In that moment between sleep and wakefulness...

Is when I usually get little flashbacks/ epiphanies/ whatchamacallits... basically, it's when I'm enlightened. Perhaps God does talk to man after all, if we'd only listen.

More than a year ago, someone's behavioural pattern became obvious to me, and I realised that nothing I can do can make a difference....

Early this year, I woke up with the certainty that someone I had the longest unrequited feelings for was getting married.

This morning, I woke up and realised... It was as much what was NOT being done, as what was being done that caused the drift... left me feeling sad, empty, disappointed and disillusioned... But considering that we're both adults, and stubborn... I'm not sure if this would be what would undo us completely.

That's a very sad thought...

Existential

I have a moneyplant. In green fertiliser balls...

I had thought they would be able to grow in those balls... but apparently they can't.

They don't die... but they don't grow either... it's... unnatural... 

It's like living on an existential plane- neither dying, nor living... just... there...

I hate it... I guess perhaps it's my background in biology... for me, there has to be the natural cycle of reproduction, growth, senescence and death...

A fellow wanker asked me about 8 years ago... if given the choice, would I choose immortality?

Would I prefer the gift of eternal life, and, having cheated death, has no fear of anything else? But with that gift comes great dissatisfaction and jadedness... having seen it all, what difference is there anymore?

Or would I rather feel everything once, and having felt all that, am content to rest myself in the ground... even if dying can be frightening and painful...

Yeah, we're morbid.

And yes, I think you know my answer. I choose life and death. All the trials and tribulations of it.

Huh...?

Those who knows me know I seldom check my horoscope, tarot, etc. Once in a blue moon, yeah.

Imagine my surprise today:

Your Daily Tarot Reading

There's a large element of the unexpected in your emotional life today, as the association of Judgement and the Tower indicates. Any surprises should by nice ones, and you can confidently go ahead with meeting new people. In fact, it may help you to definitively draw a line under a period of your life that has become too much of a burden to you, or to break the tedium that is threatening to engulf your love life. Your career is on the up and you may demand a change of status or even - why not - a move abroad. The World offers new opportunities and Judgment grants you greater responsibility and discipline. Keep an ear to the ground for new proposals you could take on, because they could contribute to your personal fulfillment in the professional arena.

Well... let's hope so. I could certainly do with some bright sparks at the close of this year. It'd also be nice to finally move abroad, if I can.

Btw, what's with me and the cards Judgment, Justice and the High Priestess anyway? Hmm.... Oh well...

At the moment, I'm living from day to day... rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat... there's a touch of sadness to everyday living which I hope would dull to just a vague uneasiness as the year draws to a close...

Wishful Thinking

i'd fuck the caps today...

i'd really like to just pack up and leave everything behind me... just go somewhere and start over. from scratch... new life, new face, new name... that kinda thing.

that's the one liberating thing about moving to a new place. being able to leave the weight of history behind... being allowed to start over...

barring that, i'd just like to take off and disappear for awhile... go somewhere where it's safe for me to walk out at this time of the night for a long walk... where silence is my best friend, and the night breeze whispers the secrets and wisdom of the ages to me... where i can hear my heart beat again... not for anyone else, but for me.

where i can hear my mind think again, minus the incessant plodding of many other commitments... everything and everyone wanting a piece of you.

but mostly the night breeze... perhaps she would share her secrets. secrets learnt over aeons of watching all kinds of people and their troubles... that way, perhaps she can whisper to me how to solve mine.

i miss those quiet times... of just being with myself, and the cosmos. when i feel the stars understand how i feel, even if no one else seems to. of being able to forgive and understand myself.

The Other Side of the Coin

He worked odd hours.

So when I couldn't reach him, I can do crazy things like call.. and call... and call... until I reach him... as I didn't know he sometimes fell asleep with his phone not close by, once there was 56 missed calls in an hour.

Another time it was 30+ missed calls over 3 hours... with a dozen sms-es in between.

Yeah, I'm psychotic like that. And paranoid. And jealous.

I get annoyed when he goes out for one-on-one dinners for hours with females, especially certain ones. Because I've never met them.. and I just have my suspicions. Yeah, I didn't trust him much either.

