This is Me. This is 31.

I have a barrage of thoughts that I could go on visiting in my head again and again but I'm unable to actually write a proper article on them so I'm just going to have to break them up. Which would probably make it easier to read anyway.

2016
Great year indeed. Made a few good friends. Keep having breakthroughs in career (or at least I think), bad dates and reconnections of a couple of people who I had thought were lost. Got crazy, really angry, egged a car (the shame). Called a few people losers, one 'an arrogant prick' and decided to drop people like they are totally invaluable to me. Starting to really love myself a whole damn lot and I think that's what made me the way I am today -- no bullshit.

Sex
Sahara. Oh, but checked out a line item on the bucket list and did it with a local celebrity. A hot one mind you, and no, it's not Gurmit Singh or Mark Lee.

Love
As I've mentioned above, I went out on a few bad dates. And didn't really enjoy myself even when the dates weren't bad. I think 'unavailable' is now a tattoo on my forehead. Funny how it traveled from the back of my mind to be out exposed. Oh wait, but...

I met Benjamin a few nights ago. I think I've grown a helluva lot in the last three years. I've grown to be really different from the person who he fell for -- he doesn't has to say it because I noticed it. Still, there's a little part of me which aches for him (though I don't admit it and though I think he's not exactly the person who I thought I had been madly in love with all these years). Like I keep wondering how it's like to kiss him again. Is it the hormones?

Books
Reading 'Think Rich & Grow Rich' by Napoleon Hill now. Contextually speaking, it's as good as reading 'The Secret' again but it's more long-winded and convincing in a sense, and it's amazing how the great richest people of the world practise the belief unknowingly -- the law of attraction. You know what they say, that like attracts like and you're the person you perceive to be. I'm a sucker for LOA. Everyone knows this. It's probably the reason why I'm this strong these days.

Downed a few books earlier in the year but haven't been able to get started on the fiction that are currently sitting on the shelf. Because in my nature of work where we get to see probably thousands of words every day, you just fucking don't want to see any more of them when you have the time to yourself.

But when I do have time to myself, I lie in bed and surf the web. Dafuq?

Money
Pittance.

Alcohol
When you don't remember a thing, it doesn't count.

Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence

I love this piano piece by Ryuichi Sakamoto. It very well depicts the chaos amidst calm, much like how I'm always inside. Counting down to the big 31, I am beginning to feel I've lost the drive to seek better days for myself. I'm busy devouring whatever there's out there everyday in the digital marketing world. That seems to be the only thing I'm programmed to seek these days.

I no longer feel hyped about anything anymore. I don't remember waking up feeling I'm on top of the world. It seems, as I slowly wither, I lose myself too, bit by bit.

I do admit though, a big part of me is still living in the past. Making believe that I still go to Keppel Club, Sunrise Terrace and Snoop was still around. And when reality sets in, I could only hold all the pain in. I look indifferent on the outside, but little do people know that I'm in pain.

Why does everyone think I'm fine?

I'm not. I'm sad, lonely and most of the time I just feel like crying. But I keep telling myself not to. Because I'm well aware that being miserable isn't going to change anything. Happiness is a state of mind and not something to seek. Crying is only an amplified expression of pain and that the more you cry, the more weight it'd be on you.

She ain't you.

I don't exactly feel anything right now and neither am I occupied by any thoughts but I just really feel like writing. Maybe this will be an entry of pure randomness and it might not make sense to you, but I don't really care if it even make any sense to me at all.

I briefly went through my entries from 09 and I actually discovered something rather disturbing about myself. My writing has deteriorated. Long gone was the florid display of wordplay and that pompous tone. My vocabulary is stuck at where it used to be, if not took a downhill turn. Haven't I been reading? I have been. That's the thing.

Anyhow, I'm so sick of having to deal with men and their desire to try to get to know me. Not because I'm totally frozen inside but I think my bars are rather raised now. And it really takes a lot for me to notice you. I think I AM going to die a spinster. Doesn't really matter. Anyhow, if it's any comfort to myself (and you), I think I have a crush on somebody. Ridiculous it is, unlikely it seemed, but it happened. I am not too sure if I should tell him this? Sorry to disappoint you, it's not a her. But whatever. I just am not too sure if I should do anything at all. Cause I'm not really interested in another failure. Yes, this time around, I'm really scarred. Carl, you happy now? You managed to hurt me to this extent, push me to this far end where I lost all hopes in finding my Mr. Right. And I am not even remotely positive or confident that there is after all a Mr. Right out there for me.

