty much sick of it. what kind of life is that? besides, she's got my sister who is more than happy to indulge her in feeling sorry for herself.

i spend a lot of time in my life trying not to get angry at my parents' divorce. and then i realised that i am actually not angry about their divorce. i am just pissed off at how my mother handles her life post divorce. it's like she forgets to live. or maybe she doesn't know how to in the first place, which is why they divorced. it is kind of like i am not so pissed off when someone makes a genuine mistake, given that he/she fixes the mistakes immediately after discovering the said mistake. (fixing a mistake = owning up to it, apologising and making things better.)

being a child of divorce sucks, okay. it is not so much about having to divide the time between two parents. it sucks mainly because my mother made my life hell by making me feel guilty every time i spend time with my father. my own father, thank you very much. she would do anything to make his life difficult and making my life difficult in the process.

after about 30 years of living, i realise that my mum never listened to me. she only wants to be listened to. and she wants me to give her a lot of things, even when all that she said is, well, she doesn't want anything. and then she complained about something, and said something along the lines of nobody wanted to help her. while looking at me straight in the eye.

the divorce doesn't sadden me. it is my mum's actions post divorce that breaks my heart.

the saddest thing of all, she doesn't even know it.

redefining the bigger person

so it's Christmas.

i swear that i do not want to write anything about it other than the fact that to me it is like any other day, except that my office is having an annual close down, which means that instead of going to the office, i am "shoulding" myself to do other things.

oh the things that we "should" ourselves to.

when will people realise that there are some people in this planet who do not have the best of relationship with their families AND have fully made peace with that fact AND are tired of pretending that everything is all right. i mean, really, except for this time of the year, everyone doesn't really care about this, but it is like Christmas and suddenly everyone cares. because there is no better time to be the bigger person. right.

i try to remind myself that these people have my best interest at heart. they really do. so i try to be patient and explain it over and over again. the fact that i am having an adrenaline high is also useful because that means for some weird reason, it is easier not to take things too personally at this state. thankfully, they are supportive and all inferred something along the lines of "don't feel guilty about it" - i don't. i have decided that i am first and foremost responsible to and for myself and my own happiness before i can start thinking about other people.

yeah. i love myself that much.  

how to NOT be jaded by life

this thing about getting older. 

fuck. it is like one second we are supposed to fucking have passion so that we can enjoy what we do. no passion equals emptiness. emptiness is shit because there's nothing there. so we want passion. we seek passion. we got passion because we care about something. then we witness so many shit crap happens to the things we care about. 

how to NOT be jaded by life? 

how to keep on fucking care when you are hit with a fucking brick wall?

you don't. actually, it's more that i don't. i have stopped caring. you can do whatever you fucking want and i am not going to care one little bit. 

emptiness is unavoidable. 

My ipod died

So. My ipod died.

I got it back in 2003. It was a gift from my sister. It was either 3rd or 4th gen 60G that I thought was going to last me a life time. BUT as it turns out, nothing lasts forever.

And I also lost almost all of the entire collection of my music.

A little bit of history. I used to outsource my backup to this dude who claimed that he was the best at it yadidadida. Long story short, he was so fucking dodgy that I lost quite a lot of files when my computer died. I was devastated for a while and then I thought what the heck. Out with the old, welcome clutter free life.

I become somewhat emotionally detached from any of my files - and my possessions for that matter. I don't care that my music collection over the past 9 years and beyond are gone. Who the fuck cares. There are new music being created everyday and let's give these guys a chance eh? Artists need to be appreciated.

I have not bought another mp3 player, although I miss it quite terribly. I use my boyfriend's currently and I don't really like it because it is not mine, so I feel somewhat rather guilty personalising all the tracks in it, but if I don't then I don't enjoy listening to it as much, so why bother.

I get unnecessarily analytical about incidents like these. I mean, it is like it is bound to happen, isn't it... when your life (or insert any other object here) is full of clutter that is preventing you from getting ahead, then something drastic will happen so that all the branches are pruned and you can continue walking in your journey with more poise and confidence, and less baggage. You get these extra energy and suddenly everything feels lighter.

I call it the power of letting go. I let go of all of the things in my life that is weighing me down on a regular basis - it is called spring cleaning (except that it is not confined to spring). BUT at times, I do not realise that these things are weighing me down, so I kept on going with all the extra baggage only to get extremely exhausted and thus lacking the energy to analyse what the fuck is going on. Then the universe kicks in and sorts it all out and all is back to being good again.