And the day I found my alter-ego messaged by my boyfriend, I walked in the rain and roamed around for hours. And I mentally blacked out for awhile. It terrified him. Wracked him with guilt.

I can be very psychotic. And twisted.

Perhaps these, my flaws... and his flaws ended our relationship.

Everything Will Change

A thousand times I've seen you standing

Gravity like a lunar landing

Make me want to run till I find you

I shut the world away from here

Drift to you, you're all I hear

Everything we know fades black

Half the time the world is ending

Truth is I am done pretending

I never thought that I had anymore to give

Pushing me so far

Here I am without you

Drink to all that we have lost

Mistakes we have made

Everything will change

But love remains the same

Find the place where we escape

Take you with me for a space

The city buzz, sounds just like a fridge

I walk the streets through seven bars

I had to find just where you are

The faces seem to blur, they're all the same

Half the time the world is ending

Truth is I am done pretending

I never thought that I had anymore to give

Pushing me so far

Here I am without you

Drink to all that we have lost

Mistakes we have made

Everything will change

But love remains the same

So much more to say

So much to be done

Don't you trick me out

We shall overcome

So all have stayed in place

We should've had the sun

Could have been inside

Instead we're over here

Half the time the world is ending

Truth is I am done pretending

Too much time, too long defending

You and I are done pretending

I never thought that I had anymore to give

You're pushing me so far

Here I am without you

Drink to all that we have lost

Mistakes we have made

Everything will change

Everything will change

I, oh I, I 

Wish this could last forever

I, oh I, I

As if we could last forever

Love remains the same

Love remains the same

~Love Remains the Same, Gavin Rossdale~

Plain Stupid

Maybe it's cos I've been so bloody sick.

But I'm not going to make any more excuses for me.

I was just plain stupid.

Stupid, stupid girl.

You saw how it was, didn't you? Again.

Just move on with your life.

And fuck it all.

:(

Despite everything...

I do miss you much.

When we're with each other in person, it's like you're a different man.

I guess that's the saddest and most painful of all. Knowing what's there, and being unable to reach it.

Timing

sighs. bad timing really...

then again, our timing always did suck.

i really don't know how to face the probing stare of my parents in this state.

but i guess... suck it up, keep my mouth shut, and trudge on :(

14 months

If only people just said what they meant... and meant what they said... the world would be a much better place.

He says I don't get it.

Perhaps we don't understand each other.

Looking back at 14 months...

When we were going out, he spent more time with his pals than he did with me, even when I was there.

But now that we aren't, it's as though I matter even less now: 'Don't expect VIP service anymore'.

Strange... I never did feel like I was a veep in the first place.

This was one of my two trips up north where we actually did spend quality time together. Too bad that it was too little, too late. Too bad that the last time was November of last year.

Why is it that when we were supposedly going 'steady' that I feel like I'm being taken for granted?

We never really did have nice sit-down-hold-hands dinners together. Not since he came down to ask me to be his woman. Never since. Not on Christmas. Not on New Year's. Not on Valentine's. Not on either of our birthdays. Not on our 'anniversary'.

1 month into the relationship, we spent some quality time together. We were happy.

2 months into the relationship, I went up for New Year's Eve. I spent it with his friends. He was working. He came around just to wish me Happy New Year's and kiss me good night. When he came home in the morning and fell asleep, he called out the ex's name in sleep. On New Year's Day.

4 months into the relationship, and we've hardly seen each other. He was supposed to make a trip down after CNY for Valentine's too. Work got in the way.

5 months into the relationship, I found sexchat vids in his computer.... months later, I turn on an old phone to find sexy texts corresponding to the date of the vids... around the time I went home for CNY. Yes, by then, the trust had been slowly eroded over a series of very unfortunate events. I almost walked out on him 5 months into the relationship.

6 months into the relationship, we attempted to work out the relationship and took a trip together. It was the first time he actually held me and cuddled me in his sleep. I cried that night. It was the first time I truly felt like a girlfriend.

7 months into the relationship. He bought me a cake for my birthday. Unfortunately I was stupid and the poor cake melted. I appreciated the gesture. It was sweet. No dinner though... he had to work. We did manage to catch Ironman together. 7 months into the relationship, we finally watched a movie together.

