strangely, everything has happened smoothly, albeit suddenly. my new colleague is a paradoxically baby-faced veteran landlord whose tenants serendipitously moved out.

it seems like a small thing, but being the baby that i secretly am, i’m still getting used to all the grown up stuff.

manja, i moved out of the house last week. she’s getting accustomed to high-rise living. and i’ve been running around getting keys, getting cleaners, getting movers, getting things as close to normalcy as possible. and i’m glad to have someone holding my hand every step of the way.

this is not an unhappy post. you can call it a slightly vexed post. or maybe even bemused post. can you blame me? everything i’ve known for the past few years has got to change. it’s a scary thing, suddenly you see how easily the supposed iron pillars of your life can crumble and blow off in the wind.

it scares me to see how easily i, myself, can be shaken.

“As Ray Porter watches Mirabelle walk away he feels a loss. How is it possible, he thinks, to miss a woman whom he kept at a distance so that when she was gone he would not miss her. Only then does he realize that wanting part of her and not all of her had hurt them both and how he cannot justify his actions except that… well… it was life.”

i paid good money, dude, please tell me something i don’t know.

and it isn’t a bad thing, mind you. it helps me sift through the masses, to figure out who is friend or foe. or less melodramatically, who might be a regular joe and who is a mindless cretin.

it’s so sad that the signs have been there all the while but i chose to ignore them, you cretin.

may this be the last i speak of JT, here or elsewhere. i’m locking it away from your judging eyes stupid faces.

p/s i don’t need someone to “educate” me on who w+k is, ffs.

i just figured, life was going so well, something was bound to screw up my mood for the entire year.

my most life-shaping best friend, we’ll call her M (because i’m so original and creative that i can’t be bothered to think of a witty pseudonym for her, instead choosing to go for her initial cos i’m just oozing inspiration from a poisonous insect bite on my foot), i met in high school. in retrospect, it was less of a friendship than it was me hankering after her like a stray dog, eager for a word of kindness or a laugh or smile or just some acknowledgment. i worshipped her. she could do no wrong.

anyhoo. we got along fine and dandy except for moments when we didn’t. and by “moments” i mean months. by months i mean a periods of time long enough for a fetus to pass the stage where pro-choicers and pro-lifers argue whether it’s a real human life anymore. and by “didn’t get along” i mean she just cut me off from her presence (which i remind you, was like  air or something to me) for shits and giggles. then after the emotional abandonment gig got stale she’d come back contrite (i wonder), apologise, and like the happy coprophile that i was, i just lapped it all up. mmmmm… yummy!

so lather, rinse & repeat till i finally couldn’t stomach it (haha) and gave her The Ultimatum™ – fuiyoh, damn gaya right? it’s like i grew balls overnight – do it one more time, and we’re through. of course, in a plot twist even m. night shyamalan wouldn’t have foreseen, she disappeared one day and starting bitching about me behind my back.

i fell apart like a weepy little girl. like i got dumped by my boyfriend. i couldn’t eat. couldn’t sleep. lay in bed listening to her favourite songs while covering my pillow with snot. you know the drill. but that was a good 6 years ago and at the time i actually believed i learned some sort of life-affirming, chicken soup for the soul lesson: don’t stand for people treating you less than you deserve and you won’t get hurt.

cue twinkly time travel effects and we’re magically in the year 2010, where i am hotter, wiser and more awesome. and while i’ve had to put my foot down a few times (because humanity sucks that way) i’m still susceptible to this kind of pain caused by the same inevitable brand of puerile bullshit.

and you can’t avoid it.

you can’t think to yourself “i’m not going to let them get close, yo. burn me once, shame on you. burn me twice, shame on me!” because people, with their idiosyncrasies and their flaws and their strengths and their stupidity and their awesomeness and everything else just weasel into your life, and eventually your heart, and you can’t deny it to yourself even if you put on your most aggressive game face to the world. those closest to you can still see it. and in this pathetic, quivering, fragile state, you half wonder if someone you least suspect is one day going to use it against you.

no needs to sees my face ever agains. happeess liaos? byes~

some people i’d forgive for crashing my car; some people i’d never speak to again for the very vague reason that you’ve “hurt my feelings”.

go figure which camp i’ve lumped you in. maybe think about why i may have felt transgressed against.

then don’t come ask me about it.

