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Taking a cue from Thomas Merton’s Thoughts in Solitude, I am holing myself up in the house for most of the week. The Agency has declared itself closed until Friday which makes me a very happy camper.

Alas, The Engine has work it needs done so tomorrow I will do the work and bug my colleagues for feedback about said work…on Friday. Thursday night will see me going to Bangsar for two back-to-back appointments which will see me hurling myself into the midst of people after three days shunning the company of mankind.

The McDonalds delivery man doesn’t count. Or the mamak down the road. I just don’t feel like cooking right now and anyhow, all I have is one pan, no butter or oil or onions. That will be remedied once I feel like doing some grocery shopping. Do I feel like grocery shopping? No.

I haven’t suddenly decided to become a Catholic mystic, nor do I plan to apply to a nunnery either. Mother Theresa I’m not. Thomas Merton’s writing, when not centred around Christian theology, is actually accessible to people of other faiths. Anyone can read his autobiography, Seven Storey Mountain, and find something to take away from it.

I spent the last couple of days springcleaning – something I know plenty of Chinese families indulge in, the days before CNY.

See, the belief is that if the past year was crummy or you want to make way for the good luck of the coming year, you clean house before CNY. No sweeping, clearing or throwing out stuff on the day of CNY itself. You don’t want to toss out the ‘new luck’ supposedly.

No, I’m not becoming faux Chinese – apart from my maternal great grandmother being Chinese and my dad being approximately 15% Chinese, I’m quite happy to be Dusun, thanks.

It’s just symbolic for me, in a way. I wanted to get rid of all the debris from last year and all that clearing was a way for me to symbolically let go. This year’s New Year gave me a lot of pain. I had a wonderful time ushering in the New Year at a dear friend’s place, with a group of fun, lovable people. And with me was a guy I’d just started dating and it was a time of fun, laughter and drunken jenga.

But then the very next day, my date told me he couldn’t see me anymore. And that was the end of that. I was so depressed I cried the entire weekend. The leftover pizza we had, I kept in the fridge and didn’t toss it out until today. It took me a week to even clear up the cigarette box and stubs he left behind, I was that devastated. It helped that the very next week, I got a job offer and started work for The Agency. Work kept me busy, and my friends kept me sane. At night though, I’d still come close to tears and feel utterly miserable in the hours before I went to sleep.

I hadn’t wanted to start dating so soon after things went to pot in my four year long distance relationship. MFM was an accident, a bad idea, something utterly unplanned. Maybe it was because we were both on the rebound, that things happened too fast and I was too vulnerable. I was so scared initially, but the more time I spent with him, the more I adored him. I loved that whenever we were together, we could talk non-stop and things were always comfortable and never contrived. But I was always afraid that it was going to end, that it would be a case where my affection would be unreturned in full measure. My guy friends who did know MFM had their reservations about him. They felt he was leading me on, and that it would all end badly.

And my fears came to pass. I gave it everything I had, but it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough. And it hurt. It hurt so bad.

It’s hard, letting go. Hard, trying not to relive the good times and all that could have been. But as I threw out all the accumulated rubbish in my house, and weeded (or at least tried to) my garden, I silently prayed that I could let go of all my emotional baggage as well.

I don’t want to be afraid of being hurt again. I don’t want to close myself off from people, afraid of rejection or betrayal. I don’t want to always be thinking that I’ll be played again, made second best again, dejected again.

There can be no perfect happiness, or a life without pain on this world. But I want to live it anyway. I will seize the roses, despite the thorns and bask in the sun’s warmth, even when it burns and it dazzles and makes me perspire in the heat.

Like my spiritual mentor says, I’ll jump first. Fear later.

I don’t want to be a lifelong hostage to my fears. I won’t be my own jailor.

Yesterday was a day where I felt distinctly overwhelmed. The morning was spent trying to cram as much work activity, including enquiries, con calls and the like. Then it was zipping off to my driving academy where my instructor was not only cranky and irritable, but inordinately sensitive to criticism. I came home with my ankles, back and arms hurting and wondering why I was bothering with the whole driving thing.

The night brought a more pleasant diversion – a meeting of writerly minds for what promises to be a huge theatre event. I’m plenty excited about it, but as with most projects in my life right now I have to keep mum. A lot of things to keep me busy with my clients for The Job for this quarter and the next, while it looks like theatre is stealthily embracing me, as though she’s been waiting all of my life.

Both my father and mother were theatre practitioners – my father acted and wrote plays with a decidedly religious bent. My mother writes scripts for radio, acted in theatre and sang while also being quite the actress herself. My sister is the real thespian/performer in the family but, for some reason, decided to recede in the background and avoid the limelight.

Now I’m surrounded by theatre performers and enablers which is both exhilarating and frightening. It feels like home and yet it scares and confuses me. Ultimately, I want to give back to the world and make a difference. But I’d be a terrible social worker. I’m too poor to be a philanthropist. I don’t have the single-mindedness to become the advocate for a single cause.

So the route I’ll take is this – to do all I can with what I have. To sing, to write, to perform for a purpose and believe wholeheartedly that if God does want me to do something, he’ll give me the tools and the time to do it. I’m no longer the young narcissist or self-absorbed lost wannabe artist/writer.

I’m just me, and that’s good enough for Him.

Remember the man I once said I loved more than air?

Four years ago, a car ran into him while he was on a bicycle.

Last year, just a few weeks before I was supposed to see him again, he ran his car into a house.

A frickin’ house. Because he was looking at the GPS and not the road.

Saturday he got in the papers for being in an accident. That is what is left of his car.

I find out today, right after he’s been discharged from the hospital. CAT scan says he’s fine, no bones broken, but he’s still sore all over.

Well, right here, right now, he’s alive. And I’m so relieved.

This unfortunately does not motivate me in the slightest to get my driver’s license over and done with. AIEEEEEEEEEEEE.

“I’ve never had this lack of ache for dalliance
To let go and let God in ways I have never even imagined”

Yes, I declare another one. Funny how just 2 weeks after I declared one privately in November, I got entangled with MFM. That was a straight collision with pain – bad timing coupled with great chemistry equals a messy explosion. And I’m still feeling the fallout.

So I’ll make it public. I’m not looking. I’m tired. I need my friends. People I trust. People whose best interests don’t lie in lying to me or telling me what they think I want to hear.

Because one of the things I’ve always asked my friends for is that they tell me what I need to hear. Bitter truth served in a cup of love is better than honey-laced poisonous lies.

No, I’m not looking. No, I’m not closed off either. But I still hurt; I’m still raw. I can’t trust anyone with my feelings besides those who already own my heart. So afraid. And my heart would run away, and if I forced it, all it would do is plead PleasePleaseDon’tHurt Me.

Moratorium ~ Alanis Morissette

I’ve never been this accountable-less and within
I’ve never known focuslessness on any form

I’ve never had this lack of ache for dalliance
To let go and let god in ways I have never even imagined

I declare a moratorium on things relationship
I declare a respite from the toils of liaison
I do need a breather from the flavors of entanglement
I declare a full time out from all things commitment

I’ve never let my grasp soften fingers like this
I’ve never been careless other-less like autonomy’s twin

I declare a moratorium on things relationship
I declare a respite from the toils of liaison
I do need a breather from the flavours of entanglement
I declare a full time out from all things commitment

Ah to breathe
Stop looking outside
Stop searching in corners of rooms
Not my business or timing
Ahhh

I’ve never known freedom from intertwining
I start again this time for keeps in my skin I’m residing

I declare a moratorium on things relationship
I declare a respite from the toils of liaison
I do need a breather from the flavors of entanglement
I declare a full time out from all things commitment