9 months into the relationship, he came down for his friend's wedding. I had a horrible nightmare that night. It was the first time I noticed he was symptomatic, too.

Almost 10 months into the relationship, I went up north again. We managed to catch The Dark Knight together. After waiting for so long.

10 months into the relationship... he slipped into mild depression. He felt like he was going nowhere. He didn't want to talk to me either.

11 months into the relationship, he put up as profile picture, a photo he took while having a costume party for his yearly birthday bash. The picture had him and another girl wearing matching coloured outfits (it just happened to be so) sharing a seat. Very nice picture. Very cute too. The girl wasn't me. And I've never met her. Yes, she was a close friend. I wouldn't care if it was just another photo. 

But it was an uncaptioned profile picture for a good 3 weeks or so despite my protestations. After a very long, very angry fight where he threatened to dump my jealous ass, the picture came down.

Almost 12 months into the relationship, I spent the festive season with him. His parents sat me down and queried me about many things, basically whether I was serious about their son. Whether I was willing to make the necessary sacrifices. He watched. When we were alone, he asked if I was going to leave him.

12 months into the relationship... we're fighting more than we're laughing. Angry more than we're happy. I called for a break. He changed his status to 'single'. He thought I wanted a break up. 

13 months into the relationship, he came down for a patch up. For the first time, we actually spent a day walking around aimlessly, shopping.

2 weeks later, he was out 'unwinding'. I wanted to talk to him. He was with friends. He never talks much to me when he's out with friends. Too noisy, he says. I call again an hour later. He was still out. And again half an hour later. Still out. He snapped at me: I'd call you when I'm home. Then out comes the accusations: You don't trust me, might as well we be over.

A few days later, my alterego gets messaged by my boyfriend of almost 14 months on a dating webbie.

I walked out in the rain.

It was cold outside... colder still within me.

14 months. I go up north one last time for some explanation. I wanted to know why. What did I ever do that he'd hurt me this way? By his own admission, he's flirtatious by nature.

I never did feel like a veep. How could I? Given the circumstances?

14 months. 

Granted it's long distance. Granted he works when I sleep, and sleeps when I wake. Granted I'll never really know where he is exactly at any given time.

But does he have to be such a man always that he can't be seen showing his woman a little bit of affection? Does he have to prove he's such a man, having a permanent woman is not enough, he's got to see if he 'still got it'?

Yes, in his own way, he loves me. But he's got really strange ways of showing that.

I don't know about his exes... I don't know about him... but I can't pretend to still be with a man when I'm looking around to see if I 'still got it'. I just can't.

For me, it's best to make my case and leave, with as little emotional baggage as possible. It's pointless dragging around a dead weight of a relationship that doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

After all, he says all these wouldn't happen if we were nearer each other. But there's nothing we can do about the distance right now. Both of us had always known that it was going to be long distance.

14 months.

I've been jealous. The distance and the timing. Which girlfriend has never been, please stand up now, so I know I've been stupid.

I've been paranoid. The distance and the timing and the events that had ensued due to that.

I've even been psychotic. The distance, the timing, the events that slowly unfolded over 14 months.

I've been a royal bitch. Definitely. I no longer want to be a pushover after all. I say what's on my mind. I don't like what I've been getting, and I'm saying so. Because boyfriends who marry their girlfriends don't treat said girlfriends like this :( Not the ones I know anyway.

He asks if I actually believe that I'm just another one of his girlfriends that mean nothing. I would like to think I made a difference. That I AM different. But I'm not going to blind myself to what's happening around me. Nothing has changed as yet. 

We're still long distance after all. Our relationship also ended due to the distance and the timing and the constraints and issues that spring out of these differences. Unless something changes, I am going to end up just another statistic after all.

I can't live on sweet promises alone, after all :( 

14 months of sweet promises, and occasional tastes of passion.

Much as I'd like to nurture that long lost hopeless romantic buried somewhere deep within me, I'd like something tangible to hold on to.

The romance can always come out of a strong loving relationship based on respect, trust and communication. There will always be room for romance in a relationship like that.

