the bittersweet chocolate starfish

Oh dear..I’ve just turned 23 and I only came to terms with that yesterday. On my birthday itself. It’s partly about the age factor. But it’s mostly about the time factor. Time doesn’t only fly. It glides by discreetly without your realization. A little too sneaky sometimes, if you ask me. And like a pick-pocket, it quietly and stealthily snatches something away from you as it passes by. And you don’t know a thing.  You are the victim. Meanwhile, you continue to dream a little, drift a lot and indulge endlessly in The Pursuit of Happy-ness (Luv tat movie! A must-watch. My latest inspiration - it’s ‘y’ in Happiness, not ‘i’. Cos happiness is perhaps not actually a noun, not something that you can really own. It’s something which you have to pursue. It’s a state of being. It’s a constant state of pursuit. It’s always about striving to ‘be’ happy).  Before you know it, you are caught off guard and left wondering what’s missing in your life..

…Is it a friend? Or friends? After years of separation or sometimes, merely months, friends either part their ways or grow apart. That’s a fact of life. But there’s always that once-in-a-blue-moon reunion or monthly catch-up session which always turns out great…

…Or could it be a feeling that you’ve lost? Innocence, for instance. Passion. Whole-hearted joy. (When you grow older and face more trials in life, it seems harder to experience whole-hearted joy. It’s always half-hearted, always divided, never wholesome like it used to be when you are a kid.)

…For all you know, you could also have lost something called compassion. Heartache is often the killer. When you were a kid, it’s easy to love and be loved. When you get older, it becomes one way or the other, or somewhere in the middle. Compassion is often compromised in the process. You find that despite the loving and caring and good person you essentially are, some of your unconditional love and natural compassion towards others have been somewhat washed out over the hurts, tensions and misgivings that take place in your relationships with them. You try to be more forgiving and more understanding even if they give you crap to deal with. You try your best to love everyone just the way they are.. but often, it’s just really hard to be Little Ms. Nice all the time. This is what they call the ‘real world’ huh ..

…Or it could simply be sanity that one loses over time, a little at a time, time after time. Call me morbid, but I do believe our sanity deteriorates every time we go through rough patches in life. But i guess we can look at it from a brighter point of view and see this as life’s way of toughening us up and making us stronger and better and more emotionally resilient human beings.

Mhmm..whatever it is..I wish that time would at least have the courtesy of letting me know what it’s nicking from me next time around. Cos I really don’t get it…don’t they always say ‘only time will tell’? Hah..Apparently not!

Lolz..enough of ramblings. On a happy note, I did enjoy my birthday celebrations this year. Sweet and simple. With lotsa good food There are good times in life to roll with after all i guess! Heh heh. Guess it’s the safest to live by the classic philosophy of "enjoy it while it lasts". Thanks to those who remembered my birthday and made it a point to make sure I know! cheers~

Recently i’ve been seized by an overwhelming sense of fatigue. Physically, mentally and emotionally. In other words, it’s fatigue of the body and mind. It’s the fatigue of living. Living in the present, to be precise. I wouldn’t say i’m tired of Life. It would sound too vague. Even silly. It would probably make  people younger than me ask," How can you be tired already when you haven’t reached 30? Chill. There’s still time. The journey hasn’t even begun."  People older than me would probably comment, "You are only 22! And you are already tired? You’re barely halfway through, not to mention coming to the end. Your journey has only begun…" Sigh. Whatever. It depends on how you see it, i suppose. As far as I have come in this business of living, I’m the type of person who refuses to let go of the past when I should, and who daydreams about what the future holds for me when I shouldn’t. So, if Life is simply made up of 3 major components - Past, Present and Future, you can say that I’ve not given up on it yet. Cos i’m only tired of The Present. And when you think of it, it’s probably the only component of Life that matters at any given time. They say ‘Live for the Moment’. Yeah. But we human beings often live with a hopeless handicap of shortsightedness that renders us incapable of living for the moment. Yeah i’m one of those people. We either mourn for yesterday’s roses that once filled your garden, or we yearn for a magical rose garden over the horizon. We hardly look down to admire the blooming roses that lie below our windows. Mhmm. BUT what if the roses before you look weak, worn and withered? You start to weep. Seems like all your time and effort has been wasted. Seems like what you are trying to admire before you is nothing but disappointment. That’s when you resort to dwell on the past or idealize about the future. The present doesn’t count anymore. It gets scary. It feels unreal. Suddenly, you just feel really, really tired. Tired in all aspects. Tired of trying to feel what’s real and keep it real. It feels like i’ve been dragged through a battlefield of blood and bodies. It’s a miracle I came out of it alive. But the damage is done. The trauma sets in. My senses start to function in a dysfunctional way. Whatever i can see, hear or touch simply feels numb. Numb with pain,  exhaustion and confusion. Something like a living zombie. A being that just walks and breathes, but isn’t capable of thinking or feeling. Occasionally, this being has its moments of humanity. It thinks and feels too much instead. That’s when it stops walking and breathing. So it’s either way. OKAY. I know this might sound unusually morbid. I shall quit using dark and pessimistic analogies. Those aside, i’m actually really quite human. Too much of a human, i suppose. But like every other emotional human being who is capable of laughing one moment and crying the other, for reasons known or unknown, for the pain of yesterdays and the fear of tomorrows, i am only reacting to recent events that were disturbing and depressing. There’s so much that has happened, there’s too much that shouldn’t have. Sigh. It’s always about circumstances. If they are favourable, you go about everyday life on a constant high. If they are unfavourable, you find yourself struggling daily on a consistent low gear. Yeah. I’m going through this really rough patch right now. Sometimes, it feels like the forces are all against you. Other times, it feels like you are against the whole world and its wishes. Most of the time, you just feel lost and lonely. Lethargic. It’s lethargy that not even sleeping 12 hours a day can cure, or the strongest sleeping pills can fight…

