memoirs

here

absolution.

something pragmatic to start the week:
=>Asking Yourself For Forgiveness<=

Imagine vividly a situation where
you have acted badly, one about
which you feel guilty, and about
which you wince even to think of it.
Then, as you breathe in, accept total
responsibility for your actions in
that particular situation, without in
any way trying to justify your
behavior. Acknowledge exactly
what you have done wrong, and
wholeheartedly ask for forgiveness.
Now, as you breathe out, send out
reconciliation, forgiveness, healing,
and understanding.
So you breathe in blame, and
breathe out the undoing of harm;
you breathe in responsibility,
breathe out healing, forgiveness,
and reconciliation.
This exercise is particularly
powerful and may give you the
courage to go to see the person
whom you have wronged, and the
strength and willingness to talk to
him or her directly and actually ask
for forgiveness from the depths of
your heart.

~Sogyal Rinpoche~

------
anyway i have an unsettled issue of life to deal with. this year seems to be a year of unsettling and loss but it has become something i've resigned not to resist. losing my tooth wallet and r/s were perhaps part of the narrative to make a change about myself. a positive one. from the loss came mindfulness and an honesty about who i am and what i can do. it revealed my limitations which were denied from a certain pride. these things therefore had to go or happen, and what i have now may not always be a negative conclusion. it is what we make of it. changes are up ahead. in two weeks, my life could dramatically shift in a direction which will change my entire destiny. who knows? i'm just going to ride it whichever way the wind blows.

and if i make it to see another year, 2014 will bring more changes. the boss has proposed i give up my favourite lit class and it saddens me but i know that is the nature of deployment and work. it's often beyond my will. he has proposed i go on a trip with the students to some developing country to render aid. i think that's a fabulous idea. also to do the most thankless of tasks in editing testimonials which i would rather drink cyanide but who knows. that could be another direction of change which i will have to accept in time. just like everything else.

yesterday i looked at my old room in my dad's home and recalled the rough changes that went on in there. the upheavals, the anger, the frustration with two people who could never listen or understand, the self-imposed isolation, the breakdown in communication. i couldn't think of any positive associations and i suppose that's because i spent a good 20 years there not grasping how. i will never revisit that part of my life and when it threatens in cycles i will have to forgive myself in an irrevocable manner. it will take years of healing, and in the meantime i have to see this through alone, not drag another into my demons.

this film has taught me deeply about the positive consequences of change. judi dench's character spoke to me the most. i must learn to re-new and re-learn. and channel that inner light to some worthy forward-moving cause.

restoring faith

everytime i have doubts of a higher power i look at my firstborn. this miracle of talent from a little preemie sprog to a teen with such insight and gifts to express them.her intelligence in doing sciences, balanced with the ability to draw and execute her quirky ideas.



i take no credit because for one i don't have inherent artistic talents neither did we send her for classes to hone them. she just picked this up herself as a tot and growing up she created tons of these from ideas which probably came from books n tv, and maybe some from my silly anecdotes.

she  truly restores my faith whenever cynicism takes over. she was truly sent to me to help me make sense of my universe. i'm glad i picked her name which aptly means, 'god is willing.'

august moon

it's been a rough sort of month. well mostly emotionally. but a journey of self-discovery, at least how to manage the sadness.
today i finally deleted all traces of us on fb. it had to be done eventually. a catharsis. and hopefully a giant step towards healing and moving on.

watched this heart-wrenching film. Perks of being a wallflower


it really spoke to me in the way only a writer knows how. the raw honesty and self-awareness is what i've always strove to achieve all my life.

i remember being introspective at 10. things were moving so fast. changes i started to notice, internalise and to some extent began my path of self-destruction.
i spent the decades trying to reconstruct every painful moment, to over compensate for whatever pitfalls and disappointments.

till this very day i think i've yet to comprehend trust. and learn to completely give my heart to anyone.
that may be the very reason for so many transient relationships, including friendships. i don't think i've ever learned to give myself completely to anyone besides my kids.

and so i've come to learn that the present solitude is merely reliving that moment. to retreat from any human connection. it's not a bad thing given i've come to see the wisdom of buddhist principles. they are the only thing which make sense in such flux around me. i m learning to mindfully focus on the present moments and ride each one out. this is the only way to reach my final state free of everything in heart, mind and soul.

the path of least resistance

that was the previous name of my blog when things were in its apparent harmony. having found a partner to settle down with and making future plans for marriage. it was an age of aquarius.

