#1: poetic possibilities

    

     Earlier this week, I bought a set of magnetic words for my office cabinets. I thought it would be fun and useful, since I don't get to write as often as I would like anymore. 

    Whenever I can, I would clear up my table and take out the small metallic box. I would look at the words and imagine, just for a moment, of the poetic possibilities of life. 

  

    Limitations are part of life. This small metallic box only contain so many words - and yet, I have not lived through all their variations. It dawned on me how we often stop trying to live out the many beautiful facets of our lives because we already assume our constraints bind us - when perhaps they are merely the sieve to bring out what is pure and intense inside of us. 

   We are our own poems. 

Home & Decor: it's beautiful here

    About two weeks ago, Zm and I received our house keys! We have been so busy though that we have only visited the house 3 times since. We are quite excited and happy about the house - although it's still a far far road till we can move in. We've just sent in the first round of defects - luckily relatively minor ones! - and just started sourcing for furniture and contractors to do the hundred and one things it seems a house needs to become livable. 

    We had a relatively funny conversation the other day: 

    Me: I thought about it and I think wooden decking will be really nice for our balcony. 

    ZM: There's no budget for it! 

    Me: I'm sure we can squeeze it in somewhere...

    ZM: Have you forgotten about lighting? 

    Me: Oh right! Lighting. 

    ZM: Maybe we can do it progressively. 

    Me: Oh! Like we don't install lights in the third bedroom! Live by candle light. 

    ZM: (Pause) I was referring to the balcony. 

    Me: It's not like we will use the third bedroom haha. 

    ZM: We probably won't live in the house very long anyway. 

    Me: (Sad face)

    ZM: Are you going to promise me we will live there forever? 

    Me: I don't even know how we will be like in the next five years!

   

    The other thing Zm and I wrestle with is the decorating theme for the house. We have different aesthetic leanings - ZM prefers the place to be very spacious, bare and minimalist, while I lean towards colour and more clutter (see above). To be fair, ZM has given me free rein to the decorating of the house, but I would like to create an environment that we would both love. 

    If I could say what our theme would be clearly, I suppose it would be wood. Haha. Some mood boards: 

     

An hour later after the conversation above,  ZM walked me back to my office building as we were heading back for a night of work: 

   Me: You know... earning money is tough. We will probably live in our place forever. 

   ZM: Live in our place forever? 

   Me: Yes!

   ZM: (Smiles, then immediately gives me a look) You almost tricked me there. 

the wave is coming

 
       You are the kind of person who always gets carried away, Zm once said. He said it not in a negative way, nor in a positive way. In a matter of fact way. In the way of the man who is always holding the string to a kite that is roaming.

      I think I am the kind of person who becomes consumed by whatever she does. If I cannot give something my all, then there is nothing. He gives me that knowing look. He has strong arms, for he has much to carry.

       On one Sunday, there was so much to do but I didn't want to get out of bed. I laid on the bed, curved in a c as if I was a sea shell. Zm turned from his computer, took off his earphones and settled next to me. I opened one hand, and he put his hand in. Two people curved on a bed, holding hands, waiting for the inevitable.

five years

  (I posted the entry below on Facebook on 10th October 2013 to mark the fifth anniversary of my relationship with ZM. It was meant to be a little surprise for ZM, with a little public flavour, since we have never been very public with our relationship when it first started. In a way, we have been through so much, and I just wanted to express how much he meant to me, in my own way.)

In my whole life, I always feared, most of all no longer being able to say "no".

Even as I wanted to marry you, I feared not being able to leave you. 

I feared the strength of my desire to be with you would weaken with our vows - where can desire roam in the place duty stays? 

I asked you, needled you, wanting to show that you had nothing to stand on - these promises of forever - what do they really bind? Our feet?

"What happens if I leave you?"

"I would be alone."

"Impossible."

"Any other relationship would be a diluted, sanitised version of this. I've put everything I've had into this - there's nothing left. If this does not work, nothing will work."

"This is it," He said, "This is it for me."

And, that, was why I married Him.

I have learned...

    ... that you don't grow farther from grief. You just see it from a different place. But it is still inside of you, and raw like cracked eggs. 

  ... that my husband calculates every activity we do to estimate whether it will cause me pain or tiredness. 

  ... that most of us are unhappy because we refuse to admit that we are not happy.

  ... that the hardest people to reject are those that are working for our best interests. 

  And that, even if you refuse each passing day, the sun still rises. 

what keeps me awake at night

We will never be younger.