what doesn't kill ya...

i've always been fascinated by the human propensity to self-mutilate. being a tatt-phile and having dated a couple of cutters and having students who do same, i completely empathise with that coping mech. sometimes the inner rage or turmoil is beyond satisfactory externalising you need to experience some form of physical pain to expunge it and reach a level of catharsis with it. i find that it is especially helpful when you're so incensed with another you would rather hurt yourself than them, well because truth is it would save you a whole lot of legal issues and irrevocable emotional scars on the other party.

i recall once being so mad at the ex-hub i broke a stool on my leg, well a foot-stool more like, and another instance with my kids i punched the wall so hard they were left scattering for their room. because had i directed all that violent rage on any of them i would be writing this from jail.

anyway i am really tired. each time i get this urge to yell or lash out, and i do it in such an uncontrollable demonic way, i may feel a sense of release, but also regret. regret because i have let myself be defeated by what i have taken pains (irony) to manage for a year. it undoes every single effort to attain that mindful control of my emotions and letting it reach a shruggish acceptance. my friends said last year that there was a visible calm about my general demenour and i attribute it to application of buddhist principles. i crave that harmony again, but it seems almost impossible when i'm in a relationship with someone who manages to somehow irk me to a point of relentless rage, often unintentionally though effectively. i ponder on what cause this and i realise it has a lot to do with what is a central pet peeve -- presumptiousness. by that i mean when one assumes they know me so well they try to tell me what i'm doing wrong, or they disrespect my own experiences and the strengths which come with it. and when this is coupled with a self-righteous air it escalates the anger.

i have lived almost 43 years come end-june and it has been an arduous journey of learning and self-knowledge. having been married for 10 years once, been in 4 long-term female relationships an average of 3 years each, raised 2 kids for 12-14years and worked since i was 18 y.o, bought and furnished three and sold two homes, i have amassed ample credits in responsibility and confidence and faith in myself. so to have someone possibly unintentionally discredit all that in her words or deeds, making me out to be some crazed unstable persona, or worse, one displaying irrational behaviour, is irksome to say the least. never in my entire life have i been laid so low or have to confront such unsolicited self-doubt.

and so when i step back and take a look at the past few months, it baffles me how i could have reached such a low point nor have to grapple with such lost faith in myself. then the answer hit me. it really isn't you, viv. you've built such a real and stable world and it has been all good. if i should pass on today, i'm dead haha certain all the people in my life from family, friend, colleague, lover would attest to why they were all these to me. because i was a good person to all of them, because i never once compromised my honesty or sincerity to any of them, because i gave each and every one of them my truth, my strengths, my love, my attention.

that said, i should never let a moment of another's ego or expectations undermine all i've made in my 43 years. someone i am right with. it isn't pride. it is an honest acknowledgement of my best parts. so yes, it isn't me. i have done the best of my abilities and i sleep well at night knowing it.

love and light.

heart via tummy

i know that horrid cliche applies but everytime i eat a meal prepped by baby my heart n tum smile in unison. how can it not, when i'm a greedy child. more so when the shrubs are also gobbling along side, well not as fast as i grab the fish hehe you snooze you lose!


and i wonder if anyone in the world has been proposed to for making a divine bowl of home aka soup of celestial creatures...

i know i'm blessed with a fiancee who makes the most amazing ones and yes, everytime i drink them my heart says, correct.

and you can tell from my pau face how well-fed i've been haha
from this last year  to this 

what dreams may come

everytime i get together with mommy colleagues of my age we discuss the state of our kids' education, not the most interesting of topics but that's what the system does to us. makes us unduly anxious about their future beyond school.

there are two mommys on complete opposites of the continuum while i maintain somewhere in the middle. wendy is a mommy of a sec 1 boy who plagues him about his schoolwork every other day. mich has two teen boys, one of whom she encouraged strongly to go the poly route while the younger is on a tennis scholarship from STA. evidently the latter puts everything in her faith despite both being devout christians. when we chat i find myself being a bit of both, simply because i want them to thrive in this crazy society of hedonism. it's unwise to raise them as complete hippies much as i would like to throw caution to the wind.