When you put your trust in someone, you are subjecting your feelings and well-being to that person’s conscience. That person has the power to take that trust and do either one, two or all of the following with it: 1. Safeguard it. Simply because he cares about how you think and feel. He would never want to hurt you in any way. 2. Betray it. Simply because he does not care. He has every intention to hurt you. 3. Compromise it. Simply because he cares about you in a way that started out right, but ended up wrong. There might be good intentions, there might also be bad ones. There might be a mixture of both. Whatever they are, you find yourself being in doubt and fear about what that person really wants from you. That person could be the friend with whom you stay up all night with to
share your secrets, fears and dreams with. Or the special someone with
whom you spend your days with to feel  loved, adored and appreciated in
a way like no other. It could be that family member whom you turn to in
times of need and despair when the world outside has hurt you. It could be anyone whom you think you can trust. But at the end of the day, your closest friends will never be the first ones who betray you. Your family as well. These are the people who accept you for who you were, who you are and who you want to be. It’s the people on the outside who are most capable of betraying the trust you have in them, especially when you give them a chance to come inside your life, occupy your heart and control your emotions. They are the ones who are capable of playing games to lure you out of your safety zone, trap you in their comfort zone and then push you into the danger zone where you can do nothing to save yourself from getting hurt.  Recently I’ve been deeply hurt by people that I thought I could trust and love. People who meant a lot to me, who I adored and looked up to. People who taught me things, listened to me, guided me through bad times and laughed with me through good times. There are some who can also make your experience of being with them feel like a utopian dream that suddenly turns into a horrible nightmare overnight. This bad dream might even hold you in captivation for  some time. Your conscience is manipulated by your mixed feelings of fear and fascination. It is something like fire. You are fascinated by its ability to give light and wamth, yet you fear of its power to burn and destroy. That is when you fall further into the depths of darkness and confusion. ..until you have enought guts to push it all away, get out and move on. Imagine being the biggest fool in the world. The type that does not realize she had been living a lie for the past six months. even if she eventually did come to her senses, she had to endure it in silent agony. As far as emotional predicaments go, i had the full package of hurt, disappointment, anger and bitterness. I’m just surprised that I haven’t gone mad. It’s painful to come to terms with the fact that I have been deceived and fooled by people who had ‘designs’ to make all these things to happen. I’m not alone though. I’m not the only victim here. I am but only ONE of many misguided fools who wanted to believe in such a thing called love. It’s like having been sucked into a whirlpool of events which left me bitter and battered. I’ve been living a soap drama of love, hate and deception. It is easy to forgive, but it is hard to forget. It is easy to trust, but it is hard to do so with a broken heart.They also say that if someone is capable of hurting you once, they are able to do it twice. Sometimes I really do not know who to trust anymore…Perhaps it is only TIME that can really prove the worth of renewed trust…

