For A Friend

I have a friend who is going through a tough time in his life. He told me that he has never felt this depressed in his entire life. He has been trying to better himself, in all ways possible. I have known him for two-third of my life, he is perhaps one of the people I have known the longest, save my family. He is a simple person really, striving to live his life in the ways deemed rightful, trying to raise his family alongside. He is also one of the most unflappable persons I knew, never much affected by anything. Accepting of what comes his way. Which always drove me crazy, because I am always much affected by every little thing that I stumble upon. Yet he is a dear friend. I may not have told him as much, but he is.

Over the years, with so many things happening, we seem to have not been as close. Yet when my life is affected, like now, he is the one I would run to. Always there to lend a shoulder.

I do know how to console you, nor do I possess any good advice to give you, but you know that I am here if you need me, just the way that you have always been there for me.

Only one thing I want to say - God puts forth challenges to those whom He knows can take them. Stay strong.

Am I or Am I Not?

I have been meaning to write, and I have so many things I want to write about in the last few days, but nothing feels right. I have been wanting to talk to friends, but again nothing feels right, so in the end I did not talk to any. I bury myself in the ever piling work at the office, I come home and sleep at 10pm, which to most other people is like sleeping at 7pm, as I am a nocturnal animal. Not that I am sad, and neither am I depressed. I feel nothing really. He has called 3 times since, with many other little smses and dots of emails, and I don't feel anything.

Am I numb? Or am I okay with this whole business? I am not sure. People say time heals, but little time has passed since - it's only been 3 days. Am I supposed to be like this? Not that I am complaining, although it doesn't really go with my normally overly-sensitive being. Perhaps I am just glad that the whole thing is over, or maybe that the waiting was the killer? Again I am not sure.

May be I am just tired and I just need a little time by myself.

He is gone, just like the soft rain that accompanied me driving to the airport this morning. No dramas there - after all the whole family was there. The only thing that betrayed my emotion was my not being able to say anything when he hugged me and asked me to take care of myself. For the fear of breaking down. I just nodded. The son hugged me too, and asked me to follow, what could I say. I watched them until they just became dots, him the bigger one.

It is only on the way back, in the privacy of my car, when I saw a plane overhead that I finally shed my tears, although not as much as I thought I would. The one-hour driving helped. The grey-blue morning light filtered by the rain helped too. It wasn't so bad. I will live. Time will heal. It's just 3 years.

Tomorrow it will be 2 years and 364 days...

I Wish That The Clock Stops Ticking

30 hours more. That is how much time he has left before he exchanges this green land for the arid desert. And out of the 30, I probably have only 2 more out of that with him. That makes it what... less that 10-percent? I don't know, my maths isn't good, but you get the picture. Again, the same question that I keep asking myself over and over again like a mantra, after that, what?

Today was especially harrowing. Lunch with him, and he was complaining of how much he still has to do and how little time he has. He who never complains. My only way to console him was by replying that I would have probably drowned in the tasks and emotion that I would be paralysed long ago. Of which he replied that I am forever paralysed by my emotions anyway. How true. And lunch was a short affair, of which we had to accommodate Puan, who was dying to see him before he goes of. Another sacrifice on my side. But it's okay. And then a harried drive around town chauffering him for his eye check up, to his bank, back to his office as he did not have a car anymore. Which I readily did. Just so that I would have a few extra moments with him. Emotionally draining.

Not that I want that much extra out of him anyway, as I am so afraid that I will get used to that and will long for it when he is gone. And that's why I don't want him here tonight. Restrain, and hopefully it won't be so bad.

Although, I wish that the clock will stop ticking, and I can freeze time.

The Dinner

I had been planning for this for the last few weeks. Dinner for him. Cooked by me and I was hoping that I would be able to cook all the things that he likes, from scratch. A connoiseur he is not - he likes simple food. Pasta, roast chicken, steak, so the task itself isn't really difficult. Yet I had been writing and rewriting the list of things to put on the menu - one day it's fetuccini, with rosemary roasted chicken and roasted butter squash, the next it's spaghetti with pesto sauce, a light salad and steak. This is the last dinner I would cook for him for a long while at least, with him going away.

