The Idiot

I dreamt of someone I have hated for so long that I forgot I used to have a crush on him. In my dream, he seemed to revert to who he became so impossibly horrible and I remembered how much I had admired him. Nothing ever happened. It was one of those crushes, where you admire from afar and do nothing about it.

We were in another place, a place I could not identify, maybe Johor, although there were hints of PJ in it. He had cats or rather furniture that had been mauled by cats, like me. He was quiet and gentle and I felt stirrings of the old attraction as if all that had happened in the intervening years had disappeared. It was strange. 

I used to admire him so because he was unfazed by life and knew how to shortcut any process. I was overwhelmed by life and didn't know how to shortcut anything. I always took the long, ponderous way, and spent way too much energy on anything.

He had a light touch and I had the tread of an elephant. I never learned to tread lightly and take things as they come. 

Everything spilled over with me -- too much emotion, too much reaction, too much anger.

No wonder people recoiled. We live in a light touch world and those who go about, stepping lightly are those everyone wants to be close to.

I am reading The Idiot by Elif Batuman and wondering at how she goes along with everything her crush says although I can't really figure out why she has a crush on him. And I thought about how I hated the all-nighters, how I hated going along with things - how my present desire and common sense were always at odds.

Oh the stupid things that I did and went along with. Oh the stupid things that I initiated.

When I watch the Chinese or Korean shows or even read this book, I am amazed by how self-contained the women are, how dignified, how they didn't feel the need to go along with everything.

The dream left me with a strange feeling inside, like something resolved. This was a grudge that I forgot I carried. It was lodged deep in my gut, only surfacing if this particular guy somehow surfaced in the new, in social media, in my environs. I took my hate for granted, it felt righteous, and I didn't even think that much about it.

But now, I guess, I can let it go.