There are days when you wake up each morning with an overwhelming sense of loss. Your head hurts. Your heart skips a few beats. You get a weird empty feeling. What is it that you have lost? You try to recall. Is it your wallet? Your shoes? Hmm..not likely. How that could have happened? You were home the whole night, not out partying at a club or anywhere. The dream! It strikes you. You had a bad dream the night before. Actually, it was more like a corny, sad dream. Could you have lost that something in there? You saw yourself standing alone at the edge of this huge swimming pool, gazing at your own reflection. It looked despondent. Tired. Bored. Like a swimmer who has got sick and tired of water because the water is starting to drown him. Right. How can water drown a person who can swims? You are bound to ask. But the answer is inside your head. Because it is something like that in there. Your mind has gotten sick and tired of being  in your head. It’s saying, "That’s it. I’m done with you. Everyday i take in endless reflections on your past and your present, countless regrets on every decision you make, every behavior you displayed, and I hold your bottomless indulgence in misery and anguish! What am i? A superhuman’s mind? I’m gonna just burn out one day! Let me remind you. I am only your mind. Not you. You have a life. I don’t. My ‘life’ is in yours. Get it?" So what happens now? You ask your mind. "Well, you could start with giving me a break." Right. How am i supposed to do that?  "Let me go for a swim?" Okay, okay, go for your swim and leave me alone. "You gotta jump in first." WHAT? Sigh. Alright alright, i’ll jump in. A swim wouldn’t hurt anyway. Splash! ….. I woke up. And my mind wasn’t there. I think it drowned. Yeah, i figured that’s what i had lost in the dream.

Moral of the story? heh heh. I don’t know. Mhmm. How about - "Everytime you feel like losing your mind, you can’t. Unless it wants to lose you"?

I woke up dreaming..
As if sleep went..
And left its soul behind.

I woke up thinking..
If reality is a window..
I’d jump right out of it.

I woke up feeling..
Somewhere in the middle..
Like a tragic comedy.

I woke up realizing..
That Love is all but a lie..
A deception we live by.

If you can hear me..And know that im right here..I heard your heartbeat..It took away the fear..
Cuz my life is sliding..I tried to ride the wave..It came down crashing.. it’s time to start again..
Backwards to go forward..Left at every corner..Been there and back again..And when the music ends..

Your life is a flashback
A question, a photograph
A statement, a story, a struggle
A chance to laugh

Cuz if you don’t laugh you cry..A last crescendo when you die..So hit the rewind and listen..
It’s the playback..The soundtrack to your life.

-ashley angel parker-                                                                                                                                                                                    

I think I need to go for a brain check-up. To see if anyone has been messing up with the mental mechanisms inside. I hope all the neurons and hormones are in place. But I have a feeling that the serotonin (happy hormone) levels  are pretty much at a low point. Or maybe there’s too much of unhappy hormones, whatever you call them.  It’s affecting other areas - Whatever the brains thinks, the face shows and the heart feels. My brains have been really mean lately. I try not to think. I try not to analyze. All the same, i’ve been waking up in the morning with my facial muscles and jaw set in a tight and droopy fashion which could otherwise be translated as ’sulking’. Smiling is an effort. And my eyes seem to take on a blank jaded stare. But no, i’m not tripping on weed or flowers or grass. I’m pretty much sure that i’m still sane. Silly, maybe. But i just can’t figure myself out anymore..i can’t run on D.I.Y mode anymore.. I need some professional or supernatural intervention. Maybe even an little imaginery friend with a bag of surprises and solutions to share. Hmm..Doraemon would be a good one. Maybe he’ll be able to offer me Relationship Prozac, among other things that i badly need.

Just today, a good friend of mine (you know who you are *blueks!) asked me the most interesting question i’ve been asked for ages :

"If you were born intoxicated, would you want to wake up and be sober?"

Hmm….Let’s see. First of all, that doesn’t make sense. Unless you were given birth by a super alchoholic mum that is way past recovery of her addiction. And somehow you survived the pregnancy and were born alive, but intoxicated. Sounds like an episode of Ripley’s Believe-It-Or-Not  - ‘The World’s First Drunk Newborn Infant’. Or something like that.

Okay, nevermind that illogical impossibility.

My answer to him was, to my own surprise, quite immediate and spontaneous. I guess I waiting for a question like this..dejavu, perhaps?

"Hmm..Okay, if i was born intoxicated, and then i got to know what consciousness is and the troubles and pains that it can bring, i think i’d rather stay intoxicated for life."