Whenever I hear people say, 'your time will come. You will meet somebody right and meant for you,' I shutter. I tremble at the thought of that somebody being not good enough for me (anyone who knows me well knows that I get bored easily if you're not mentally stimulating enough) and I somewhat know that I could possibly be alone for the rest of my life? I mean, there are people who never got married, who's single and has three cats.

Carl.

Hey,

That was how we first greeted each other. You sent me a long message on OkCupid telling me how you love grooving to Disney tunes in response to what I've written on my profile. And I sent you a message only one month after, telling you to holler at me at my mobile number. Which you did, of course you did.

When we first met, I thought we hit it off well. While I didn't exactly find you attractive on our first date, your charm grew on me like a bud in spring. It was only natural it blossomed. And it sure did. You brought me to my first IMAX movie knowing I've never been to one. You were so thoughtful and kind. You still are.

As time passed, we started seeing each other very regularly and we quietly slipped into dating each other exclusively. We slipped into a relationship in a very subtle, gentle manner which seemed only natural and right. We were like long lost friends who share identical lifestyle, interests and core values. I can't remember when it was exactly but I do know this, that it didn't take long for me to fall in love with you. You're the kindest, most patient and understanding person I've ever known. You always listen to me attentively and you provided me with a support I never had. I felt safe, understood and loved.

On one early morning before dawn breaks, I told you that I love you before we bid each other goodbye. While I stood remained in your embrace, you didn't say you love me back. That's when I felt you struggling inside, trying to find a way to ease yourself out of the situation. You didn't want to lie, yet you couldn't bear to hurt me to tell me the truth. I understood this and I let go of you, bidding you goodbye as I headed home. "Maybe not now but perhaps soon" was all I could tell myself the next day and the following weeks after.

The day came when I asked if you love me. By then, I have fallen for you. I knew if you say 'no', you would have crushed me. You said 'no' but it didn't just crush just me, the both of us were. You cried because you know you really like me and you care a great deal about me. And you know you couldn't let me go because of this. So we established the understanding that we would try. We would try to build this even when we know that it was a one-sided love of mine. I took the risk, I wanted to try working things out with you because you were so dear to me. I didn't want to let you go.

Time passed us by and we built something. We shared memorable times together and took trips overseas. We hopped around town, enjoying each other's company and bringing nothing but joy to each other's life. You treated me well and with utmost respect. I tried my very best to be the best version of myself for you. We were at ease in each other's company as we pushed each other towards our dreams. I wanted us to have a future and I know if you could, you would have wanted that for us too. But the day finally arrived where you realized you couldn't do it anymore. And in order to be fair, you decided to set us free.

We've broken up for more than a year now. And we haven't heard from each other for months. Never had we been away from each other for this long. And I do know, that this void will continue to stretch into the horizon, with no arrangements of an expiry date. We will continue living this way, creating a bigger void that will only stretch further into an abyss. We might one day forget each other. We just might.

While I still remember you vividly at present, I want you to know how thankful I am to have found you; to have spent a considerable amount of time with you. Those days we had were easily the bestof my life. Even at then, I was thanking the universe for having brought you into my life. I still remain grateful today to have met you even though we have gone our separate ways.

I still think about you every day. I still miss you being around. I still miss the in-jokes we have which no one but us will ever get. I miss the chemistry of us finishing each other's sentences. And I miss so dearly, the times we goofed around at all the places we went to. Our carpool karaoke was my favourite and I know there won't be another who I'll do it with.

You mean a lot to me and you still do even after all this time. That is why I am almost certain that I will continue loving you in this quiet fashion, from afar, and in a corner on this great great world where you won't see me. I guess this is the best I can do for you now.

You still visit me in my dreams at night -- most of the times waking me up in tears. But I guess that's how I get to see you now, that's the only way I can ever be close to you again. And I think I have to live with that. I think I can live with that.

You mean so much to me. And I know you wanted so badly to be able to love me and to give me a
future. But you couldn't. Love didn't begin for you and it didn't want to be found despite you having tried for more than a year. It's not your fault. It was never your fault. You did try your best for me -- no one else but me.

I once told you that whoever has your love is one lucky girl. I remember this. And I still stand by it firmly today. Whoever she is, she has the one thing we lacked in us which we tried so painstakingly to find -- that one thing that was missing which was the only thing we ever needed in order for us to keep going.

We tried but we failed. While it's hard to say goodbye to yesterday, we had managed to. And we've come this far without each other. We've grown, aged a little and we're now back to the old days where we're strangers. I hope you'll succeed one day in finding the one for you. I know you will. And I'm happy knowing you will. I'll be happy when you do.

I love you, so very dearly and in ways you will never know. I still say this today and I'm sure I will say the same until I grow old. 98 and 3/4 percent.