Sometimes, I think it is ok not knowing all the answers. Holly wholly whack, I just said that out loud! Of course I would love to know all the answers to my never-ending questions on life, love and everything else in between. Yet if I keep on searching for all the answers and focus my efforts on ascertaining truth in those answers, then I am going to forget to ask new questions. Asking new questions is important because it is one of the ways that we grow. Sure we can grow via other ways, but without asking new questions we are eliminating an element that requires us to keep an open mind.

That things in this life work in ways that we cannot explain or comprehend - and it is ok. We are only human.

That we are not alone in this life, even sometimes we feel like we are. It is like there is this supreme being watching over us (GOD, are you up there?), and it actually cares about our well being, and yet at the same time, prefer not to be intrusive unless it is absolutely necessary. This is pretty awesome.

That there will always be more questions than answers and out of the answers that exist out there, not all of them are correct answers, so proceed with fucking caution in this journey called life.

(Yes, I am tempted to buy a new ipod, but in light of the recent court case between Apple and Samsung, I have totally, absolutely, completely, certainly lost my desire to support Apple.)

Just a quick one

I wasn't kidding when I said I was wedding-ed out.

Really, seriously. It was like I was losing touch to the real me. The real me who is not into wedding whatsoever. In fact, I was approached a while back by a friend/acquaintance who asked me to do some wedding business with him. We went as far as doing the numbers. Fuck, they were good. One heck of a very lucrative business. Because everything has a wedding premium attached to it. People are generally suckers when it comes to their weddings. BUT I remain someone who is (a) not into weddings and (b) not easily swayed by beautiful results, so I passed on it. His business is doing great last I heard, that's to be expected.

So I took the time to recuperate from all the wedding-related stuff. This coincides with an email from my boss telling me that I have to take a holiday. I immersed myself in work for two weeks after I booked a holiday. Right now, I am technically on holidays, which I started by sleeping too much. I tend to repay my sleeping debt during my holidays. I am best friends with my bed and blanket.

When I am in my down time, I usually find I can't be bothered to do anything, including writing anything in this space. Sorry, it is not that I don't have anything to say, I always have something to say about anything out there. It is just that... I don't know. Certain aspects of life gets so bloody overwhelming and I find it difficult to reconcile these things.

For example, for the love of GOD, I don't understand why every jeweller in Chinatown is such rip-offs. In fact, the more fluent they are in speaking English, the more likely they are to rip you off. I hate writing something so racist, but it is also so fucking true. For a while, I was delusional enough thinking that maybe they've changed. They haven't. I swear that I am not stepping foot anywhere in those area ever again. If there is a business that has no integrity whatsoever, well then, you are looking at one. Forget those overseas multinationals that bribe governments to stay in business - this one is right in front of your noses, and chance is that you would know someone who has had dealings with these people.

I know that this is more a stereotype than real life, and ordinarily I would agree - except that this time, it is actually real. So if you come across my blog because you are thinking of visiting a Chinatown jeweller, then think again. Do so at your own risk.

Ok, I guess I am not over certain aspects of wedding, and one of those aspects is rings - engagement and wedding rings. Why are those rings so important anyway? It is just a thing. A material thing. I hate putting so much meaning into one thing that is just a thing. And I think we are making too big a deal of it ... it is just a ring. An overpriced thing, in my opinion. Remember the wedding premium?

Anyhoo. The only reconciliation I have is this - it's their lives, their weddings, their money. I just hope that when it comes to mine, it does not have to be so conflicted with my personal values.

Peace out. Have a nice weekend.

Heavy topics ahead!!

I survived the wedding, at least one friendship survive thus far, and let's hope the other one does too. It's complicated, and I don't want to go into details here. It turned out to be a pretty big wedding, so all my worries about being at the bottom of the list was pretty much eliminated due to size. That is, the amount of people on the bottom of the list is going to be very likely to be pretty big, so much easier to just blend with the crowd.

Sometimes though I do wonder if it is easier to give a gift that is actually useful, simply because I have witness some people's lack of discipline when it comes to easy money. I know that I have zero discipline when it comes to some unexpected money that comes my way, so this is to be expected of everyone else. I also know that I can exercise some discipline if I want to, especially if I have a big goal that I am currently working towards - like for example, saving enough for the down payment of a property, and later on, paying the mortgage as soon as I can.