14 months. I look at the 2 mementos he left me, and I am deeply saddened.

I haven't managed to take down much food since Sunday.

And today, for the first time in 2 1/2 days, I pooped... instead of purged... and it was green. 

But I suppose my sorrow cannot be greater than a friend's. To have lost twins over the weekend. I'm so sorry, honey. I'd give you a big comforting hug if I could.

If I Were A Boy

Intimacy...

Honesty...

Commitment...

You... Me... Us...

If I were a boy

Even just for a day

I'd roll out of bed in the morning

And throw on what I wanted and go

Drink beer with the guys

And chase after girls

I'd kick it with who I wanted

And I'd never get confronted for it 

Cause they stick up for me

If I were a boy

I think I could understand

How it feels to love a girl

I swear I'd be a better man

I'd listen to her

Cause I know how it hurts

When you lose the one you wanted

Cause he's taking you for granted

And everything you had got destroyed

If I were a boy

I would turn off my phone

Tell everyone it's broken

So they'd think that I was sleeping alone

I’d put myself first

And make the rules as I go

Cause I know that she’ll be faithful,

Waiting for me to come home, to come home.

If I were a boy

I think I could understand

How it feels to love a girl

I swear I'd be a better man

I'd listen to her

Cause I know how it hurts

When you lose the one you wanted

Cause he's taking you for granted

And everything you had got destroyed

It's a little too late for you to come back

Say it's just a mistake,

Think i'd forgive you like that

If you thought I would wait for you

You thought wrong

You know when you act like that, I don't think you realise how it makes me look... or feel.

Act like what? Why are you so jealous? It's not like I'm sleeping with the guy...

What?

What?

I said: Yo, why are you so jealous, it's not like I'm sleeping with the girl...

But you're just a boy

You don't understand

Yeah you don't understand, ohhhh

How it feels to love a girl

Someday you'll wish you were a better man

You don't listen to her

You don't care how it hurts

Until you lose the one you wanted

Cause you're taking her for granted

And everything you had got destroyed

But you're just a boy

Offer

You say it's not what you do

It's what you're thinking of

Well, I think that's just an excuse

It's what you put across

Cos I don't want to be the one

Only overjoyed

Yeah, I don't want to be the one

Making all the noise

Yeah, I don't want to be the one

So make sure you're thinking it through

You've let me down again

Offer me something

I know you really meant

Cos I don't want to be the one

Only overjoyed

Yeah, I don't want to be the one

Making all the noise

Yeah, I don't want to be the one

Hey...

What you gonna offer now?

Cos I don't want to be the one

Only overjoyed

Yeah, I don't want to be the one

Making all the noise

Yeah, I don't want to be the one

Hey!

What you gonna offer now?

What you gonna offer now?

This was not my idea

Don't you keep me waiting.

(What you gonna offer now?)

This was not my idea

Don't you keep me waiting.

This was not my idea

Don't you keep me waiting.

(What you gonna offer now?)

~Be The One, The Ting Tings~

http://www.thetingtings.com/gb/recordings/songs/be_the_one_acoustic_ 

Is it getting better

Or do you feel the same

Will it make it easier on you

Now you got someone to blame

You say

One love

One life

When its one need

In the night

One love

We get to share it

It leaves you baby

If you dont care for it

Did I disappoint you? 

Or leave a bad taste in your mouth? 

You act like you never had love

And you want me to go without

Well its too late

Tonight

To drag the past out

Into the light

We're one

But we're not the same

We get to carry each other

Carry each other

One

Have you come here for forgiveness

Have you come to raise the dead

Have you come here to play Jesus

To the lepers in your head

Did I ask too much

More than a lot

You gave me nothing

Now its all I got

We're one

But we're not the same

Well, we hurt each other

Then we do it again

You say

Love is a temple

Love a higher law

Love is a temple

Love the higher law

You ask me to enter

But then you make me crawl

And I cant be holding on

To what you got

When all you got is hurt

One love

One blood

One life

You got to do what you should

One life

With each other

Sisters

Brothers

One life

But we're not the same

We get to carry each other

Carry each other

One.

One.

~One, U2~

Blindness

"A man is only as sick as his secrets."

