Why I Blog?

Once again I head to bed and I'm stuck with this strange feeling that keeps me awake even when my eyes can't stay open any longer. I was strangely struck with the question; "Why do I blog out my problems?". More specifically, "Why do I blog out all my troubling thoughts when I can actually talk to someone about it?". I have actually wondered why is it that I can be able to let go of my frustrations through making a little story to post on the tangled web in cyberspace and something in my mind just popped.

After listening to quite a few people telling me about the problems in their lives, I somehow realise that I can't seem to let myself burden/bother someone else with my troubles. The problem is that I actually feel guilty about unloading on someone else. Even though I've managed to get comfortable enough to bitch about things with Amy, it's probably because we make fun of the whole situation, and laugh at the whole issue, that in the end that it doesn't feel as though I'm unloading shit off onto her.

I guess in the end, I'm still more of a listener and rather have my fingers do the talking.

So to the ones who know I need to let something out but just won't talk about it, don't think that I don't want to share my problems the way you might be able to, it's just that I don't want to deal with that guilty feeling after I do.

Oh, by the way, text messaging is another form I find useful. Hahaha!

Footprints On The Heart

What is the use of having a best friend when we all die in the end? Does it not just give one more person to get hurt or feel lost when your time has come? So the thoughts might be a little bit morbid but the question popped into my head one night and I just couldn't stop thinking about it.

I guess it came out because of Adi's soccer coach, Bernard, who collapsed at a game and never recovered from the stroke he had. Well we all know life is unpredictable and if it's your time to go, you'll leave one way or another. As it can be seen on the multiple messages for him to fight through and recover, and then followed by all the condolence messages, it's quite obvious that he's touched quite a few lives. These people, however, are mainly the players in his team, and people who know him through the game. What I'm wondering, is that how many people that he'd call his best or closest friends in school have kept in touch long enough to know that he's passed on.

During my grandmother's wake, the people I saw were mainly old neighbours, friends of relatives, and of course, relatives. So maybe due to her age, or more precisely the era when she was born, school wasn't a necessity and you don't even hear stories from her about having a close childhood friend. Furthermore, she was married and already a mom when she was still a teenager. As for my uncle's wake, I wasn't really sure who was there, but I knew that there were people close to him like best friends who paid their last respects. My uncle, however, died before he was even 50, and I guess that would be considered young compared to the age people tend to live to now.

Then there's my mom's case. She doesn't seem to talk about any one particular friend she had in school but I know of a group of girls she kept in touch with till the few years just after I was born. So I wondered how many people will I keep in touch with and for how long? As it is, I'm cutting people out of my life as some are seriously dead weights and just pull u down in life. I know the people I'd like to see to the end of my time, but I'm questioning if it is even possible. Although communication with each other has significantly been made easier than before, there are times when people just give up on using new gadgets. Then there are people you know from work, and you wonder if they're keepers or the friendliness just ends once you depart from the company?

There's also the bit about knowing if any of your friends have passed on. Especially now when I don't read the papers that often, getting my news either from tv or the net, I don't really get a glimpse of the obituaries. (Told you it's a bit morbid) It's not that I think friends of mine are gonna start dropping dead anytime soon, but death is something that is almost always unexpected. I was thinking more into the future, when (hopefully) we're all old and passing our time in some nice way (wheelchair racing perhaps?), if we would even remember the people we now call our best friends? If we do, would we be able to make the effort to head down to pay our respects?

In the end, it all boils down to the fact that a death of someone I know, even as briefly as Maria (Shirley's mom), or Bernard (Adi's coach), still affects me somehow. No matter how many unexpected deaths you hear about, you still feel the bit of loss for the family once you've gone through your own.