You are the best, remember that.

Love, evermore,
Bunneh

The Momentum of Conundrum

I can sum up my life in three words -- no more.

"Work, workout and eat clean."

I've been living the life of an almost-recluse for as long as I remember. This is the story.

Last Christmas eve, I met Calvin. Someone who was really into me and purused me relentlessly. Then on one fine night, he kissed me and I didn't push him away. That was how he started saying we're in a relationship. Seriously.

That week, because my time was pretty much occupied by him, I strayed from Carl for a good while. We didn't talk for days, we didn't even seen each other for a while. For clarification's sake, I was trying to move on and heeding what they say about getting a rebound to do so. It worked! On the surface that is, God knows how much I was beating for Carl deep down in my heart during those times with Calvin.

Calvin and I didn't work out. Turns out he was an arrogant prick who couldn't care more about people around him besides himself. I should have noticed the signs. Who the fuck blew up his own picture in A3 size, framed and hanged it up on the wall? Who the fuck put together a collage of photos of himself on another wall? I was a little taken aback when I first went over to his place but I thought to myself that it's pretty common to love yourself this much especially after you've had all the achievements under your belt. But no. It's fucking not fucking common. Narcissism was what echoes day in and out at his place, bounces off the four walls and onto the windows then ricochet off the door. He took narcissism to a whole new level. And to think I thought I was pretty narcissistic. He put people who love taking selfies to shame.

When I ruminated over this mistake of mine, I understand why the Universe has planned for Calvin's existence in my life. He was here to help Carl and I move on. What was I thinking? Carl and I broke up a year ago and for the entire year, I had the both of us stuck at the same spot. It wasn't working out. He just wants out and I kept him around in hope that he'd change his mind. Which he never did. I imprisoned the both of us for a year. On a selfish note, I had successfully plonked a huge boulder on my life path.

You know, I miss Carl a damn lot but at the same time, I am fucking mad at him for having me replaced. The story goes... he met someone new and he's interested to know her better. They even went out on a date! But who am I to interfere? We're no longer in a relationship and I slept with Calvin and I dated Calvin for a month! So it's only fair right?

In my previous entry, I had mentioned that I haven't been single for 13 years. Which is very true. I was never single for too long and this time around, I think I'm ready to discover the true meaning of being alone. I'm just going to focus on my career, my weight loss plan and my ageing face. I will casually date men without any expectations that I'll find my happily-ever-after. I'll read a lot of books, compose poetry and learn coding. I'll spend less time on social media, the internet and cut back on drinks. I should quit smoking too.

Yup, that has been a real bad habit that I've been trying to kick for almost two decades. I think I could have lived till 80. But I think I'm going to be dead by 75.

We don't live forever do we? Thirty years later, where will we be?

The Honest Truth About Love

Today is the 15th of February of the year 2016. Exactly two years ago, Carl and I were at Sentosa. We celebrated our first Valentine's Day together at Movenpick Heritage Hotel. He had made the trip down to Lauren Bernard to get me a box of expensive chocolates. Exactly one year ago, this time I was having dinner with him at Coastes. He had arranged for this surprise dinner one week after we returned from Bali. He did it because he knows I love the sea. He knows I love Bali. Twelve days later after the Valentine Dinner by the sea, he left me.

If time is the only instrument to measure everything, if there's an unknown dimension it brings, then we're still living out our known history despite this current point of consciousness. Just that we no longer feel what we used to feel. And we no longer see what we used to see.

I read that love is a verb and it involves conscious effort from two parties so that it could live. I read that what will bring two strangers together is a perfect marriage of mutual physical, emotional and mental attraction. Love will then develop between the two as time proves. Time will measure the depth of feelings. It will take into consideration the number of breaths you two share, the number of times you fall asleep in each other's arms and all the laughter and tears. Love will find its way if the three aspects of attraction come together. 

The writer was wrong. 

When time travel in a linear fashion, love doesn't. It implodes within one then engulfs two. For Carl and I, it never imploded within him at all even when the three aspects of attraction were perfectly in place. After this whole time of trying and the number of breaths and secrets we share, I was greeted by a strange yet familiar sense of loneliness. I am now, once again, without him. I'm back to where I began initially before I met him. If we take Benjamin into count, I had Benjamin before I met Carl. And I had to leave Benjamin because 'we' were killing us both. 

And before Benjamin there was Mairah. And before Mairah there was Simon. And before Simon, there was Andy. And before Andy, there was Desmond. Going way back, I realized an honest piece of truth about myself. That is, I haven't been alone since the age of 18. 13 years in the making and I found myself sniggering at my dependency for a presence in my life. Whether having someone in my life makes me feel wanted and validate my need to feel it, or whether having someone in my life helps bring excitement into what I regard as conundrum, it all doesn't matter. It just means I need someone in my life to feel alive. Which is pretty shitty if you ask me. 