We used to like each other. Laugh a lot. Smile a lot. Have fun together. With each other.

Then things got in the way... little things... big things... they just piled up, one on top of the other. No time for each other... no patience either... even less time to start making up for the things that got in the way... maybe we got tired of each other... maybe we're just not right for each other... maybe we need to be apart from each other, more so than we are now.

We don't laugh anymore... smile, either... we have no time for each other... no space, it seems. We'll just end up missing each other, and not being able to do anything about it, not with each other anyway. And that's probably the worst part of this. Not being able to do anything about it.

My blog is hurting him, it seems... so I guess I'll take my thoughts elsewhere.

I hope someday I'll have a chance to return to this spot. It's been my shelter through many storms.

Jettisoning myself...

He doesn't get it...

Why I had to speak to someone who knows him well, more his friend than mine, who would be able to provide me a more balanced, neutral opinion. I was at the end of my road. Who else was I to speak to, his mother? Mine? :( 

Why I'm insecure... why I distrust him... he doesn't get it. He doesn't get how his actions affect me, even 292kms away.

How this is my last ditch attempt at this relationship...

He thinks this is a cry for attention instead :(

That this little space of mine in cyberworld is the one place where I find solitude sometimes. Which is why I keep it mostly anonymous, which is why sometimes I let it go for long periods without writing anything. 

This is my personal avenue for heartbreak, for frustration, for rage... He requested that I not keep anything secret from him, which was why I still blog here. This is part of me, after all. If I don't write here, where do I write then? Just to keep my distance, should I write somewhere else?

He doesn't get me... he doesn't get my need for devotion. He doesn't get that without that, everything else doesn't feel the same for me. He doesn't get that, for me, everything's connected. Devotion = passion = love = sex. 

He doesn't get why I walked out in the rain.

Why I can't seem to eat anything, why I can't seem to sleep. Not that I don't want to, I couldn't.

And I don't get him. That swirling cess pool of his mind. Trying so hard. Failing miserably.

S.O.S.

Where are those happy days, they seem so hard to find

I tried to reach for you, but you have closed your mind

Whatever happened to our love? 

I wish I understood

It used to be so nice, it used to be so good

You seem so far away though you are standing near

You made me feel alive, but something died I fear

I really tried to make it out

I wish I understood

What happened to our love, it used to be so good

So when youre near me, darling cant you hear me

S. o. s.

And the love you gave me, nothing else can save me

S. o. s.

When youre gone

How can I even try to go on? 

When youre gone

Though I try how can I carry on? 

When youre gone

How can I even try to go on? 

When youre gone

Though I try how can I carry on?

When all is said and done

He lies. I know it. Through his teeth.

He hates feeling guilty, so he makes me feel bad instead.

Push everything that he does on my pessimism, my insecurity.

He says if something he does makes me unhappy, he wouldn't do it, but still he does.

I guess there really is nothing left but goodbye, when all is said and done.

sighs....

Have been deeply disappointed.

With a lot of things.

With myself, probably, most of all.

WHY can't I get a grip on myself?

WHY can't I just let things go?

Just let everything go, you know? Take off. Pack my bags and leave the country.

And never come back.

Wishful thinking.

My body is failing me. My hands are always shaking like I'm on drugs now.

My work... sighs... I wanna sink Singapore into the ocean floor. Too bad I got many good friends there. Else I certainly would've.

My personal life. I don't know what's the deal there. Trying so hard to understand. Failing miserably.

Add to that the fact that I'm a creep magnet... what's the story? Shall save it for another day.

Songs from Childhood.... again

Someone asked to remember childhood songs from church. The two I remember the best, even after all these years were Amazing Grace and Make Me A Channel Of Your Peace.

