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A year ago, on my 20th birthday, you made, sent and gave me a book of quotes entirely handpicked and produced by you. It is probably, until now, my most favorite birthday gift ever. I have a particular shelf that holds particular items – my sheep/lamb family resides here, a bunch of collected cards, memorable items … and this. It takes center stage.

At low times like the past few days – today included – I would look through it. No matter how many times I’ve turned the pages – the quotes always seem relevant, as-if like new. You signed it off on March 2011 and now it’s almost a year to that date .. and so much has changed, I feel. The truth is, I am so happy for you, for your marriage – but I can’t, no matter how I try and what I try to think, otherwise or not, can’t help but think your marriage changes everything. I don’t own you, and so I apologize if it sounds like I’m being eerily possessive. But I guess I am nostalgic of my childhood and teenage years – those same years that were defined so largely by your presence.

Perhaps what I miss, isn’t you, or me – it’s the shadows of memories long gone, of times when it felt to me, we were at our closest. Because I am melancholic and idealistic that way; I apologize. Sometimes I think this changes nothing  – you’re still my sister, flesh and blood, and indeed you are still around. Yet there’s this reality I can’t shake off – that already something has shifted. Already I am moving towards a life of my own, and yours to a different home, a different extended family, a different set of faces. Is it possible to say it changes nothing and everything all at the same time?

You ended your letter in my book,
“and always believe how much you are loved. By me, and by all of us.” 

I don’t doubt that, but a year later and everything feels so.. different. I admit it breaks my heart a little to realize that in the end, we’d never truly been able to be there for one another. Because maybe the greatest shift I feel and admit am still trying really hard to adjust and adapt to, is that I don’t feel as if I can reach out to you anymore, not in ways I used to. Sending emails like this. Because you priorities now lie elsewhere and it is only right that I respect that. Frankly – perhaps this really is only fitting.

I.. really can’t believe I’m almost 21, graduating next year and have to start taking and making responsible decisions for my life, my self; I am the driver, no longer in the passenger seat. This transition is killing me.

.

Except nothing has even started yet.

When I were 20, I lived a life that was at its fullest. So full of blessings at every turn, regardless abstract or physical, regardless large or minuscule. At 20, I moved into a cozy apartment that although it got too drafty in summers and too cold in winters, was perfect in ways it made me feel at home; it was a place I lived for 2 years with 2 girls whom I hope will remain near and dear to me even in later years. At 20, I continued living away and finally fully embraced independence, aloneness, and everything that extracted myself from the shadow of doubt and into the person I accept and recognize as myself. At 20, everything was… Just. Right. That was the year I learned a little bit more of love – giving, receiving – and understood its different facets. That was the year I’ll look back and think, “What blessing! I was truly happy then.” 

I want to remember it this way because my heart – it feels like it is overflowing with happiness and gratitude;

Alhamdulillah, that’s really all I can convey.

.

I will chart a different path – not yours, not his, not anyone else’s … just, mine.

because there isn’t.

The irony that I ran into you, of all people, immediately upon returning back to Philly couple weeks ago  - while you were there to pick your girl up, that is – and the fact that you even asked, “do you want to take the cab back with us?” … Dude, I can’t decide what it is I feel for you and what it is I feel towards myself when it comes to you.

You’re wounding my pride, breaking my heart – figuratively, thank goodness – and all the while clueless as you ride into the sunset – pun, of course – with her, hands clasped and your little tryst in the dark together months ago that I, of all people, caught.

Maybe you just need to stop being so nice to me, because I am too gullible to believe any less.

No buts, no ifs, no maybes -

No fear, no shame, no cynicism, no angst.

Just love.

Is there really a person made for me, one that the stars will align for?

…

It isn’t that I am lonely – it’s simply that I believe so much that I have so much love to give but no one at the receiving end.

I want to believe so badly that I too, deserve some kind of wonderful.

Ah the perils of growing up.

