The Bottom Line

When time flies, we grumble - when time is sluggish, we grumble.

It seems like time can never be totally tuned to our current comfort level.

I need some time to organise my data, and I'm beginning to realise that I'm fast running out of it, because I'm working every day. Work is always good and we should never complain, but this last lap is really testing. Although I would like to be diligent and keep writing daily, it's impossible after a long day of negotiations, floodings and pacifying people. My brains are too tired and I'm only good for replying emails and updating this blog - afterwhich it's time to unwind with my MIO TV serials.

It's correct to say, that graduate school and work, just don't work out that well. It's not that I'm going to give up, I'm not - it's just that the kind of work I am engaged in, requires a lot of thinking, talking, putting things into the correct perspective and being tactful but accurate in the delivery.

I'm not unhappy just brain dead. It's been a long, hard, 3 weeks, talking to some people who are just not well-bred, people who are penny-pinching, people who have not been taught decent manners and those who take me for granted.

Everything concluded today well - so it's worth it, or is it?

It's definitely worthwhile economically, but psychologically, perhaps a bit too much of an overkill. When I am faced with such people, it's an auto-response for me to immediately figure out what's bugging them and why they are behaving in such a 'bad' way. I automatically analyse them and usually what I find isn't kosher, which IS the reason I had to bear the brunt of what I find to be either immature, insecure or put simply, a mountain tortoise trying to look slick on a city sidewalk.

People need to start accepting themselves with their limitations and stop trying to impress other people - it does nothing except make themselves look like a wasted silly person who's drunk on another persona - like wearing a shoe 2 sizes too large or squeezing your foot into a pair of shoes 2 sizes smaller. Or better still, put a Jaguar emblem on your non-Jaguar car.

If you're a mountain tortoise (sua-koo) and you openly acknowledge it, people will tend to be more helpful and less critical.

Just be yourself, there is nothing wrong with that.

As November inched forward, I remember being anxious that we are at the closing stages of 2009. It's tough to think so far ahead, especially when I'm not done crossing my crossroads yet. What I did, was to take a detoured route on the road I was on, which leads me back to the junction - I'm not sure if that is a longer or shorter detour, which doesn't matter, since I have gone past the initial crossing and now have stopped briefly to think - not all the alternative roads are visible yet - but some are.

This year, if I decide to put up a christmas tree, I may choose to get a new one - or a fresh tree - something I always wanted, but never got, because it wasn't practical - the fresh tree will shed and although my cats will have a field day, it will require extra housekeeping. Perhaps a fresh tree could mean a fresh start - and the wilting tree will remind me that if the race gets tired, then we can always choose to start fresh again - next christmas, with another fresh tree. Perhaps that's how christmas trees should be - not re-used.

Never thought about it that way, but it's never too late.

I need change - change is good - and the upside of a fresh tree is, you don't have to re-pack it into the box - you just throw it away - one less box to manage.

Imagine the fragrance of fresh pine - it's like waking up on the mountainside each day.

Since I don't make resolutions, the fresh tree will be symbolic - something that will mark the change that I have made in 2009, a change to give myself more respect so that I sleep better, work better and think better.

As I was telling my counselee yesterday, we compensate for everything that we find a shortfall from our ideal. The problem is never with being satisfied, when we are dealing with people who have minimal demands. Who are the people who have excessive personal demands? There will not be glaring numbers, nor will there be a way for anyone to actually find out because not many are able to come out and say that they are unhappy or dissatisfied. It's not an easy thing to grapple with and people rather think and believe that they are happy and satisfied.

For the ones who can readily admit to their less than ideal situation, it's kudos to them - because although they may not be society's ra-ra crowd, they will probably be the ones who can cope better than most under pressure, intense pressure. Logically, they have lived with personal pressures for so long that their coping skills have been tried and tested to work for them - these are the people who do not break that easily and these are the people who are likely to succeed in achieving their goal in the long run.

It would be perfect, if everyone could view such people that way, instead of classifying them as people who are not blending in, or people who are difficult, or people who dream.

It's always the majority wins. But in the race for living life, I think not. It's not the majority who will win but the few who choose to be different and who prefer not to be part of the human herd. We have one life - we must choose how we want to explore that one chance at living.

When a relationship lasts it's not because it's not necessarily a soul-mate situation. It could just be that both are aware of each others limitations and have found ways to compensate - i.e. they dumped their dream of being happy in another area - perhaps their career, their children, whatever that makes sense to them. And that is enough to take them right till 'death do us part'.

We need to get real with life, because if we don't, we will find ourselves always unhappy and never able to understand why we chose this over that. I know, because my life was plagued with unhappiness, with my choice of relationship partners who never seem to understand that I do need to be cared for and that I deserve to be loved as much as anyone else on the street. That just because I'm able to look after myself, it doesn't mean that I don't need to feel helpless sometimes. We all need someone, yes we do, but when half our life is gone and we have no decent memories to tell us that there is hope for us, we may just believe that we are the exception - people who are best alone.

If I could live my life again, I would ensure that I do not expose myself to this magnitude of disappointments that makes me believe that I don't have the energy to try again - not something permanent like a marriage, but at least a permanent relationship which works both ways.

My counselee is young and already feeling disappointed and helpless - I wish I could tell her that the world isnt' like that, but if I did, I would be giving her false hope about love. But I do not want her to give up - she has 2/3 of her life left to live with laughter and warmth. Perhaps whatever mistake that I have made, I just wanted her not to make the same and make it better for her.

How does a person like me, so empty of empathy and emotion be this concerned?