Especially for the one adapted from the Prayer of St Francis, as my school had many Franciscan Sisters. The prayer was even in the school hall. Each time I despair, this song always seems to calm me down. Here are the lyrics, and a beautiful rendition by Sinead O'Connor on youtube: 

Make me a channel of your peace

Where there is hatred let me bring your love

Where there is injury, your pardon Lord

And where there is doubt true faith in You

Make me a channel of your peace

Where there is despair in life let me bring hope

Where there is darkness only light

And where there's sadness ever joy

Oh, Master grant that I may never seek

So much to be consoled as to console

To be understood as to understand

To be loved as to love with all my soul

Make me a channel of your peace

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned

It is in giving to all men that we receive

And in dying that we are born to eternal life

And a rendition of the Prayer of St Francis by the amazing voice of Sarah McLachlan:

I'm sure everyone knows 'Amazing Grace'... c'mon....

i know not where to start, and i know not where i'd end

how to start when i don't even know for sure what happened?

i guess it's a culmination of all the little things. little things become big things. big things grow into monsters and lurk under beds and in closets. and one fine day, u put your smelly shoes under the bed and the monsters storm out.

little things...

Every now and then I get a little bit lonely and you're never coming round
Every now and then I get a little bit tired of listening to the sound of my tears
Every now and then I get a little bit nervous that the best of all the years have gone by

Every now and then I fall apart

I don't know what to do and I'm always in the dark
We're living in a powder keg and giving off sparks

Once upon a time I was falling in love, but now I'm only falling apart
There's nothing I can do... a total eclipse of the heart

little things... i have my flaws, i know. but Lord knows i've tried. and u know that too. so how could you think i think any less of you?

I'm strong on the surface, not all the way through
I've never been perfect, but neither have you

i'm just a girl with her first serious love after all.

I can't be who you are

Forgetting all the hurt inside you've learned to hide so well
Pretending someone else can come and save me from myself
I can't be who you are

There's no more need to pretend
Cause now I can begin again

Send a heartbeat to
The void that cries through you
Relive the pictures that have come to pass
For now we stand alone
The world is lost and blown
And we are flesh and blood disintegrate
With no more to hate

Delivered from the blast
The last of a line of lasts
The pale princess of a palace cracked
And now the kingdom comes
Crashing down undone
And I am a master of a nothing place
Of recoil and grace

Is it bright where you are
Have the people changed
Does it make you happy you're so strange
And in your darkest hour
I hold secrets flame
We can watch the world devoured in its pain

sigh. would you believe me if i told you each night i get on my knees and pray? for what was, what is, what might have been and what might be?

when did we come to this? watching each other from the corners of our eyes? walking on eggshells around each other? when did we start censoring ourselves?

here i am 2 months later, singing the same tune, the same song:

I just don't know what to say
Why can't we be ourselves like we were yesterday

I'm not sure what this could mean
I don't think you're what you seem
I do admit to myself
That if I hurt someone else
Then I'll never see just what we're meant to be

Every time I see you falling
I get down on my knees and pray
I'm waiting for the final moment
You'll say the words that I can't say

every time i see you falling.... everytime

To honour, love and respect.

these are going to be short essays, distilled essences of thoughts over many months. after all, brevity is the soul of wit.

been wanting to write so many things:

about life. how it's so fleeting. so fragile. a friend of mine was so shaken, because her friend died in a horrible car accident. just a week prior, they had chatted about how she'd be starting a new life in another place, where my friend was. a week later, news filtered through that she had died in a horrible car crash. what irony. what meaninglessness. what an awful waste. so much potential. so much passion. so much youth. *snap!* and it's gone. like a bunny in a magician's hat.

and yet, how much do we really know a person? we can spend an entire lifetime with a person, and in his/ her death, be stunned by how little we know.

but life.... it's so unpredictable. so short. so seemingless meaningless at times. yet so powerfully moving at others.

life is fragile. and painful. and beautiful.

i told you: i wish i could've made more of an impact in other people's life. i wish i could've left school at 24 and traversed the world in help of the needy. my next manicure, my heartbreaks over men would've paled so much in comparison to 8 year olds dying of AIDS in my arms. or a pregnant young woman of 14 sobbing her heart out on my shoulder as i tended to the ugly purple welts on her body caused by the lashings of her poor drunken husband 12 years older than she was/ or her pimp who wants her to have an abortion. who am i? what difference can i make?

i told you: when i died, i'd like for as much of my organs to be donated to as many who'd need them, and the remains to be cremated, and the ashes be scattered over a flower bed. because i believe that's how life cycles in the greater scheme of things should be. with death, should come life. and that's why i don't smoke. and i try to keep myself in as good a shape as i can. someone else may need my liver and my heart more than i do.