absolutely delish.

i think there’s only so much you can push, threaten, lecture, plead, beg, bargain and beseech someone who isn’t interested in your help. methinks some individuals thrive on the mental anguish that comes hand-in-hand with those putrid-from-the-inside-out type relationships, while some of them imagine themselves “in love” and others probably enjoy the masochistic pleasures they derive from being ridiculed and belittled and trodden all over like a doormat. i figure there’s no point trying to figure out the how’s and why’s since it’s of no help at all. every reason they throw out seems to defy all known human logic.  just like there is no point lending an ear or trying to counsel those repeat offenders. you finally start wondering why you are expending so much time and energy fretting when they obviously don’t feel the same.  it all boils down to a combination of personal choice + waking the fuck up + reaching breaking point that will finally snap them the fuck out of the hell they’ve chosen to reside in.

who the fuck am i to have an opinion? well, i have lived through 4 years of it and while i’ve survived, i have no objective data to add to behavioural research findings. i have so much material, i could write a fucking thesis on it. but strangely enough, i have no answers.

so, fuck that shit. fuck it in the face. big girls can make their own damned decisions and all the WAO propaganda in the world will not make a damn difference. we can only cross our hearts and hope that it all turns out for the best.

then there’s that other more close-to-home incident which made me revisit my friendship protocols. JT  taught me indifference is (as a general rule) the best medicine. i’ve obviously not achieved his godlike status yet, but i’m learning. one success, in fact, is not replying pointless messages sent by so-called friends.

the rules are simple:

you walk out of my life abruptly, voluntarily, and without duress. the end.

you take advantage of my generousity/my love/my friendship. the end.

and lastly, largely inspired by today’s events, you make me 吃死猫. the end.

doesn’t seem that hard a rule set to follow, but apparently not many can. oh fucking well, right? too fucking bad. what-fucking-ever.

Only the both of us know what transpired and as time passes even that slowly fades from memory. Your version of events is not mine. And the truth disappears in the archive of a forsaken email account.

But.

Does it even matter? I know what I had to live with. What I had to deal with. How I bent over backwards and killed my ideals. My supposedly impossible and irrational ideals of black & white.

What is this for? A moot point. Oh, throw me a witty one-liner when my heart is bleeding all over the floor. I have no answer. I just know that you and text messages, well, they fuck with my blissful existence by reminding me of years of hell and self-doubt and fading sanity and tears and pain and lies.

Just let it fucking go already.

So fucking selfish. Even now it’s all about you you you and how miserable your life is. You brought this upon yourself. If you’re going to do something that you’ll regret. Just fucking don’t.

You have no idea what I went through putting the pieces of myself back together. Oh, it’s not that I imagine my life is sooooooo special and no one else has ever lived through this and worse. Nothing like that. It’s just that you would need a fucking heart to get it. And we all know how lacking you are in that department.

Mr. Messiah indeed. You wanted to “save” me? The little angry punk girl. Little punk bitch with issues. Stupid little miss. Guess what, you were not my crutch; you were my fucking disability.

Well, guess what, I’m now 10 times the person you’ll ever be.

And we both know it.

if you asked me, i probably would have. i got into trouble for you, got dragged into random fights because of you, obligingly entered into your petty little power struggles (less of struggles than they were games, we all know who would emerge the victor).

i’m not discounting the free will (or lack thereof) that i exhibited in your presence. i did things and accepted your ideologies and adopted your taste in music and agreed wholeheartedly without duress. but it was tiring; all-consuming to the point of worship. and what did that leave me with? in retrospect (isn’t it always?) i honestly don’t know how much of my self  i could have claimed as my own.

but then again, i’m rambling only with the bravado of someone who’s had the luxury of a 5-year cooling-off period. of course i cried myself to sleep and played our last conversations on repeat trying to analyse my choice of words and my tone and manner (was i harsh? sharp? cold? rude?), wondering what it was i did to offend you. i asked, but it’s not like i meant enough to warrant an answer. and in the silence, the airy childhood dreams we built while smoking cigarettes on your bed dissolved into rather unpleasant revelations.

years later i would be offered the chance to finally know, but i had come to realise that i already do. i sacrificed a hell of a lot for you, and what was i but your sacrificial lamb. chew me up and spit me out again?

thanks, but no thanks.