Recently I was chatting with a friend and he said that he hated it when people told him to "Move on" or "Move forward" whenever he lamented about anything. It amused me because even if he didn't want to, he was moving forward.
No matter how we dislike the notion of letting the past go, we unconsciously leave a bit behind each day until, suddenly, it no longer becomes an issue.
I know there are people who do mean things daily and don't think twice of it but my friend is one of those who knew he did mean or terrible things. He regrets having done that. He wishes he hadn't done them. However, he has moved on, knowing that he can be different from who he was.
In a way, this is true for all of us. We shed the skin of who we were and we are a new person each and every day!
No one gets to say that we never change. We all change and no one gets to say that they know us well. No one can because we do change; whether we like it and whether we know it or not.
Seconds, minutes, hours, days or even years may pass but it doesn't change what had once filled the heart with love, laughter and even tears. The heart never forgets.
There was an old lady who lived in a room, she had no children so she didn't know what to do.
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I've been thinking and thinking and looking for answers but there are none except for my own voice in my head, which just creates and recreates questions, one after the other.
What did you think about? How much pain did you feel? Was it emotional, psychological or physical pain? Could it have been a combination of all three? Who did you think about? Why did you not want help? When did you realise that it was bad? Did you lose the will to live? Was this what you wanted?
I want so much to understand the reasons for the way you lived your life. More than this, I want to know what were your thoughts in the last 48 hours. I want to turn back the clock to ask you about it. I want to go into that zone where you let your guard down and tell me the things that you wouldn't tell anybody else. I want to know so many things. I want to know too many things.
Knowing that I will never have the answers doesn't ease the ache. Knowledge is not power.
This holiday has been good and now I decide to let it go.
The sun, the sand, the sea and the voices in my head say it's time and I should let it go. I'm going to let it go.
When people die, we make up stories in our head so that we can feel better. They can no longer argue or deny or accept what we say about them. They are unable to speak out even if they disagree.
Many prefer to believe that they go to heaven. I've been told that everyone I've known, who has died, has gone to heaven. No one will say otherwise. It becomes sacrilegious to even speak ill of them. My aunt was not a saint nor was she a sinner. Judgement is not for me or anyone to make. I guess it is part of the healing process. We want to feel good so we only hold on to the nicer aspects because it seems to make no sense to think of the uglier things. We change our perception of them only because it makes it easier on us.
I can only go by on what I felt or more importantly how she made me feel. I always felt loved.
When I left Malaysia, many people said they would miss me. However, she was the only one who never failed to say so. She never ever stopped telling me that she felt sad I was so far away, that she felt a void and missed me terribly but also always assuring me that she was happy for me. She didn't ever hide the fact that she missed me. This always left me with mixed feelings.
When she died, I didn't just lose someone I loved. I lost someone who loved me deeply and who wasn't afraid or ashamed to tell me.
May her soul rest in peace forever more. I still love you, I feel a void now, I miss you and I hope you are happy.
“Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world.”
Many times, as a teenager, I wished that I could have a brand new start when hormones were raging and everything seemed dark and dreary. Nobody understood me and neither did I understand anyone.
There were even times when I wished I was in another country. I remember feeling so depressed after watching S.W.A.L.K. I used to lay awake at nights just hoping that I could meet Mark Lester and wanting so desperately to live in the U.K. Too much TV/movies made me believe that life elsewhere would be better. When I was more matured, I realised that life is good wherever you make it to be.
At the end of my teen life, I saw this particular quote and it had a profound effect on me. This gave me a fresh look about my life and that I could make a brand new ending. As it turned out, circumstances threw me chances to shape and re-shape my life along the way.
Many things were life-changing but the ones that stand out would be my parents getting a divorce, moving out from home, getting married, having children, being widowed, re-marrying, retiring and finally relocating. Each time it propelled me to something better and each beginning is an ending to something and each ending is also a beginning.
I think that we would do well to remind teenagers and also adults that there is always the possibility to stop at anytime and start again. This only needs to happen in our heads. It's what makes life interesting and ever-changing.
Sometimes things happen around us and we wonder about our own life. It is strange that many do not think too much about their past when things are going great. I guess it is natural to be in the present and to think only of the future.