You need to love yourself in order to love someone else. If this is true, then maybe Carl doesn't love himself. 

I cannot remember when was the last time my heart aches this way. Probably when Bennett and I parted ways. If Bennett was my first true love, then Carl is the second. I guess. 

"How about Carl & You 2016," asked A. 

"It will not happen. We're off. He doesn't love me, remember?" I responded with clearly audible shattering noise of my heart and soul. 

Carl was my best friend, my partner in crime and we share the same jokes. He clearly doesn't think much of this but I think a great deal of this. I know, that it's near impossible to find someone who shares the same sense of humour. I just know this. But he's more into the new chick he met and probably he could adapt to whatever sense of humour she has and make it theirs. He's adaptive, he's a Libra. 

With tears in my eyes as I write, I can literally hear the sound of silence engulfing me with no mercy. Like a blanket, it wraps me up in the coldest fashion I've ever known and chill me down to bones. For once in my heart, there is no joy, rapture or conviviality. The dancer in me broke her legs. The singer in me got throat cancer. And the funambulist fell off the tightrope finally. Therefore, it brought out the poet and writer in me. If you've been following me for years, you would have known this about me, that I happen to have the most tragically beautiful poems and an endless stream of words whenever I'm down at the bottom. 

Fate always likes to throw me to the bottom of the dried up well. And with compliments without fail, she will always throw in a notebook and a pencil. That's how she starves me for all she ever wanted was my words of sorrow. That's how she gets her satisfaction.

I wonder what of me I will find

if I just try to,

all in the absence of you.

Oh wait... Isn't it?

I give birth to many thoughts in the wee hours. And most of these thoughts are plain horrifyingly regretful ones. I kinda am feeling pretty awesome yet shitty about myself these days. You know, takin yet another downtime from work, twice in a year is a luxury not a lot of people wish to claim their own. No Monday blues, just Mom's stares. All good and cruising.

I really HATE the initial phase of dating, getting to know someone, wanting to plunge soul deep into the person yet having to keep constantly reminding myself to hit the brakes. But wait... Am I not a strong independent woman of the 21st century who obviously can hold her ground? So why should I be holding back like a little coy peasant girl and not make any bold move at all?

"No darling, that's not how it works", said all the single women who call themselves love gurus. The other night I wailed to a friend, "I am so tired of having to have a relationship. I am so tired of games, guessing what he's thinking and all. I OBVIOUSLY want to have an earth shattering relationship and tower shaking sex (not forgetting trippy morning kisses and kitchen sex yup) all at full throttle but that's not how the game is played. I have to wear the shrimp costume and beautifully position myself at the end of the fishing line, waiting for him to come take a bite --- and mind you, one bite at a time! Don't we all live in the digital age now? This is WHY I'm so tired! I am so tired of being scared that I'll scare him away, I am so tired of having to pull the brakes. And most of the time, that just makes me feel I'm better off having a toy boy. No relationship, no love, no inordinate fascination of marriage, and hallucinations of us exchanging wedding vows."

Oh, but an honest piece of truth here: I didn't pull the brakes this time when it comes to sex. Maybe it's because of the 10-month celibacy I had, having someone desires me this way was such a big turn on. And so I couldn't keep my panties on. What a shame. Built up sexual tension is so sexy and I think I just heard you say you forgive me.

So I slept with Calvin on our sixth date. Statistically speaking, in the eyes of everyone, six dates sounds about right. But hang on, we had our six dates all in a week -- how's that? He was so into me that he had to see me every day. And I guess that did the trick for me. I got more and more into him (boy knows what he's doing oh yeah) and wanted to see him too. So before we even did the act, I pranced up and down in his living room for a good five minutes while he's in the shower (his neighbours prolly thought I was working out), recalling every dating tips and articles I have ever read on the Internet and kept questioning if I should sleep with him or not. 

"Yo, you only knew him on the 7th Dec. You first met him on the 24th Dec. Today is the 1st Jan 2016. Isn't it a little too soon? But we already had six dates! And it's perfectly fine if I check if he's a girl in disguise or not! If he's not, it's perfectly fine for me to check his package too!" 

In the end, I succumbed to my raging hormones and blamed it on New Year's Day. On a consolation note, at least, it's special. It happened on New Year's Day. And we first met on Christmas Eve. THESE must mean SOMETHING right?

And I think I am in love. 

P/S I so don't want yet another failure.