so last night at dinner, jo raised the subject of jc life. she had showed up an average 14 lr15 score which i said would qualify for a lower-ranked jc which may possibly land her in a lower-ranked faculty.  on the flipside her art project reaped an A2 which to me only reveals her true aptitude academically. i said it would be wise to apply for my jc since it's across from home and with me as staff would garner her 2 points off her aggregate (to which she nobly replied was 'cheating' haha). i told her the qualifier was 8 or 10 for science and arts respectively. however i did also mention the wonderful offering for media studies in the poly also a stone's throw away. she mentioned much interest there and my gut tells me that would suit her better. i've seen too many students in my jc crash n burn or waste two years of their lives here only to opt for the alternatives. it isn't so bad if this weren't a country so unforgiving of failure,

anyway, jill's coping well with As n Bs, something i beamed and which she gawked at. i guess overachiever has been part of my DNA but tbh i've become so jaded both as student and teacher. i tell my students constantly to keep the faith and never lose their souls to the system. if anything, they should introspect on what really drives them to wake everyday. happiness or obligation? or is there a compromise somewhere which will not rob them of their dreams? i certainly hope the shrubs would discover themselves at their own pace without any regret or resentment, and maintain the virtues of simplicity they were raised on. well, discounting my material indulgences which granted were mostly unsolicited hehe


and exactly a year has passed, and i feel we're stronger as a family. and with baby in my life i think things can only get better.

100th post, 100years

this was taken the weekend before i proposed. i want to take many more of these with her. many many more...

simi lai?

poor baby has joined the inane fray of sims social, possibly out of inexplicable ennui

i know she's just trying to comprehend my world and i appreciate it. i just wish it wouldnt get under her skin so much.

baby say 3x it's just a game. god knows i said that too often to self but to no avail.

damn i miss her. we'll have our own weekend plans this week so well, it'll be the first weekend w/o her. wailll

making memories

so soks gave me this journal which is timely for starting a travel one. last year i wanted to write about my trips with the shrubs but was often too lazy or morose to do so, having wept through a few days of the it not because of being travel-worn but it brought back too many painful memories of my last gf and our trips. but that isn't the point of this entry haha

i am looking forward to the coming trip with baby and it'll be our first real family one. i intend to document or keep scraps of our journey inside haha complete with silly little momentos. after all, this journal looks by default vintagey and like it's seen better days.

here's to a lifetime of memories and reminiscing =]

and always my emergency person <3

love in any language

today we caught our first bilingual play together,男男自语

although it was gay-themed, the issues were universal. i was especially moved by the dialogue between the protagonists when they were breaking up. it was raw and identifiable. i suppose pain is universal. what tugged the heartstrings was the love they shared till death, something which transcends time and space. and that's what i see in us too. the connection which is sublime and can only be felt, even when words fail to express it adequately. i know this is what we have despite the meltdowns and hurt. i know that i want us to always have this and separate it from those angry moments. because she is my world, and like the oscar character in the play, i know i'd fall to pieces without her in my life.


baby baked cream puffs!!
and restored my microwave n kitchen. so <33333333

"even when we had little, we were never poor"

and that pretty much sums up what i saw last evening at dinner with her folks, namely her mom who is the center of her world, who shaped that wonderful soul i have come to love deeply.

in her mom's eyes i saw the same kindness and generous heart, in her relationship with her partner i saw the familiar way she loves, and in their lives i saw a heartwarming future of what we can and will be.

all i know is i have been gifted with the best sum of her parts -- her grounded upbringing, her strength of work experiences, her calmness in her faith. to be in a relationship with such an individual is surely a once-in-a-lifetime blessing. and to commit an eternity with someone like that is surely a foregone conclusion.

reasons to stay:

