.

Sometimes I forget who I am.
Sometimes I forget who I can be.
Sometimes I forget who I was.
Sometimes I forget who I want to be.
Sometimes I forget who I have to be.
Sometimes I forget myself.Most of the time, actually.

There is an issue of identity, or is there? Avoidance, rather, if truth be told, and that rarely. There are ebbs and flow that command me; it is filial expectation if I should blame, perhaps not, but it is there. You have to do this. Time does not stretch, no matter how I waste it, ignore it. Life is on budget, whether you plan it or not; at the end of the day there is no wisdom in any action or eventuality. I know what happens just happens. I am in control. I don’t take control. It all just happens: (a) I make it happen, or (b) It happens to me. Neither option comforts me.

I am terrified.

I have told myself I won’t be scared anymore but fear is easy. It is so easy. Falling is easy. But once I hit the ground I realise there’s no further I can go. There is no abyss. If I want to wallow in a hole, I will have to dig the damn thing myself. (Far too lazy, far too lazy for that.) So I don’t move. I’m not going anywhere.

Where is it you’re going?

I said, I’m not going anywhere.

Tomorrow, I’m driving up to KL. Some loose ends to tie up. Maybe meet some friends I’ve not seen in a long time. Christine’s offered me the sofa bed in her apartment, so I guess I’m staying the night. I might want to stay Tuesday too, but I don’t want to be a bother to her. Maybe I’ll stay at Justin’s. What shall I say to him?

Late last December, Justin and I did a Lord of the Rings marathon together. Completely spontaneous (which meant he had to spend some good minutes over the phone persuading me to just up and leave and spend two hours on the highway in the dark of night). Justin has this thing where he makes me spontaneous. I suppose he makes me want to be spontaneous. We watched the first two films in extended version one day, and the finale the next. He had never read the books, and I’ve been a fan since I was fourteen. But those short days were magic. I forgot about having finished my MBA and feeling nothing. I forgot how much I hated my ex-girlfriend and my guilt over her devastation and my hurt over her breaking a promise that led to my breaking up with her in the first place. I forgot I had to, one day, soon, decided on what job I wanted and that I was bonded (indentured, really) to a German congolomerate for three years and that I was completely indifferent to that scenario. I forgot I was afraid.

We would sit and chat, usually at a place where we could get coffee. (This meant anywhere from a squalid roadside kopitiam to an overpriced Starbucks. We weren’t fussy.) And I have to wonder if I truly believed in half the stuff I was telling him or was it all just bravado? I excel at putting up facades: a sort of vague ambition, a direction that heads nowhere, a success based on lying to myself. I don’t know why I even do it. It’s an addiction. The worst thing is it all comes out as the truth. Dishonesty isn’t telling lies, I don’t have to lie; it’s holding back the secrets.Oh what a closet we all own…

Justin always says I think too much. Actually everyone tells me that, but when he says it, I would wish I didn’t. That I could allow myself to be free. Free enough to know what I want, and to go after that dream. My entire friendship with Justin is based on dreams: our dreams when we were still in college, the different roads we took or chose, his dreams in action and mine in deep freeze. Maybe my friendship with Justin’s half admiration and half envy. It’s his certainty in his dreams and in his pursuit of it that kills me. I wish…

The marathon was the last time we met. I told him I would make a decision in my life by the end of January. That I needed some kind of deadline. That I would prove it by getting my hair cut. Some sort of milestone.

I didn’t get my hair cut. It grows longer by the day. I had it coloured and highlights put in, just before Chinese New Year (which, almost as a demonstration of heavenly humour, fell on my birthday this year). The true colour of the roots are creeping out, dark as disappointment. I do not know what to feel like. This thing tears me one way and the other. What the fuck’s this thing?

Two weeks ago, I made up my mind, I decided on what’s really important to me. Seven small things that would not change. The Big Picture. Hell is working out the details. The first week after went well, the second less so. Now it’s the third week and I’ve no more excuses. Time to get on with my life.

The lost boy remains lost because he kept trying to get back to the way things were, and that just doesn’t work. It does not matter if the past no longer exists or if the things it held are gone now or never was in the first place; the truth is that there is no past, present or future. No temporal trinity, nothing that easy. There are really only two options: you can stay still or you can move on.

Me, I’ve had enough of stagnant time.

.

~ * ~

.

Current Mood: Empty
Current Music:

• Wilco – How to Fight Loneliness
• Kent – Before It All Ends
• Bananafishbones – The More I Think