its getting harder to grasp on

i feel like i'm slacking way too much this semester and somehow i find that i don't enjoy this semester as much as i should. its such a monumental task nowadays to drag myself up from bed for my classes especially when my class starts at 8am everyday and when i'm in class all i wish is for it to end faster so that i can go back to cuddle up in my bed and read. my assignments are all in a mess because of my procrastination and i think i might have screwed up my english presentation today.

they try to tell me how to feel

there are times too when the writer in me fails; times like these when my thoughts are way too convoluted to put in meager words.

Happiness is indeed a choice

; Has it ever occurred to you that our wounds are what drive us to create? After all, loss in one arena compels us to compensate in others. Think about the senses. The way loss of sight leads to heightened senses of smell, touch and hearing for the blind. What if the same is true of the creative process? What if those who’ve lost something compensate for it in their works? In that case their damage helps them. It’s what compels them to create. — Jennifer Cody Epstein (The Painter of Shanghai)

i hate you. i really do

sometimes when its too much to bear, i want to scream at her with all my might. to scream my reason on why i drive her to the walls. to scream at her the consequences of what she had made me do 3 years ago but mostly i didn't because its just too much. to talk about what he was like is akin to asking me to relive my hell all over again as i'm not sure if the words that tumbled out of my mouth would be just to the action of his. how he tried to caged me and made me into becoming who he wanted me to be. how i detest the sight of him. whenever i hear her call him, i always had the urge to tell her the truth; that the saint that she painted him to be is a far cry from who he really is. but again i didn't because talking about it made me ill with disgust. disgust at him and her for making me who i am today - the cynic who really didn't know how to be happy for i was brought up in a mess of a family and then tried to be molded in a docile traditional female in my adolescent. i hate him with all my heart and because of that i begrudged her for chaining me to him thus the attitude.

i'm not sure if i'll ever tell you what had happened between me and him because these events are greater than what mere words could tell and i'm even less sure if i'll truly ever forgive you for pushing me to him because you're the one who is suppose to protect me not hurt me. instead you didn't because you didn't know, still this excuse is too flimsy a one to heal the wound that both of you had made in me.

Dear October...

...just when i thought that you have been treating me fairly well i have to tear my patellar tendon and dislodge my knee joint; and there's nothing - absolutely nothing - the chinese physician can do (at least not in this fortnight) so here goes two weeks of limping around in college for nothing.

Five minutes

And so there I was, sitting on an old worn chair in the bank clutching my bag in one hand while fervently turning the pages of my book of the moment when suddenly someone clutches my right hand and commanded my attention. I figured she is in her sixties; with her wrinkled face, almost-white hair and freckles sprinkled all over her hand and face.

I plastered a smile on my face and answered her questions as accurately as I could in my broken cantonese and being the elderly that she is, she continued to ramble on and on to me about her husband who was scouring for an empty parking space outside and how the parking space there are always congested, I agreed with her and gave her an appropriate reply although it was my first time in that area

After giving her a few more appropriate responses to her monologue she fell quiet beside me, waiting for the husband of hers. Albeit already being given the permission to go back to my book by her silent consent I did not do so for she had managed to arrest my attention so I studied her instead. It was then that I realized that she had the same hair as her - the short perm hair and though she was a tad bigger in size and does not smelled of the heavy-flowery perfume that she usually adorned, I'm reminded of her.

How long has it been now? Four months? Five months?

Somehow I've lost count of the days that she has been gone from our life. It is distressing to say this but life has move on without her. And this sadden me the most; how life does not stop for anyone. How one person who used to mean so much to you - and still does- can be so easily forgotten in the midst of going through everyday life. How once you stop being real - flesh and blood- you're deemed to be non-existent albeit being solidly carved into the memory tablet.

Thus, I stifled the urge to move across the room to look for that friend of mine and relish the moment of sitting beside this old lady. She might be a poor substitute for her but for a moment or two there I almost forgot that she wasn't in our life anymore. For that short five minutes, by some means, I had managed to convince myself that the lady sitting beside me is indeed her.

I'm not saying that I miss her so terribly that I broke into tears right then and there because I didn't. I'm not saying that I would give anything to have her back because I have finally accepted the fact that she's better over there than staying here and suffer from her stroke.

All I'm saying is that for that five minutes, I was content beyond reasons.

And when I leave the bank a whole twenty minutes later after helping the said old lady in her transaction, mainly because of the language barrier between her and the banker, for once in many many long and depressing months I felt that the world isn't that bad after all

And I'm not coming around again

it's minute things like this that makes me crave for a relationship. i don't need a whirlwind romance that last momentarily. i need a relationship that last with someone whom i can depend my life on. i don't need fancy presents or sweet words from you because sometimes all i need is to lie with you on the couch and just watch tv in utter silence. i don't want you to be a prince charming on a white horse, i just need you to be real. someone whom i'm totally comfortable with. someone whom i can share the rest of my life with by doing menial things together. someone who will finally be able to understand me for who i am and love me for it just the same. it's a lot to demand for in someone but i just can't settle for anything less.

In the space between yes and no

maybe it'll only be a tiny step at a time, however, a tiny step forward is much more desired than staying rooted on the place pondering of the past and eventually and inevitably taking huge leap after leap backwards. maybe i'm not good and i'll never be anything other than an amateur and cliche writer but i know that despite my melancholic nature i'll regret it if i don't even attempt to try so i will; i will write even if it's nothing but rubbish. i will write even if it's hugely criticized and i will write because thats just who i am and who i want to be.

Stop and Start

it's sad to realize this and even more pathetic to say it but then its nothing but the truth. i've been wallowing in self-pity a lot for the past few months (years even!) and i'm just tired. tired of looking down on myself. tired of criticizing myself and i guess its just time for me to stop doing so and start appreciating who i am and what i'm capable of.