So tonight was the dinner. And of course, my little punto had to have trouble again and was in the workshop for the last two days, only to be ready at 1.30 today. Something to do with the ECU unit of the gearbox. All these computers with wheels! Which cost me a bomb to replace, so in the end I settled for a second hand one, not that I care that much as I am about ready to throw that little thing into the river. So much for Italian! Anyways, that really threw me off-balance, knowing how I would get ready for such an important occasion such as this way before hand, even when I knew it was going to be an easy one. So in the end it was a menu drawn in the aisles of Cold Storage - chips with salsa dips, a hodge-podge out of the bag salad with spicy pineapple vinaigrette (homemade of course), lemon-stuffed roasted spring chicken with honey-lemon-orange juice-oyster sauce-soy sauce-black pepper marinade (my own concoction, you must try, gorgeous!), spaghetti with my homemade pesto sauce (had to substitute the pine nut with walnuts as I could not find pine nuts!) and this really smooth tiramisu cake - that's from strudels, me no bake, and of course, kopi hang tuah. Ready in one hour. The funny thing was I was getting nervous preparing the things, and this wasn't really that hard to do. Guess must be the other thoughts disturbing, like I won't be cooking for him for a while, and worse, I won't be seeing him for a while.

He loved it. He always does when I cook. And I would have cooked for him everyday of my life, if only I can. If only.

2 more days...

Longing for a Money Plant

A plant in a mug can trigger such a complex emotion - longing. Saw someone adding water into her mug that has this scrawny money plant at my client's pantry just now, and suddenly I was missing the good life at a corporate office. Well, when it comes to office space at least. See, we consultants are hardly at the office that we don't even get a personal space there - not even a cubicle marked as our own. Whichever space is empty, we sit. Unlike when you are an office worker, you get your own space, which you can decorate in whatever way you like. Which you can put a scrawny money plant in a mug.

Suddenly I long for that. Long ago, before I sold my soul to the evils of consulting, I used to have that too. I even had a room at one point. And just like my house, they were personalised to the hilt. Which means that they were fire hazards - they had more things than a godown. At one point I even had a goldfish. I used to bring fresh flowers every week too. And when I was doing product development for the airline I used to work for, and my project was to produce aromatheraphy inflight kits, my cubicle was like an apothecary. Used to attract all the girls that way. And some of the men too..tsk..tsk.. I had so many plants that one of cubicle spaces resembled Kew Gardens. And to top it off, a bomoh once told me to remove my plants because they were attracting ghosts! Imagine that!

And now all I have is a laptop bag that contains all the things to accomodate my mobile office lifestyle - laptop, PDA, stationery, medical kit, sometimes snacks too. I miss the space.

May be it's time to move back to the corporate life?

A Rainy Sunday Afternoon

It's raining outside. Not the violent rain-type, just the type where the rain falls in big, soft, gentle drops that provides a nice musical background that can lull you into thinking. Or sleep. And I am at work. On Sunday. With nothing to do. Well, I have to be here for the sake of my team who is working. Just to show them that I care. And I seriously have nothing to do. Hence this blog.

If only life could be like this all the time. I am not thinking too much. Just enjoying being here. The silence. The clicking of the keyboard as I type this. The distant spattering of the rain. And the storms in my life are just part of the silent background noise, never interfering. If only.

Again, reflecting, I only need very few things to make my life peaceful. The rest I have learned a while ago to let go - Armanis, the corporate ambition... Yet these few things are the hardest to attain. Must I let go of them also? Or perhaps, must I learn to yearn for other simple things and not these? Will that make me a man of little desire, hence a man with no passion? As it is, gone are the days when I feel the strong desire for anything (except perhaps for one, and even that not as strong as before :) ). Someone whom I have not met for a while remarked that I have managed to look tired, and have lost the mischievous glint in my eyes I always used to possess. Is that right? Based on how I feel, I think it is.

So coming back to the question of whether I must let go of more, I don't know. Anybody out there has an answer?

Musings

Someone commented that my last 2 blogs are lively - livelier than what normally appears on these pages I suppose. I agree. What I don't know is whether that happens because I only write when I feel blue or whether I am always blue. Both I suppose. At least lately.

So many changes. Changes that happened. Changes that will happen. All around me. So I guess the next step is for me to change.

Exactly one more week. 7 days...