• your soups
• your loving heart
• your sexiness
• you

baby angel darling you

i know the previous entry disturbed you because it makes you wonder if i have tweaked or changed myself for you.i only tell you one thing. or maybe two. no. and never.

that was the defining moment when i regarded your soul for the first time one thursday evening after we lay on the beach at sundown. you are so real. you are unflinchingly so. you trust/ed me with your entire being, you laid bare your darkness, your fears and your quintessential being. in that instant i knew who i was with, who i was dealing with, who i wanted to be with for the rest of my life.

and yes, we've had our skirmishes, our angry exchanges of confusion and hurt, and we'll probably have a few more down the road. but i'm not afraid. i'm not going to second-guess if that means anything other than moments we have to confront and embrace. because that is merely an external flux. internally you are still you. and will continue to be you. and i will wake to that you 24/7/365(or 6 in leap year) till eternity.

one more thing. i truly and deeply like who i am with you. you bring out the best in me, the worst in me yet you take on that worst in me and heal it with love and faith. tell me, hon, how much more then can i not want to spend the rest of my life with you?

(the pinoys are realy good here haha!)

and i am so.damn.proud.of.you. (and to be your wife-in-waiting)

somebody i used to know.

last night, i chanced upon an old blog from the last gf while doing some housekeeping on my lappy. it was like reading about some stranger in a strange r/s, where i couldn't recognise the person she was and the person i was when with her. the resonating question was, who is this?

and then i realised how when you're with someone, you want  so much to be with them that you change yourself, tweak your values, give so much of yourself that you lose sight of what you believe in. it wasn't all bad, in fact there were really sublime moments, but sadly all it was that whole time was me building a world of expectations around someone who wasn't what i made myself believe. i didn't really think about that the entire year of healing. i guess i was just too entrenched in my own grief to really evaluate the situation objectively. now it all makes perfect sense.

anyway i am so glad i've come to a clarity about the last 4 years of my life. it had to happen only so i would exorcise that nagging curiosity of what it's like to devote every fibre of your being into a r/s that it becomes an obsession, an unhealthy cycle of co-dependence, of possession and lust. i suppose some of us really need to taste that sort of extremity only so we can appreciate what we think is only possible in fiction. or as 60s icon Joni Mitchell once philosophized,
 I've looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow 
It's love's illusions I recall 
I really don't know love at all.

 or as Gotye so succinctly represented it, "I told myself you were right for me."

mom's not cooking.

best mothers' day eva
having the kids with me over the weekend was a treat. and i like giving them my own treat, which makes perfect sense. we didn't do the whole commercial thing w lavish dinner but i just wanted to reward them for their hard work in the exams, with good food, snacks n avengers.

nothing beat the wonderful dinner at baby's where she prepped a sumptuous meal of love and effort. i mean who doesn't relish the comforting taste of home?


even topped with a intoxicatingly yummy chox cake with valrhona ganache!


she is such a sweet darling angel <33333

baby.