In general, I think a lot about the past and all the things that have happened. I believe that it is therapeutic. Sometimes talking about it with another person (that you trust) can help tremendously. Reliving old wounds needn't always be painful.
This happened to me.
While sharing with a wonderful friend about the ghosts of my past and even some skeletons in the closet, I realised that they no longer hurt or bother me as they once did. Bringing it up made me realise that I was no longer a prisoner of those feelings. I had risen above them all. Literally, they had no more hold on me.
Twenty years!!!
How far I have come since then? The things that hurt me then didn't really do me any harm. On the contrary, they made me stronger. The people who claimed to love me then weren't always genuine but I got over it. Time always has a way of showing the true nature of everything and everyone.
Twenty years. It is a long time!
Thankfully, I was very young when I found and pondered over this quotation. I admit that because of it I have often thrown caution to the wind and said, "oh, what the heck!".
Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time;
it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.
It seems clear to me that who we were in the past is always dredged up by people unable to deal with the present. Maybe the root cause of talking about it stems from being unhappy with how things are now. Happy people just don't look backwards.
One of the luxuries of being contented today is not having to dwell on what was and just enjoying what is.
Why then do people like to look back? Even worse than just looking back is when facts of their former life are distorted. Changing, shaping and re-arranging stories have become essential as the air they breathe.
Our past is important. When we learn to accept it for what it was, we can then appreciate the present. Some people become better but most become bitter.
Pic from FB
Only then, will we have learnt the art of moving on.
I don't know if this is true but the loss of a child is perhaps more painful than other losses because of the physical connection that was once there. You lose your parents, siblings or spouse but that pales in comparison to losing the 'human being' that was once living inside of you. I may be wrong but it's my opinion that losing a child is much like losing a physical/spiritual/emotional/tangible part of yourself.
I remember that, when I lost Douglas, many people told me to just move on and to get over it. It was difficult to know what to do or how to feel. Looking back, I have realised that it's something you go through and there really is no timetable to how long grief lasts.
For some, it's been a lifetime of miserable days and I believe it need not be that way. Some people feel that not to laugh or love again means that the loss was more profound than for someone who has learnt to do it again. This cannot be true.
I've known people who refuse to remarry because they feel it would tarnish the 'love' they have for the one who died. I don't judge. Real love never ends and it is eternal. It just exists in another realm. It will never co-incide but it runs parallel to our life.
My brother once said, "Let the dead rest in peace, and the living go on living". Those words are true today as they were, when they were said years and years ago.
The death of a loved one is never going to be something we understand or want to experience but it's inevitable. The side effect of losing someone is that it makes you emotionally stronger even when you don't realise it.
When Doug died, I did what I thought was best. I shoved grief aside and kept it in KIV for when I would be ready to deal with it. I didn't realise that it doesn't work that way. Three months down the road, I was in sitting in one of the front pews in church and the tears came and the grief just overwhelmed me. The denial and everything that I had successfully suppressed exploded in sobs. Despite the sadness, I remember being so embarrassed at the sudden outpouring and in public, too!
When Eric died, I did what everyone thought was best. I cleared his things, I dismantled his cot and kept all traces of his short life away from sight. I put them in a small suitcase and locked it up. This also didn't work. It accentuated the grief and the letting go of everything before I was ready made me feel even more depressed.
The moral of it all is that we have an inbuilt mechanism that looks after our well-being. We must listen to that quiet voice and follow its promptings.
I reconciled with losing Doug much earlier for without doing so, I would not have been able to start a new life. With losing Eric, I have taken a very long time to heal. This year, I think I am almost there. My thoughts are not so much of longing and wishing anymore. I miss him but it's how I would miss anybody else who is loved and who is not with me.
For a long time, I was led to believe that being perfect was the ultimate goal. I can't trace how or why this became part of what I thought was correct.
In any case, it was the pursuit of perfection that has probably caused many people unnecessary stress. Even when I thought it was right, I don't think that I consciously sought for perfection. I always felt that doing my best was what mattered.
When I was in primary school, I remember not feeling confident after an examination. My whole demeanour was affected. Someone, I don't remember who, noticed and asked me why. When I explained the gloom, the person said this, "If you had done your best at that moment, then that is all you need to know". I found those words comforting.
Today, I saw this image with Paulo Coelho's words and it triggered this memory.
