I am a living human being.

9.50am 18 July 2007 Wednesday

Time spent contemplating alone does funny things to people. Put a thinking person in front of dishes every day, you get dissent sprouting out of the tap. I've tried to separate feelings from thoughts in hope of getting some viable solution, but so far all I can discern is growing despair.

What was it that I was born to do? People usually proceed in a predictable fashion: go to school, graduate, find a job, get married, have kids, retire... Do we really know where we are going when we take each step forward? I remember climbing up a quarry and having to repel down. I had guided all the younger kids down and was now the last one. Instead of taking the plunge into empty air, I had cowardly ran back into the woods. Perhaps I am one of no faith in anything but the solid ground beneath my feet.

As I grew up, there came more and more opportunities to jump off cliffs to unknown destinations. I took some and others I left alone. Right now in the silent apartment with dirty dishes in the kitchen and ripening plums that need attention, I take a pause to ask, when am I going to hit solid ground again?

It is like watching a bad TV series in hope that it's a joke that the writers are playing and the storyline will turn around. Unfortunately this script is in my hands and I've absolutely no idea what I'm doing with it other than taking one day at a time. I hate this... ambiguity within me. It is akin to being lost in a fog, where nothing seems real and you expect to snap out of it any time.

I am a living human being, made to think and be productive to the society. Not to merely vacuum floors, clean kitchens, cook and bake, and sit and read. It might seem like an ideal vacation to some but it's suffocating me. You escape to your work daily, use it as a cover, use it as a reason, an excuse. But what do I have to show after a day's labour?

More dirty dishes, that's what it is.

I am a living human being, brought up by parents who gave me everything so that I can reach the highest stars. Given up by a boyfriend who thought he was in my way to greater things, only to shackle myself with someone else who holds me in a gilded cage. How can I possibly be unhappy or discontent? I have all the material goods anyone can hope for, but these hands are made for more than just scrubbing and rubbing.

2 people have 2 sets of ideals, and I agree that it's darn near impossible to find someone with the exact same thoughts. Isn't that why people compromise with each other? You find a balance point where both are happy and can live with. If a see-saw has a heavyweight on one side and the lightweight on the other, neither of them are happy because their partner isn't. It doesn't mean that the lightweight tries to carry the heavyweight on her back, because one day it'll be the straw that breaks a camel's back. It doesn't mean that the heavyweight tries to carry the lightweight because they're trying to balance the see-saw, not carry each other.

By now I'm out of steam not because I'm out of things to say, but because I've gotten the most important things off my chest. There are things I can put out of mind, things that can wait, but not these. Each day that these words are unsaid or a decision unresolved (be it OK, I will try my best or Sorry, I can't do it) the discomfort builds in my heart. There is nothing to do with love or anger, but just basic things that build the basis of two people's lives together. We're lucky to have mostly similar principles and beliefs, and for that I'm really grateful for. The book I read yesterday described a lover who always says "I love you but...". I don't want us to be like that. I love you and there is no but. All I do know is I am unhappy with some big issues that if left alone, will only grow bigger and bigger. I don't want to be thinking of an escape every day. That isn't what our life should be.