Night time slows, raindrops splash rainbows

Perhaps someone you know, could sparkle and shine

As daydreams slide to colour from shadow

Picture the moonglow, that dazzles my eyes

And I love you

Just lying smiling in the dark

Shooting stars around your heart

Dreams come bouncing in your head

Pure and simple everytime

Now you're crying in your sleep

I wish you'd never learnt to weep

Don't sell the dreams you should be keeping

Pure and simple everytime

Dreams of sights, of sleigh rides in seasons

Where feelings not reasons, can make you decide

As leaves pour down, splash autumn on gardens

As colder nights harden, their moonlit delights

And I love you

Just lying smiling in the dark

Shooting stars around your heart

Dreams come bouncing in your head

Pure and simple everytime

Now you're crying in your sleep

I wish you'd never learnt to weep

Don't sell the dreams you should be keeping

Pure and simple everytime

Look at me with starry eyes

Push me up to starry skies

There's stardust in my head

Pure and simple everytime

Fresh and deep as oceans new

Shiver at the sight of you

I'll sing a softer tune

Pure and simple over you

If love's the truth then look no lies

And let me swim around your eyes

I've found a place I'll never leave

Shut my mouth and just believe

Love is the truth I realize

Not a stream of pretty lies

To use us up and waste our time

Lying smiling in the dark

Shooting stars around your heart

Dreams come bouncing in your head

Pure and simple everytime

Now you're crying in your sleep

I wish you'd never learnt to weep

Don't sell the dreams you should be keeping

Pure and simple everytime

Look at me with starry eyes

Push me up to starry skies

There's stardust in my head

Pure and simple everytime

Fresh and deep as oceans new

Shiver at the sight of you

I'll sing a softer tune

Pure and simple over you

Pure and simple just for you

control-z

wouldn't life be simple if we could do that everytime we fuck things up, say something stupid, do something ill-conceived or worse, hurtful. i know i could use one of those as a default function for my countless gaffes.
nothing beats the ones which cause your partner pain. i know i've done this often enough and i really want to check my anger and confusion so that it doesn't result in her suffering.
more than anything, i want to refresh and rebuild. anything which has inadvertently shaken up our foundation, i want to quell that emotional damage permanently.

and when i read this, it really brings me to my knees.
我想和你在一起，共享一生的愛，理解和耐心。在這一輩子，我們將只看到對方的心，沒有別的。

 p/s today's my parents' 47th wedding anniversary. if anything they inspire me that true love is for the long haul.

8-14

im suddenly up thinking a lot abt the shrubs. i guess a text from jo today about some 10-page assignment which is due come monday eating into her weekend really rankled my chains. it's horrid that kids these days don't have a childhood, let alone a simple weekend respite.

6 years ago, every other day she'd be drawing up her amusing little stories, her creative little impish eyes smiling as she drew them, knowing that would draw laughter and delight from her sis and me. where did those days go, y' know.

this before Disney's Tangled. she was quite the visionary haha!


and then i also come across a really old journal entry of how she'd already have that wicked wit which till date never fails to crack us up. how quickly i forget what they once were. and i guess it helps me also remember now as time seems to have changed so much of what they are, that what remains is the way i raised them to be frank and forthcoming, comfortably being themselves in an environment of openness and love. i can only wish this will continue even as they see through an adolescence of flux.

 i guess what remains timeless is that whole parenting divide which i once postulated for all and sundry, even inviting comments from total strangers (god knows how they find these things, possibly thanks to mr brown's  linking it), i know the stuff i wrote there still applies regardless of how much older they are. weird. time. i'm just really glad i kept all these entries online for almost 8 years.

self-destruction defines humanity.

just spent the good part of the morning fighting fires ignited by the irrepressible energy of youth. nah that's just a euphemism for fucking teen self-absorption. this chap who has long depleted all his clemency-strikes decided yesterday to MIA again and here i am, covering his arse for the last time, short of declaring to all and sundry he had been abducted by alien life form.

got me thinking to why peeps behave this way in general. they know there's a pot-hole before them and they proceed to step into it. or they inflate every little setback into a colossal crisis only because it makes their lives more dramatically epic. to them, i say suck it the hell up and stop having a frickin martyr complex. in fact there are days i'm this close to tossing some hemlock into their pathetic little meals so that they will indeed get what they wish for. and the worse thing anyone can do is keep apologising for recalcitrant behaviour. or as i deadpanned to him, sorry is a poor excuse for failure.

yes we all have bad days, bad seasons even. but really when you pull back in introspective honesty, you will realise one certain thing. tomorrow is another day and every shitty moment shall pass. i spent a good year of my life mindfully reminding myself, even as our past or memories threaten to confound the clarity. ultimately each new day is a new you. each new moment is a new experience. and what remains constant is that true inner light which says, breathe, confront, embrace, be. it's really that simple. i wonder why we sometimes make it our mission in life to complicate things.