Now I understand why people want that perfect bag or shoe or dress. They long for the perfect partner, with a perfect garden and a perfect house. They dream of a perfect life. It's a perfect plan.
Now I get it. It's a disguise for insecurity. This suddenly makes complete sense to me. I may not be perfection but I'm normal. There isn't that need to make everything perfect. I'm secure that my imperfection is what makes me unique.
I was in my mid-30s. Not a great time to start learning a language but circumstances of my new job plus a bit of pushing and shoving from my boss, Jorge Bayona (God bless his heart) made me join a Spanish Language class.
It wasn't in the best period of my life and I went under duress.
It began in a beginner's two-hour class held twice or was it thrice weekly. I can't remember now. The classes weren't something I looked forward to because it was in the evenings and after a full day of work. The teacher, Agustin Gutierrez was from Mexico. I think he's a very good teacher. I didn't know then but looking back, I realise that he was very good at his job.
The first lesson began without me. I don't know how I missed it but I did. Anyway, I attended my first class and was unpleasantly surprised to find that the teacher spoke completely in Spanish!
Fortunately, they hadn't done much in the first lesson which probably would have been introductions and getting to know each other.
I was really unhappy but my pride set in and I decided to make it work.
The lessons were not very easy and the only reason I was able to follow everything was because earlier, I had taken a very short conversational Spanish class. That didn't amount to anything and at the end, I was unable to follow or make any conversations with the Spanish-speaking community.
However, memory is such that when it's in your head, it lays dormant just like riding a bicycle. Slowly, the words began to have meaning and it became easier.
At that time, everything was difficult for me because I didn't have the right attitude about it. I was attending because I had to and not because I wanted to.
In hindsight, learning Spanish turned out to be such a great distraction during a period of discontent. Later, I would realise and appreciate the value of communicating in another language.
Anyway, that's another story.
The reason for this post is to highlight the steps that I took to master a foreign language.
1. I paid attention in class and did my homework. I'm a good student. There's no denying this. Okay, I'll admit that I begged my colleague on several occasions to help me with homework. Manuel if you ever read this, I want to say "Gracias" again. You were my "ángel disfrazado".
2. I read Selecciones which is the Spanish version of Reader's Digest. This was the hardest thing to do. I didn't enjoy it and just browsed through the titles and jokes. Maybe today I would find it interesting but not when I was a beginner.
3. I made efforts to follow conversations whenever possible. This was one of the main reasons why learning the language was important. My colleagues could no longer speak freely when I was around. Hah! 4. I joined the 'Red Latina" which is a Spanish chat forum. I found out that I could spell better than many there. The people on the other side of the globe didn't believe I was a Malaysian and chatting with them in their own language. I discovered words that you don't learn in a formal classroom. These little inroads boosted my confidence. 5. I listened to songs in Spanish. This was the easiest! It was strange because, at the beginning, it was like listening to a Chinese or Hindustani song. You like the music but don't understand anything. So I did the next best thing, I played the cassettes over and over again and wrote out the lyrics. Those were the days when 'Google' didn't exist yet! As Spanish was so alien to me, I couldn't figure out many of the phrases. For this, I have to say that my boss, would happily check if the words I wrote, made sense. He'd correct them and occasionally, he would sit with me and listen to whatever song I chose, and help me get the phrases that I couldn't catch.
Once I had the lyrics, I'd play that song on my way to work and on my way home. I'd sing in the car and it made me feel like I was already a native Spanish speaker/singer! BUT singing a song and speaking are worlds apart because if you strike up a conversation with anybody, they'll expect you to respond and what was I going to do then? Break into a song!!!!
It was disheartening. After three hundred hours of lessons, I was still unable to say that I could speak the language. But I persisted on my own and kept up with the songs of Ricardo Montaner, Laura Fygi, Chabuca Granda, Eva Ayllon, Camilo Sesto, Luis Miguel, Laura Pausini, of course Ricardo Arjona and many others whose names I don't remember.
Months after I finished the three levels of Spanish, JB gave me a cassette of Arjona songs. Specifically he asked me to listen to "El Taxista". He said, "listen and see if you can catch the story". AND just like that, I did! I understood what it was about. I had to check some words on my own but I knew the story in the song.