i'm morbid.


about families. how they shape us. how they love us no matter how much we hurt them. how they welcome the prodigal son with open arms. how much they can hurt us. how much we can hurt them. and yet ultimately, how much we are bonded together no matter what the circumstances. and if familial ties are good, how much they protect.


about love - old loves, new loves. fleeting love, everlasting love. who's to say one impacts us less than another? who's to say the passion of a love of one month is less painful than one that lasts a span of 50 years? after all, both are imprints in the cement of our heart and our soul. they may erode with time, but the outline would always remain. the past may be the past, but the past helped shaped the future. and unless, like the rest of our world's problems, we learn from history, the past would always come back and haunt us. in the shape of the present.

after all, it's been said that our experiences are repetitive from the experiences we've learnt in our formative years. and so, the rest of our lives are repetitions of our childhood experiences. we react to stimuli the way we were taught to react in childhood. and the only other new experience that we would learn in adulthood/ post-pubescence would be the sexual climax. after that, we'd be repeating our initial sexual experience. we'd react to it as we were taught to in that initial experience and repeat it with future partners.

is that how love is as well?

it's been said that men (and perhaps women) have 4 loves in their lives:

1. the love of his/ her childhood (aka childhood sweetheart, puppy love, etc.)
2. the love of his/ her youth (possibly first real love, the one that made a bigger impact, first cut, etc.)
3. the love of his/ her manhood/ womanhood (the love that was made as a mature, responsible adult, one where he/ she assesses compatibility, lifestyle choices, background, etc. rather than profess undying love due to passion, sexual compatibility, physical attraction, etc. you get the idea)
4. the love of his/ her deathbed (where his/ her partner lives to watch him/ her die. the one where he/ she wakes up next to the creaking bones of his/ her senescence. where he/ she smells that old people smell everyday. where he/ she puts up with his/ her failing bladder, falling hair, lack of sexual drive/ sexual ability. where he/ she is the one wiping the snot of his/ her nose because he/ she can no longer do it him/ herself, etc. you get the idea too)

it's said that it is already lucky to have 3 and 4 be the same person, some are luckier still to have 2, 3 and 4 be one and the same. some rare few have all 4 be the same man/ woman.

who's to say? in my grandmother's time, there was no chance or choice to bemoan and wonder if you had married the right person. one is married, and then falls in love. or maybe never fall in love at all, but learn to appreciate one's life partner. with two world wars to survive through, who has time to think whether the next door guy is a better lover/ husband?

but in today's world, in a time of relative economic, political and social peace, with technology crossing all manner of borders, where does one cross the line? you look at your friend's boyfriend and wonder if he'd make a better boyfriend to you. or you look at your friend's sister and wonder if you had made the wrong choice for a girlfriend. or your colleague. or your neighbour. or your friend. or your cyberpal, after one too many online flirtation. too many choices. too little conscience.

we're spoilt for choice. and yet we're ill-equipped to make the right ones.

and so, when i met a friend of mine last week, one i hadn't seen in years, and her brother, who i haven't spoken to in many many years too, with his wife of a year old, i was struck by how quietly and simply eloquent the inscription in their rings were: to honour, love and respect.

To honour, love and respect. Inscribed on the inside of a simple, white-gold wedding band. With the date of their wedding. Taken straight out of their marriage vows:

To honour, love and respect all the days of our lives.

Love. do we really know what it means? so overused. so underappreciated. said at the height of passion. forgotten the next morning. said at the honeymoon stage of a relationship. forgotten when things get rough. as they inadvertently do. said to a replacement when the fires of a previous relationship had barely cooled. thrown out the window at the first argument.

To honour, love and respect. They come together. In a trinity. that's how love lasts, after all.

To honour, love and respect. Do we really know how to do that?

Honour. Do we know what it means?

Love. Do we appreciate the full extent of its meaning?

Respect. Do we have enough of this for ourselves, and hence, other people?

To honour, love and respect. All the days of our lives. Think about it.

It's as much a huge commitment as it is a wonderful promise. Perhaps it is both.