Catty Story

I came home tonight to find Hammie playing with Baby! He was pawing Baby the way he would his teddy bear. Poor Baby was yelping away, but mama Brownie just looked and pretended boredom. I said pretended because she was just ready to pounce if anything went wrong. What a change overnight!

And I need to bring R for his lasik surgery tomorrow. Pray to God that it goes well.

Cat Story

Hammie now has two new friends, Brownie and Baby. Given to me by R as he is moving. I wonder if it is his way to make me remember him more. They are supposed to be friends, anyway, although even after 3 days together all they do is hiss and scream at one another. You see, Hammie has always been by himself, cat-wise that is. The only other contact to another living thing he has is with me. And the goldfish, if you can count that in. he doesn't even know how to meow properly. He just produced this pathetic 'e..eek' sound instead of a meow. Yes, he is a handsome boy, all white and fluffy, with blue eyes. Now the other two had come to invade his home, the lithe, proud Brownie, who is worldly and streetwise (well, she got pregnant at 6 months old), with brown hair and white socks on all four feet, and Baby, who is Brownie's month old baby. Don't even know whether that one is a boy or a girl. All I know is that it has a funny colour - dirty is what comes to mind to describe her. Almost black, with patches of orange and brown. So unlike the pretty mother. Father must be really ugly. That's what R said, and mean to boot. So Brownie likes bad boys. And Hammie is I guess just a dainty fella trying to act naughty. Imagine the scene - Hammie tries to claim his territory only to run like mad when Brownie hisses. He is even scared of little Baby. And baby will just bulldoze at anything, and will bite anything she comes across, and walks bow-legged in a way only kittens can. So cute. I am going to have an interesting time parenting them. One good thing though, Hammie meowed for the first time today. Ah... the joy of parenting.

Of cherry blossoms in a faraway land

An email that came this afternoon, which was supposed to be an answer to my cry for help at work, from a colleague who is on vacation, and I am temporarily taking over his role, sounded so delicious. He is somewhere at the foot of Fujiyama, in a small village, staying in a small bamboo hut which is surrounded by cherry blossoms. No cars, and he takes his bath in those little tubs filled with boiling water, before his rice and sushi breakfast. Where no one speaks English. Where everyone is nice and genuine. And he says that it soothe his soul, drains away his sorrow. He had just split up with his girlfriend, you see. Perhaps that is what I need at this point. To be away from everything. To go somewhere that can wash away all the sorrow, angst, fear. Not now perhaps, but soon. Although I would rather go somewhere near the ocean, where I can sit by the water and let the waves wash away all the unnecessaries. Where everyone is nice and genuine.

Angst, and the likes

The restlessness that envelopes when you get the feeling that you are floating somewhere, neither the feet touching the ground, nor the head touching the skies, disoriented with lots of unfinished businesses and ifs. Not a nice feeling. It tightens around the chest, it blurs the boundary between reality and dreams. You don't know if it is pain, or more pain. You are numb.

And what is it that psychologists say, when you start using the second-person reference when referring to yourself?

Although last week brought a nice break, a pleasure even, with the visit of my dearest friend from down south, amidst the torrent of heartaches, hard work and parting pain.

Exactly two more weeks... and then what?

A Tribute

Of course it is the people closest to you that get the least recognition. The undemanding souls who stand by you through thick and thin, who tolerate you through your most tiring charades, who submit their thin shoulders unquestioningly when you need them. And they do so readily. Those who get awaken in the wee hours in the morning to listen to your cries of help. Those who support you without being asked. Lots of time, in the highest of highs and in the spasms of passion, they get buried somewhere at the bottom of the appreciation list. It is always the ones that give the short bursts of laughters and the spurts of ecstasy that rise to the top of the list. And yet when the laughters wane and when ecstatic cries turn bitter, they are the ones that are sought. For their thin shoulders, for their sympathy, for their words of comfort. Again and again. And again and again they will offer the same. And again, when the clouds of black part, when there is a mere showing of the ray of joy, they go down the list. Again. Such is the human trait. I know so, for I am guilty of this crime.

So friends, I want you to know, I appreciate you most although I may always forget to show it. I want you to know too, that you will always have a special place in my heart, a permanent one, that will never be replaced by the flirting joys. I don't need to mention names, you will always know who you are. Thank you for being there for me.