Pain

So this is what a broken heart feels like.

I'd forgotten. 

Solvitur ambulando

I walk for 2 hours as fast as I can, to make up the 12,000 steps for the day for the first time in so long but as I walk, I am conscious that it is not about the walking.

The pain in my heart from your cruel words which reduced me to nothing rises up. But after about an hour of one foot in front of the other, I suddenly realise that it is not your cruel words that are causing me so much pain. 

For I have to admit, the hurt is pungent. 

It is the fact of our discord. It is that your words have ended things between us so effectively that I am helpless before them. 

It's not even a matter of pride. Looking past them would make me your slave to be trampled on, as the mood takes you. 

I can't, I am not willing, to do that. I think you have serious emotional issues or maybe you just enjoy domination and cruelty. 

Is it that darkness within you that I'm attracted to? Am I looking to be tied up and lashed?

It hurts.

You hurt. 

I can't. 

I'll just keep walking. 

I'll walk my way through this until I come out on the other side. 

Memories or Dreams

I dreamed of a house that had a river running behind it.
I loved the look of the river. 

I wanted to play in it.

They didn't let me.
I was so small.
And so precious.

And I loved them even if they would not let me 

splash around in the tea-coloured water.
It was so easy to love people then.

My world was safe.

And the only person 

I was afraid of

was imaginary.

Sorting through the debris

One part of my life ends, the next has not begun. In the meantime, I unearth emails from a forgotten past:

Dearestest Nitsy Poo,

I love your emails - they give me a snippet of you - (and you do realise you're beginning to sound like Gloria, right? I love you too, papi, haha).

Right now am stressed doing work I should have finished weeks ago. But didn't.

As for pain, it is almost non-existent...although that part is tender and I don't quite chow down on it. Just had lunch with Sharon Tan and Leni from the US embassy, with Anna...they brought me one of those comment forms and a pencil and since I like writing letters, I asked each individual at the table for their comments and wrote it all down in a nicely worded letter. Anna read said letter and pointed out that dessert has two S's. I only put one. Which made it the Sahara and not sweet things.

I saw Hamdan yesterday and he mentioned you...I said yes, I saw the pix and did you guys catch up over wine and he looked appropriately shocked (Hamdan? Wine?) and said no, at a conference. He wants to take Addy and me out for a movie on Monday, sort of like the old days because he's spending a lot more time in KL.

I have two stories to write, one to clear, people to call, things to do, but it's darkish outside and what I really really want to do is curl up on some convenient sofa with a good, delicious book and snooze over it...

Whatcha think?

Jenn-Jenn

In one life

 ...how many times can a heart break?

I guess I am both sad and weary of life. All this pain. My little creatures gather around me wrapped in their own pain at what has happened. I see it in their eyes. They see it in mine.

I am so tired.

So tired.

So I will do what I did before, and make lists and get through the day, doing what I need to do to tick off those lists.

Nothing makes sense and right now, I don't see a way forward.

So I will keep trudging in the dark, illuminating the few steps ahead with the faint light of my phone. Hoping I do not stumble, but it's OK, if I stumble, if I fall, I can always right myself or pick myself up and move on.

I am only 50.

My 40s were all about the walls closing in as my life became smaller and smaller.

What do I do now?

And now you're gone

 Here's the thing. The moment you're gone, I'm supposed to let you go. I'm supposed to wish you well for your journey and bid you godspeed. 

And then suddenly I feel a twinge in the centre of my chest and I miss you. I can't help it.

Your winsome little face which I loved to kiss. 

And whenever I came home, you would rub against my leg and tell me off for ever thinking to leave you for a while, a bit, any time at all.

While you were there, I felt guilty every time I had to go out for a time, and nervous while I was out. Because you were there, waiting for me. 

And you were so little.

You never grew.

You remained a baby

My baby.

And now you're gone.

I don't know how to deal with death. I never know how to deal with death. All the books I read, all the thoughts I think, all the hours spent with my legs folded, breathing in and out...all for nought. I can't get beyond this pain. I find it hard to breathe.

All  I can do is miss you.

And miss you.

And miss you.

And reach out and long to take you in my arms but you're not there.

And you will never be there again.

As I was deleting email

 I found an old email I had sent my colleagues to thank them for their support when my mother lay dying. I wanted to preserve it some place. Why not here?

My dear colleagues,

I want to thank you so much for the flowers and the pak kum you sent when my mother passed away. More than the things in itself, it was the thought behind the thing. I know you've been covering for me, and my absence was a huge inconvenience but you guys never bugged me while I was there so I could be with my mother, with a clear conscience.

In fact, I spent a lot of time on the last day with her, and was the last among my family to see her alive, talk to her, kiss her goodnight.

I cannot even begin to tell you what all this means to me. I am still processing the loss and still (fortunately) in a state of limbo which allows me to function semi normally...which is good because I intend to pick up where I left off and be a fully functioning member of the team.

I know it's weird to write all this rather than tell you in person. But I was always better at writing what matters than saying it. When I talk, I tend to focus on unimportant inanities.

I feel like sending this off to y'all at 3 in the morning (when I'm sure, like all the mornings before this) I will still be awake so we don't all have to be embarrassed by this display of emotion (being good Malaysians we like to keep it inside and learn how to hide our feelings) but I shall send it to  you now, when you're all busy trying to complete stories while I while away the time, surfing the net (sorry Anna, but no interviews to transcribe yet) and writing vague unsatisfactory emails to people who promised interviews sometime maybe at some future date not specified.

It looks like rain. (Elaine, you can do a little dance, here while Anna, we can continue nonetheless, squishing through puddles and SHOW her).

I would end with an appropriate poem...

She was a phantom of delight when first she gleamed upon my sight a lovely apparition sent to be a moment's ornament..

or

She walks in beauty like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies and all that's best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes....

or

Out of the night that covers me black as the pit from pole to pole I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul

or

the quality of mercy is not strained it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath...

or

I've run out of quotations and Anna has just called to say let's go walkies now.

Love,

Jennifer/Jenny/Jenn or all em fancy derivatives

Daily footsteps on water (or I ticked my bullet journal today)

I have a pile of New Yorkers

haphazardly splayed on the table

that I have yet to clean

still in their plastic covers.

Some are from last December

It's already this October

and they broadcast a failure

to keep up.

I read what I can

an article a day, maybe two

no small feat when they can run

to 30 closely-written pages.

I have not renewed my subscription

It is too much, too much!

and I have other things to tick off

in my trusty bullet journal

which I cling to

in spite of everything

to let me know that 

I have not allowed the days to pass

like footsteps on water.

Did I read a chapter of the book-du-jour?

Hadot's Spiritual Exercises,

or that biography of Van Gogh 

written in the 1950s?

Have I meditated? 

Learnt a few French words and phrases

on Duolingo?

Listened to Deacon Keith Fournier

recite the Bible readings for the day?

With his distinctive panache

on Catholic Online?

Have I cleaned the kitty litter?

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

The one thing 

I don't record

is the hours spent

in front of Netflix 

as my mind atrophies

and I become drooling

and sub-verbal.

(and suddenly it's four in the morning

and I'm working tomorrow!)

Pick myself up

Dust myself up

get back to that list.

start again.

I refuse to be

just another

pandemic casualty.

It's time for Calm 

and Tamara  Levitt's

short meditation of the day.

10 minutes.

I can do 10 minutes

What's so hard about 10 minutes?

Maybe it will rein in

this slow disintegration

and reverse my attrition.

Later for you.