My friend said that was the coolest answer ever. I thought so too. ( hehe..very perasan, i know.. but it was honest)

Anyway, the answer really depends whether i get to experience what consciousness is
after being born a drunkard (if that is remotely possible at all). Come to think of it, an alternative answer would be :
If i were born intoxicated and if i were to never sober up in my entire life, as in i would stay drunk and high every minute, then i wouldn’t even come close to question the possibility of a sober existence, right? So it just ends there. I was born that way, and will remain that way. I wouldn’t prefer to be sober, because that other reality didn’t exist for me from the very beginning. It’s like never getting to know how good it feels to eat and be full when you have never felt hunger before.

Then it wouldn’t be cool. Because you wouldn’t learn to appreciate how good being intoxicated is, if you weren’t deprived of it. You’d never go through the emotional rollercoaster ride that consciousness takes you in. You’d never know what it feels like to be angry, sad, frustrated, jealous, stupid, hurt..and many many other variants of human emotions. And then to feel happy, relieved, satisfied and contented after all that, or between all that, when you take a dive into intoxication. A temporary relief from your unwanted reality. It only lasts for a while, but its short-term existence is what makes it so desirable. It shares the philosophy of ‘ you never know what you’ve got til you lose it’. So this justifies my first answer, which is undeniably, my most honest answer to this question.

Okay, i’ve decided for once to try and not make my blog sound so dark and morbid anymore. Um..that is, if i can help it lah. Sigh. Sometimes you just want to share with the world about your personal woes..but when they know and start questioning you, you feel like retreating to a corner in embarrassment and doubt. What if they don’t get it? What if they get it, but all they’d do is profile you as a helpless  emotional wreck after their critical review of your publicized thoughts?

There i go again. Worrying what others think. Expressing my doubts in a silly, fretful way. Sometimes I wish i could rap, or sing, or draw them out instead. You know, like one of those more creative and artistic individuals who wouldn’t for one minute doubt their own talent and potential in self-expression.  Right. If  I were  artistically  gifted in any way, i’d be complaining less about life in a blog like this. No. I’d still be complaining about life. But in a more creative and inspiring way, i suppose.

Today i watched Oprah Winfrey. Yes, that’s right. Oprah. Well, there was nothing much interesting on other channels and MTV, kays. Anyways, it wasn’t that bad. It was about this ex-supermodel and former muse of DKNY called Lynn something (i don’t remember her last name). The woman practically went through the worst imaginable hell on earth. Imagine going through severe breast cancer that costs her both her breasts to be taken away, and not long after that, going through another major episode of Stage 4 brain cancer that led to a 9 inch titanium stapled stich on her skull. *shudder* Really touching though. She came out of all that shit alive and well..and happy. Amazing. And it puts a pessimistic young thing like me to shame, i have to admit that. But one can’t help wonder : Do you really get to learn how to appreciate and love life more only after a major traumatic experience such as cancer or an accident? No, i suppose. I’m sure there are many other small and harmless ways to gain that attitude towards life. It doesn’t always have to involve pain and regrets..i hope.

‘I kept imagining the end, the despair I would suffer when it came, and it made any happiness I had in the present seem not merely ephemeral, but doomed. Because the happier I allowed myself to be now, the more miserable I would be later.’ - Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation.

What comfort and assurance can you offer me when you deny and defy my pain? Does it mean anything to you when you are the only one i turn to in times of my misery? You might even be the cause of my misery sometimes. But i’m willing to share it and show it in the comfort of your presence. I’m willing to take it all out and give it up in the hope you will make it okay. At the end of the day, it’s alright if you don’t understand it, if you aren’t willing to accept it. But there is one thing you cannot do. You cannot condemn it. You cannot say, "It’s bullshit. It’s stupid." To my utmost disappointment, you might even ignore it and let me go through it alone. But you simply cannot condemn it. Because it is a part of me, even if i don’t want it to be. I’d destroy it if i could. I’d tear it out from my soul as if it were nothing but useless paper. My pain might be wrong to you, but it is a right to me. It is my right. My right to own it. Not because I want to, but because circumstances made me a bearer of its existence, to an extent that there is a need for me to own it. So if you turn it away with your selfish conviction that i’m just being silly, you are turning me away from you. And it hurts me greatly. It hurts to realize that you are right here with me now in this space and time, yet knowing that you will probably not be there to catch me when i fall…