That's what learning a language is all about. You have to immerse yourself in it. You have to read, write, listen and love it.
If you're struggling today with a new language, I have this to say, "one day, without even realising, you'll be thinking in that language and that's the day you'll know you've mastered it."
When I had to take my final test for the Advanced Level, my boss told me to spend the whole afternoon to do my revision. "No more office work today", he said. I had the best marks in the class.
I have to put on record that it was due to JB's encouragement and support that I was able to master the language. When he left Malaysia after seven years, I was not only able to speak and write, I was able to perform my duties more efficiently.
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Some people come into your life and they change you forever.
This post is dedicated to you, Jorge Bayona for a life-changing distraction.
And I haven't forgotten the song you said was for me even before I turned 40! I chanced upon it on youtube and it brought back all these memories that I have put down in this post.
The children just spent six days with us. This time around, it was less hurried or harried. We'd done the touristic stuff before, well, most of it! Now we just did the usual day-to-day routine things and, of course, the ever important meeting up with some family members.
It's nice when there is no deadline to beat and no timetable to stick to because it's when stories come out.
This time around, it was a story that touched me and one that I didn't know about.
Jared said that when he started primary school, he would carry a picture of me and if he felt lost or lonely or scared, he'd take a quick look at it. Looking at my photo made him feel better, he said.
I never knew that he did this until he casually mentioned it. The image of him needing to do that made my heart ache a little. I didn't realise that in his own way, he'd found the solution to facing his own realities and fears. He was only seven or eight then. Even so young, he was very much a survivor, just like I am.
Did he know I carried a picture of him and his brother with me? Each time I needed to face another challenge, I only had to look at the picture of them. Unknown to each other, we'd both done the same thing, when we needed a boost.
Now that he is a grown man, I think he understands and values this connection that we have, in a different way.
This bond we share: there really is nothing quite like it. Not for me, anyway. Not for him, either.
Rushing through life is what we do automatically. We wake up and immediately we get on the treadmill of life and we don't stop until we get to bed. We do it unconsciously and think that this is real life.
I did that automatically for years. Well, there were moments when I didn't feel the rush. It would have been the days when I wasn't well and I was stuck at home, in bed and resting. Isn't it amazing how our bodies can force us to take a break when we need it?
More than ever before, I am now grateful that I have learnt to slow down. Before, I had the notion that if I slowed down, I would lose the momentum. I was afraid that if I didn't keep on rushing, I'd reach the end of the day with unfinished tasks. So this spurred me on when I was studying and then working. Yet, I found that the more I did, the more there was to be done.
I realise that it is not a good thing to always be rushing around. What did I hope to accomplish? Was I expecting approval from those around me?
I guess it's easier for me to say all this now that I am retired but I really wish I had known earlier.
Many people want to have the best out of life and rush about hoping to get it.
The funny thing is that if you want to get the best out of life, you have to slow down. Now I get it!
No, it's not an actual Anniversary! It's just one that exists inside my head. 21 January 1984 is a date that I can't forget. It's a date that I don't want to forget. I have no reason to want to do that.
Without sounding too dramatic, here's some background. I was married before. On this date, I tied the knot with a man that I had known since I was fourteen years old. When he died, my whole life changed. It was sudden. It was painful.
While the picture above is true for how I've always felt, it's not always how it turns out to be. We don't always get to fulfill what we set out to do. We don't always get that chance. While we are at it, we should make each day count. If you think that there is always a tomorrow, you're wrong. It's today that counts. It's NOW that matters.
I consider myself one of the lucky ones or blessed, if you prefer this word. While I was afraid that I would never know happiness again, I did find it.
Pic from FB
It's not easy to push aside the old feelings. It is never fun to return to a place in our past and reach for those moments. It isn't a bad thing to do this, once in a while. Like it is, today, for me. But I'll not let it suck me in. I know that today is a good day to remember. It's also a good day to be grateful for what was and, more importantly, what is.
Happy Anniversary, Doug! It would have been 29 years today for us. While I am not silly enough to feel sad, I am going to be silly enough to remember all the fun times we shared. Your legacy of love lives on in the people who knew you. This warms my heart and I am grateful that you were a huge part of my life.
I have someone new to annoy now. I think I'm doing a good job! Somehow I know that you are happy for me. Somehow it is enough.