Well, empathy is a state of being and emotions are personal - just because I use them to cope better, doesn't mean that they are missing in my heart and soul. I do not have anyone who is there for me, anytime that I need him to be - and even if he is here, I am not convinced that being this exposed is best for me - because when I hurt, I hurt for years.

So, there isn't a best person for us.

We just balance everything so that it makes sense to us and allows us to move forward.

It's not the ideal, but sometimes we have to live with the less than ideal, deal with it and then decide what to do.

I think not, because being happy, is a state of mind - some people are able to satisfy themselves a lot more easily than others and hence with far less demands on themselves can propel their state of being towards the 'happy' level.

I do not remember a time in my life when I was cruising at that level - not even when I was in school. There was always something that caused me some unease, dissatisfaction and no matter how minor, it affects me so much that the course i'm travelling on either re-routes or i'll just drop altitude and be just slightly 'happy'.

No one is born depressed - a child is difficult when we are not able to discipline the child towards social/familial norms but not depressed. Depression is a state of being - perhaps for some it's a comfy place to be in - because to be happy and then sad may just be too much for a person to cope with - it can be a traumatic change.

Perhaps I have chosen to remain coping and depressed, because people disappoint you all the time. And if one is already depressed (not clinical) then there won't be a cause to get really upset because we are already there and no amount of disappointments can rattle us - we have prepared ourselves to be let down, so to speak.

It's okay to not have high expectations of people and it's okay to just know that most will disappoint at the most unexpected moments - that is human nature and no matter how great we think a person is, they are not us, they do not know what is important to us and they will be the cause of our pain. And if we just exist with people, and have zero expectations, then they usually pass with flying colours.

So lonely is life when one is able to 'look' into a person and what that person really has to offer - which won't be really much if all the pressures in life were released at once.

For the few who live life like me - one day at a time, having no huge expectations from people and strive to do things ourselves - it's a quiet road we're travelling on - one devoid of crowds but at least it provides us solitude to reflect, appreciate the changing scenes and really keep ourselves from getting emotionally unstable.

It's not because such people do not have the ability to feel - it's because they are able to feel more than most which makes them choose to be like this - detached.

I started my sunday in a fit of anger because the person whom I was married to for 17 years, came into my room, took my bath towel and used it. When I confronted him, his reply was that the freshly laundered towels were not around, when in actual fact, it was in plain view - on the dining table for the respective owners to take it to their own wardrobes. Now, if we want to construct a lie, we should get the facts correct. I then asked, how so, when he dumped his stuff next to a pile of laundered linen which was in the same laundry cycle as the towels - to which he claimed that it wasn't there - implying that the fresh towels just appeared as I was having my first cup of coffee. Never mind that, he had to take my towel from my bathroom, since that was my recently laundered towel - I colour code the bath towels, just so it doesn't get mixed up.

Of course the argument went on and he started changing his story at every turn that he could - which didn't make things better, but just provided me an opportunity to relate to him why he is a failure at being a person - the reason : he tries to get away from being incorrect by saying he doesn't remember and that he would remember if it happened the way I said it did.

So I did him in. I have had enough of constant lies and forgetfulness. We may share a common living space, but my bedroom is my bedroom and no one has access or should access that space even if they were looking for GOD, without my permission. He is the lamest person I have ever come across and because I am no longer married to him, it makes it so much easier for me to rock the boat and watch it sink to the bottom of the deep blue sea. No qualms.

For years, I had to put up with all this - because I didn't want to create animosity just so my son will not be affected. Finally, I have the freedom to do so and it will be of no surprise to anyone present, simply because the reasons he was dumped was made known to my son very clearly.

I know a lot of my friends think I'm courting a cardiac arrest by allowing him to live here - I think that I will not want to be the one who puts a homeless person on the street - but I will not tolerate him trying to bully me just because I'm nice. I'm not nice - I can put up with inconveniences but it will run according to my rules. If he thinks he can slip up and get away with it, then he's very wrong - I do not tolerate slip ups of either Freudian or other natures.

I spelt it out clearly for him. I am not his wife to push around and even if I still were, it doesn't give him the right to do that either. It may be a small thing, using my towel, but to me, it's not because it's my towel and if I thought someone needed to use it, I would offer it, but I won't know unless someone asked me for one, which didn't happen. So I rest my case.

All because of a towel?

Actually no.

It's all because he could not be honest enough to say that he came into my room, into my bathroom, when I was asleep, to take the towel from my bathroom shelf when his freshly laundered towels were on the dining table. Sick? yes, very.

I suppose, if there is any word to describe 2009 it would be - turbulent and definately THE turning point in my life. It came with changes to my life, drastic changes and I can only say, it was long coming and something that will bring me more contentment in the future.

If Christmas marks new beginnings, then this christmas should be one that I should look forward to as a milestone. Because I do not celebrate any festivals or special dates, preferring to have an even balance of importance for each day of my life, this may be the year where I celebrate christmas to officiate my new beginning, so to speak.

Having said that, it's tough to change how I do things, because no matter what I hope to do, to make it a celebration, it will not happen. I prefer observation in solitude to' loud' demonstrations. Whatever the changes I wish to embrace is very personal and no matter what the social expectation is, I am a non-conformist - which makes it difficult for me to wake up on christmas morning and have statement-making on my agenda.

BUT as always, I shall bask in the greens and reds and glitter - and hope that by the time January comes, I will be able to put my depression to rest and live my life the way I wanted to all this time. It's a big deal, to ear-mark a year - it's like asking ourselves, which year in our lives we remember the most. So, it's almost christmas - almost time to actually move on and live.