and i still subscribe to that simple mantra: more is less. amazingly that can apply to almost anything we do: our eating habits, sleep cycles, talk, thoughts, desires, needs.

so with that, i shall also have to come here to update less. irony much haha

our 敏 dynasty

haha no this isnt an entry borne of inflated delusions of grandeur. i just thought it would make a lovely title of our novella someday, given it is also a character we both share in our middle/chinese names. what are the odds, eh? hers is  淑敏 while mine is 爱敏 (and incidentally she shares the exact same chinese name as my kid sis, which is a story for another day).

anyway,  敏  also means intelligent and wit and that very much sums up our chemistry and mutual attraction. i recall how we met >7 years ago. it was at an event for a charity cause and let's just say she laid quite an impression, both from her 1.8m stature and personality to boot. i was thinking, wow, this is a person who is exactly what she appears to be because most tall women i've met are usually meek and somewhat awkward, possibly compensating all their lives for always being the tallest in a given dynamic.

admittedly she left quite an ambivalent first impression -- something in between shock and awe. she was brazen and forthright in expressing her opinions at the drop of a hat, often audible in a 5m radius, something my pristine fundy christian family-conditioning had never prepared me for such an encounter. i mean, apologies to her, the only time i've witnessed such volume was in the presence of inebriated folk, so suffice to say i was somewhat stunned everytime she made observations verbally without inhibition (or trepidation, i might add!)

years passed and we continued to keep in touch, mostly online through our respective journals and occasionally  with meet-ups, sometimes with my shrubs in tow. she had taken an innate liking to them which i guess comes from being the eldest sibling of three and her penchant for animals. she even kept their drawings and such and at points recalling their words verbatim, which shamefully i wouldn't even recount myself. during that time i was also dating a mutual friend and she was seeing another whom i had personally forged closer ties with. the latter would even call or meet me on her own, regretfully to seek my advice when they had a row. i say regretfully because in time, i started to take sides with her ex and form rather unfavourable opinions of her slanted on my loyalty to the ex, having spent more face time with her.

so after they broke up, we hardly communicated because it felt almost like a betrayal to her ex if we did. a few years passed and we caught up on fb again yet i continued to keep my cautious distance because i didn't feel the need to and more honestly, i didn't think she was a nice person based on the version i heard from her ex. sadly, a part of her continued to show interest in my shrubs through her comments on my fb posts about them. she even added jo on her list. so up till the beginning of the year, she was merely another hi-bye pal whom i never thought i'd have face to face with. ever.

funny how that works out innit? because i had long averted any PR meetings with her for fear of having to bring up some possibly sore points about her ex, and the next moment i'm hanging with a colleague who recently was spurned by her gf and i'm thinking of how to set her up, and as the heavens would have it, her name comes to mind (if at this point my dear reader is increasingly vexed by the convoluted narrative due to too many 'her's present, well that tends to happen in sapphic storylines, so deal with it).

anyway, after a few gaffes in that set-up, and during one of them in fact, i start to acknowledge that old familiar feeling in her company. i couldn't then address what it was other than the comfort factor of our history, and more importantly the realisation that she was sorely misrepresented by her ex in character and values. what i thought was a self-absorbed bitch turned out to be not just the opposite, but one who at that point of realisation, drew both my sympathy and admiration. sympathy because i knew exactly where she was coming from in love and loss, and admiration because she handled all that with dignity and class. so by the time i acknowledged what was going through my mind about her, my heart had long established a profound certainty, that this was someone i got, could get and god knows, would very much want to get.

so in this lengthy overshare and the point of its entirety is that i truly believe we were meant to meet, to meet again and then to build something from this meeting. we have a shared destiny, and dynasty haha couldn't resist the wordplay. i guess dynasty could also work because that's what we are. a powerhouse of divas who have both lived full lives doing what we do best, we both have the strength of seeing things through with principled conviction, and we both want to make a complete life together so that our loved ones can also thrive with us. so look out world, its not just about a love story but i think from what i've seen so far, we're quite a combined force to reckon with because what holds us together is a faith that continues to grow from strength to strength, even as the flux of what is beyond us may challenge the ties which bind.