Off To Western Australia

Back But Not For Long

Gut Feelings

Chatting with some friends of mine, I realise that it's not first impressions that actually tell you if you should keep that person as a friend, but rather, it's better to go with your gut feeling. I'm not saying that going through thick and thin with someone isn't a good way to know if you've got a good friend beside you. However, there is a handful of people that you just know you'll never be friends with, no matter how many times people want to try and reassure you that the person just has a quirk. Having a quirk is one thing. being lame is another. I've got a load of friends who I treasure and each of them has at least something odd about them. None of them, however, give excuses for any opportunities that they've missed, no matter how small.

This one person, whom I've not liked since school for some odd reason, is the main focus of this post. I still remember that she was the first one I spoke to during my first day in school, and I clearly remembered frowning at her because I gave up asking her to repeat herself as she just didn't stop mumbling. Since that very day, I've treated her as a classmate and nothing much more. Some of my friends in class would tell me to give her a chance, to get to know her, and that she's probably trying to get to know me better. So even after years of knowing this person, I never really got to know her.

Finally we started chatting and I got to understand her a bit more, and maybe I've found out too much about her character that she hasn't actually realised. Other than being needy, which I seriously cannot tolerate, she is constantly putting herself down for things that might not even involve her. Another thing is the snooping that she seems to try and do, and thinks that two people she keeps asking about don't see what she's doing. Why is it that some people just can't ask a question to the person who is directly involved and instead, goes to someone else for that information?

What got me really irritated is that she told the Mia something that involved me, which should really be a conversation between herself and I. However, she decided to contact both of us to set a date for something, but in the end, sent a private message to Mia and said that it takes so long just to get a day to meet up. Now how is it that when you're faced with 10 days to choose from, you only have the one-track mind to choose the date that I've already said I will be busy on? How dare you actually complain about it as well? Seriously, 10 days, of which 4 I've said I'm busy, then for the next 6, none of us are working, yet you can't choose any of the 6 available days to go out? The countless times that you've been asked to let us know if you'd be available on the dates we are have always ended with you either sending us stupid exclamation marks, no reply at all, or a quick dash to get out of the conversation. So if that's the case, don't point out the fact that you decided to pick the date where I have to work to meet up, and use that as an excuse for why it takes us so long to meet up.

In the first place, I don't even meet up with most of my best friends as often as you want to, and here you are, someone I didn't even treat as a friend in school, trying to meet up with me as often as possible to do something you think I like. You obviously don't know me well enough to know what I do when I feel a certain way. I don't shop or eat my problems away - I blog my problems away, cry all my anger out, and cook out all my stress.

I think in the end, my gut feeling about you was right - I should just stay away. If people want to stay friends with you, entertain you when you're feeling down just to hear u talking non-stop about something not many of us are interested in, then let them go ahead and do that. I for one, cannot be bothered to listen to you and your excuses, and escpecially won't stand for the fact that you constantly put yourself down even when you're told that you're not at fault.

Is your skull that thick?

Unfair Empathy

Em⋅pa⋅thy: the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.

Sometimes I wonder what is the cause of that feeling that comes once in a while to bug the shit out of me for days on end. How is it I'm so affected by just someone's mood changing?

Somehow when your mood went downhill, I felt like shit. Why did it feel like it was my fault that you weren't all too happy with what went on today? I don't get how is it that the weight of your world decided to land on my shoulders and eat me from inside out.

Is it worth it to know people that well? To know what it is like to walk a mile in someone else's shoes?

It's not to say that empathy is all that bad. There's a time and place for everything. And when it hit me while giving a hug to Shirley at her mom's funeral, that's fine. I know how it feels to lose someone dear, and when a hug led to tears that time, it's all right. It's normal, it's expected.

However, when someone else's feelings have latched on to you, and in the end, it leads to that sickening feeling like I have something to apologise for - that I'm actually the guilty party, that I caused whatever sadness/anger you may feel - that just isn't right. Why must it be that I feel that I'm in the wrong even if I didn't do anything to harbour ill feelings? Why is it that I have to find out that it's actually not me who is angry or sad and yet I've to let it out on my side as well, so that I can feel better?

I wonder what if one day someone were to feel my weight on their shoulders. Can anyone really bear the weight?

Off To Jakarta

Details here...