I don’t know if you sense it in me – then, now, later, or perhaps always have – or if I am only imagining it; but I…

I feel too different from who I was, yet I’m acutely aware of the expectations upon me – the chains that bind, no matter how I try to deny. Culturally, religiously, lawfully. Can I deny? And what does that mean if I do? Is it possible to be defined by nothing?

Because this end of the world and that end of the world are literally half the globe apart, everything that takes place in one side when I’m on the other – both here and there – feel so much like a dream; as if nothing ever took place and happened, as if I can stay rooted in spirit, but not in physique.

As if I can and will always be away. As if history is nothing else but the present.

To be honest, I really don’t feel like treading my way back just yet – but herein lies the paradox; going against all my initial principles and promises. Then there’s also the honest truth that I’m afraid of the things and people I will continually lose as I attempt to build a life that is wholly mine and mine alone, wherever that may be but mostly, not where I’m expected to be.

Almost 21 – 9 years to 30 -, 1.5 years to graduating university; I’m not a kid anymore.

Won’t lie, Real Life feels starkly too close for comfort it’s currently plaguing me plenty.

.

]]> http://blogphilic.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/persistent-thoughts/feed/ 0 jandoe http://blogphilic.wordpress.com/2012/01/14/ruang-rindu/ http://blogphilic.wordpress.com/2012/01/14/ruang-rindu/#comments Sat, 14 Jan 2012 20:25:35 +0000 jandoe http://blogphilic.wordpress.com/?p=3423 ]]> A few days ago, Mum sent a few photos from the wedding – clearly it’s a topic that isn’t going away anytime soon, much as I am attempting to extricate myself from it and speak as few words as possible about it, especially here in blogphilic – and one of it was a picture of us, the four sisters. It was taken on the last day – the second and final reception that took place on Sunday and was the most relaxed of all yet of course then I was already at my limit and therefore was in all honesty, only holding back my grief and frustrations.

On the groom’s side, they were taking photos for oh, perhaps every 5 minutes (because let’s face it: what did they do throughout the 3-day event? Just about next to nothing) with the bride and groom. Looking back now I do hold some regret in not having more family photos during the event – not even one of me and her because I could not bring myself to even stand next to them – and when the events took place, all I wanted then was just to walk away, so much that whenever photo-taking happened, I practically had to be forced … hence why, even my smiles seem so incredibly fake.

I look at the photo now and feel a strange ache.

They are my sisters, I love them;

I am just not sure if I am their ally anymore.

We are all too separate where things count most – opinions and matters of the soul.

I look at the photo again and see myself, that forced smile versus all their grins;

For strange reasons, I feel my stomach in knots; my heart breaks.

I feel too far from them to tread my way back, still the person I was.

.

Perhaps the truth that really breaks my heart is the stark realization that even if I could – I wouldn’t.

I don’t intend to give them more credit than I already did in the past but sometimes I do genuinely think that for every person that crutch is different – a lost lover, a could-have-been-more-than friend, a distant sibling or relative … A group of friends, or just, a friend.

So many moons have passed and too many different things have taken place in the in-between, events and memories so much more worth mentioning; yet like the sucker that I am to sentimentality, sometimes I admit that I still give in, take a moment and recall a certain past.

Sometimes I remember them, her; most times the girl that I was. Does it hurt still? Not anymore. Do I remember still? Vaguely, if not just barely. Yet maybe because those were foolish times, golden years, unfinished business of sorts – I erase, fragments remain. Repeat.

“The ones you wish you’ve nothing to do with anymore are always the ones you can’t get away from – why is that? I hate that.”

Because such is life, perhaps. …and therefore growth; coming-of-age.

On good days I remember the friends we were and ache a little at that; I pause and put aside my pride, quietly admitting that hey pal, I miss you.

But the past, no matter my romanticized sentiments and beliefs – must firmly be kept in the past. Period.

So I miss you, sometimes the girls we were too – but it’s a time long gone;

A past that I openly acknowledge and sometimes still recall, but one that is also simply no longer worth treading through.

How else do I say this, can I say this? I love my life here.

…So much that the realization that there is only 1.5 years left – I ache.