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I’ve been missing for a while, I know.

One day I just decided I needed some time away from myself. The person who gets up past noon and watches television shows about interior design and cooking and gardens; this was television programmed for homebodies who can’t get out. (Surely I can get out? At least I haven’t started on daytime soaps yet, I thought. Such relief. What joy.)

There is some magic lost when I search for the time and realise that I haven’t only spent the entire day (nothing hours) doing zilch, but weeks and months. Being myself has meant being absent from life.

The day before I decided to leave myself, I had read a comment on a haiku I had posted. It was short but kind, but it was this line that set me off: “I like your interests.” I don’t know why but it got me thinking about my user bio. I went and read it again, decided it was too catty and started writing a new one. A proper bio. Only, it didn’t quite go that way.

When I was finished with it, something had come unravelled in me. I titled this non-bio (In Lieu of An Actual Biography) Confessions of An Accomplished Failure Wishing to Seek An Alternative Career.

I didn’t edit it. What you see is what I wrote immediately. And this is how things are when I can actually write, the whole spontaneous flow, the moment of happy, careless labour. I wrote my first published story in seven hours, non-stop. I miss those days. The rest of the times I toil with inconsequential drab, if I manage to write at all. This is a different kind of labour. It’s menial because I’m indifferent to it.

And I’ve been indifferent to my life as well.

So. The day I left my life, I called up Wern and told him what I was about to do. He said, “Great. It’s about time you get your life in order.” I nodded, knowing he couldn’t see me nodding and that he understood. I spent the next four days in a storeroom with a table and a chair. It had an air-conditioner too because of the heat. I had paper and a pen. I wrote line after line and crossed most of them out. On Sunday, the last day, I had just seven lines left. Seven statements. I called Wern up again and read them out loud to him. He smiled over the phone and congratulated me. I was happy. I could go back to my life. This time I’ll do better. I’ll do right by me.

I spent the next seven days waking up at a sensible hour and eating sensibly. I exercised daily; one day I had a dog follow me for miles on my walk, like I was his lost owner, only to lose him when Wern called me on my cell. I miss that dog like a spell broken too soon. I cleaned up my room (or rather, I re-organised it, which is strangely more difficult when it was already organised; this, I suppose, is what obsessive-compulsives do: attempt to make neat neater). I read books, returned them and borrowed more from the library. I felt healthy again, and purposeful.Today, I woke up a few minutes past noon. I ate a late, heavy breakfast while watching a Chinese woman with a heavy, affected British accent demonstrating squid-slicing as a form of stress relief. Horizontal, horizontal, back and forth. Shwu called me up and asked me if I would write her bio. She’s going to be cycling across Australia later this month, and our national daily is going to cover it. I said yes. I’m rather excited for her. Shwu thanked me and promised to credit it to her friend who’s bumming around in Malacca. Yes. That’s right. I’m still here.

I’m still here. And it doesn’t feel that bad after all.

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Current Mood: Found
Current Music:

• The Cranberries – Empty
• Carole King – Tapestry
• k.d. lang – Outside