all i know is, we were made to grow in parallel only so our lives would in present converge. and we've resolved to make this work till our paths end in the hereafter.

things you learn from fluff

so i've been catching up on New Girl recently and one ep struck a surprisingly familiar chord. winston was angsting about his gf and giving her space only to drive across the border to retract when nick explained the diffrerence between space and an open r/s. it was particularly amusing when in a human moment he explained that love should really be simple. we shouldn't have to put so much on it and undue clauses to what constitutes one because you should just let the instincts to love prevail.

when we fight over the petty things we allow our anger to blind that simplicity. everything else at that moment of rage takes precedence, from the little annoyances to the disappointments of expectations. all these are simply distractions from that one single reality you feel deep inside. it's no different from how we love our kids or pets. love remains true when you let the petty anger subside and see it for what it is. i know it is that simple, but we let our pride and ego complicate this to a hurtful degree. this is something i seem to have to re-learn everytime i hit a snag or allow my anger to take over.

i guess the best part of love is forgiveness. and that is the sort of grace i wish to cling on to wheneve i feel completely overwhelmed by that tempest of frustration and confusion. it is the only thing which redeems, and i want to let it remain the foundation of what we have. god knows that was what could've saved the ones before her. perhaps i should tattoo that as a reminder, on my stubborn prideful head.

"if music be the food of love, play on"

so we attended our first shakespeare play last night under the stars and a bigass moon, which at some point made its lunatic appearance as a tacky prop at the finale, resembling something worthy of a school production complete with a sailboat skooching on a horizon.


i guess it had its sublime moments, given it was one of the bard's most popular comedies but at some point, this group's interpretation descended to a level of unintended farce. in all a memorable experience, namely baby in her ravishing fuschia spaghetti maxi hehe

baking

that's the first extended metaphor  for a relationship which came to mind as i awoke this morning, well given that she bakes a lot and i'm anticipating the next batch of baked goods coming my way today!

it's really about the ingredients and timing. you need to really provide each other with the best of your qualities, but also trusting them to work with your worst. there will be days when you sift through the unresolved baggage  and there are others where you celebrate the success of making it thrive. but all which matters is taking your time with it, letting it rest, letting it grow, making sure it is baked in that warmth and sometimes rising passion. but in all, you know that you cannot rush the process, nor stinge on the ingredients.

what awaits is a lovely creation made by love, patience and understanding, never looking back at the errors but using them to improve on the recipe. haha ok that's the extent of my knowledge of baking metaphors. but what i know best which is similar to our relationship is the relishing part, savouring every burst of flavour, feeling the tummy smile with home, being sated, wanting more.

enjoy the silence

after what was a heartwrenching meltdown with baby, we've reached a new path of understanding, one which we want to learn how to handle our anger, to trust and hold, to let go and let god.

i guess what it comes down to is the love we want to embrace in all this, not letting the externalities or past or any form of ill-timed discussions cloud what is always there. i know when it all subsides -- the confusion which leads to unintentional hurt, that i love her so damn much. it doesn't matter how we may get lost along the way, as long as we acknowledge what is deep and real. that will be the one true voice which leads us to the higher ground so we can see the bigger picture before us. and love is truly all we need.

we spent a great may day just doing anything close to nothing. after a heady evening of The Avengers (which i privately mused how our inner-child reigned during the movie), we took a complete hiatus from doing much today. just being beside each other, holding, sleeping, breathing. it just feels so right it's beyond description, other than the laundered scents of her tank top, the softness of her kisses, the sound of her sighs, the cute round orbs of sincere regard. i take all that and i thank the man upstairs for having such a beautiful soul sent to me. and i tell myself, viv, don't let her go. ever.