Yes, I know that not everyone is like me, so I should just zip it right - especially when it comes to how other people spend their money and live their lives. I should comment less, basically, just because other people are different than me. To this, I agree wholeheartedly. I just hate it when people look at me and complain that I manage to buy an apartment, while doing everything else at the same time. It takes discipline. I complain about a lot of things too, as evidenced by most things in this blog, but for the most part, I try to make decisions that are beneficial for me in the long term.

Money is such a big deal, isn't it. If  you contribute too little towards the pool for your coworker's farewell party, people are going to talk behind your back. If you don't contribute at all, they are going to talk about you too. Very few people would just come out and say, this is the level of contribution that is acceptable - because hello, this whole thing is meant to be voluntary right. Just like the wedding gift - it is meant to be voluntary, but in reality, the bride and groom, keep track of this information and then subsequently use that when it comes to gifting in future. In this case, it is so much easier to be the first one amongst your group of friends to get married. I am rolling my eyes as I write this simply because I still find this information difficult to believe till this date, but it is at the same time true based on my extremely limited personal experience. So I am somewhat rather horrified, but I am not sure what it is that horrifies me more - the fact that people use that info for future conducts, or the fact that people just can't get past the fact that it is meant to be voluntary, or both.

I still maintain that if you don't want to see that person at your event - be it wedding or birthday or whatever (what else do people celebrate these days? PhD graduations??) - then don't send the invite. Easy peasy. Don't send the invite out of obligation because there is this chance that the invitee will attend out of obligation. See how complicated it can get? All just because you were doing things in the name of politeness.

Anyway, on to bigger and brighter, and certainly more important things. I am all wedding-ed out for the rest of the year. I do hope that no one else is getting married this year. There is technically one other wedding that I should attend, but due to extremely complicated circumstances, I am going to skip that one, and just send my wishes. I will ask my Dad to attend if the invite ever arrives at home (highly doubt it). I hope this friendship will survive this one, but I am ok if it doesn't. Don't look at me that way, okay, I change, she changes, and we grow apart. I am just acknowledging that.

I was talking to Dad yesterday and it was something along these lines:
Dad (D): Do you know anyone who's a doctor?
D: Do you know anything about lymphoma?
Me (M): cancer?
D: Yep. Is it dangerous?
M: Depends on the type (note: I was furiously Google searching at the same time)
D: Its Type B
M: Who's got lymphoma?

I swear at the time I asked the question, I was actually contemplating not asking it at all because I was so fucking scared that it was him who's got the disease. Or mum, which is just as bad. Right at that moment in time, I was so scared of the idea of losing the two people that matter a lot in my life, one of which I argue with quite often, but I do love with all of my heart (it is just that my head clashes with his). I am pretty sure that I would feel slightly worse if it's mum because I hardly ever fight with her. I know it doesn't make sense, anyway.

D: Uncle Teddy. Do you remember him?

I was relieved beyond words. So much so that I nearly cried.

Of course I remember uncle Teddy. I remember him quite vividly and I felt (and still feel) a tinge of sadness. Why this is so is another story another time, because it is complicated and today it seems like I am writing about all of these complicated stuff that requires a lot of explanation individually and I have no energy to explain them like they should be explained.

I felt that I am taking my life, my health and most importantly, my parents for granted. I felt so incredibly shit when the realisation hits me: I am selfish, I do love myself a lot and I make choices that are designed to make my life better and easier - or at least, so I thought.

But what is better, and what is easier?

In life we have choices and our decisions often requires weighing the outcomes of a few choices that suit us the best at that moment in time. The danger happens when we focus a little bit too heavily on the "at that moment in time" bit. Because ideally, we make decisions that are better for us in the long run (see above about money stuff). But instead, what we thought are better for us in the long run requires so much short term sacrifice in terms of time lost that we will never be able to recover/make up.

Parents have this guilt all the time - because they somehow think that the best thing for their kids is to be by their side 24/7. I think there is a thing such as spending too much time together - this is probably because I need a lot of me-time. I think people need to grow individually and to do this they need space. Although I do admit that it is nice to have someone that you spend a lot of time with - like back in school, when we get to see our friends everyday, it is nice to go to school because of that.

I have not lived with my parents for the longest time, and sometimes I do miss living with them - as in actual living under one roof, not spending holidays together. I think this is because I have been living away from them since such a young age (try 12), so I never quite feel like being home with them; instead everything felt like one temporary arrangement after another.

I don't regret the way I turn out. But I do miss going home.