of course this has so far been the reverse with upheavals and well, let's just say best laid plans gone awry. but that again was a concerted choice so it's futile going back there again.

i've been riveted by the writing of aaron sorkin in the newsroom of late (few good men, west wing) and he has the dialogue and human dynamics down pat. namely how age doesn't determine one's management of emotions, namely in relationships. here's a protagonist with a slew of career highs and lows and he gets out of every spat with dignity and self-respect, yet his dealing with an ex who had cheated on him continues to plague him to the point of irrational behaviour and juvenile regression. fascinating and spot-on.

what i relate most is the intellectual engagement or should i say, fixation on our proverbial challenges rather than stepping back to sort out what is 'really bothering you.' i've used logic often to escape from feelings and perhaps that bites me in the ass when you don't deal with it soon enough. my latest break up being a perfect fuck up. i spent more than a year rationalising the reasons to stay rather than the emotions. i had long 'lost that loving feeling' and i reasoned that sometimes relationships do not require that. one can actually develop the bond and not be actually 'in' love. that maybe the case when you're in a business partnership but sacrifice and effort requires a lot deeper considerations. see, even here i've used consideration and not feelings.

so by the time i acknowledged that i didn't really love her but more i was used to having her around my life, i realised the superego had long taken reigns of this direction, wanting to keep her for my stability rather than to be prepared to give of myself, go the long haul to accomodate her expectations and goals, values even, it takes so much more rather than to just go along with everything which makes sense.

i guess i'll look back some day and really acknowledge the learning curve. for now it just fluctuates from guilt to missing, but that again is completely exclusive from love. love escapes me really. and maybe a large part is from never really allowing it to happen, everything hitherto has been a whole lot of self-convincing and moderation. i don't think i really know love at all, as one joni mitchell once postulated.

things which make you go hmmm

so the month has been intense on both work and home front. but unlike before, i'm gradually learning to manage the past sadness and future fears. it takes a lot to quell but i suppose no one said meditation was easy.

the car has proven to be a bit of a worry because it has issues of pick-up and the battery connection wonky. hope to sort it out tmr and well, i'll just leave it to the good hands of grace. at this point it's all bout trust.if i get screwed over well that's how the world works. trying to fix the behaviour of others is really a futile pursuit. like i read somewhere, it is our choice to feel suffering, a torn does not cause suffering but stepping on it does. it isn't the fault of the thorn.

4 more weeks and i will find myself in a foreign land.i'm looking forward to anything that comes from that, even the challenges. even if i dont return it wouldn't matter because i've made my peace with everything here. there is a divinity which shapes our ends, and whatever the outcome it must be inevitable. good people die all the time. it isn't karma, it just is.

the kids are really becoming wonderful little young adults. i hear them converse about profound concerns other than school or friends or least of all pop stars. they arent the average teen that way.i never dumb down anything for their benefit, never have. jo was trying to encourage jil to re-connect with a childhood sweetheart of sorts on twitter and with gentle persuasion it worked. their dynamics is heartwarming like that. jil relies on her sister's quiet confidence and optimism while jo depends on her sister's grounded reason. they are going to be alright.
anyway i put this together early for jo's sweet16 just in case of timing or circumstance.

and even if seoul doesn't pan out for some reason, i'm going to throw her a little something special probably at beats' to make it sweet =]

prana

a strange heaviness hangs deep. i guess i'm still processing the week's challenge. it was a long week in more ways than one. first it was the shocker about Ah Sim, whose name i only found out from my neighbour. i can't put my finger on the grief except that she was a sort of light-angel to me. everytime we met even briefly in the lift, she uplifted my spirits with her genuine smile and calm demeanour. i craved that especially in the dark moments of my life. so to see her face on her coffin was both shocking and sad. i had seen her just last week sitting alone staring into space like she was  waiting for someone. perhaps she knew. it's really mysterious.


and by the end of the week i had my own version of catharsis, well perhaps more an insight into what i was doing all wrong.
i had spent the week trying to make amends for how i hurt her, maybe the misguided notion that by spending time with her and running favours and errands, we will eventually reconcile our differences and work towards repair. but i hadn't been completely honest with myself because i harboured expectations that this would in fact be the outcome when on her side she probably just wanted to spend time with me with no forward intentions. something like that. so when i let slip in a moment of sentiment that i loved her, it was responded by 'what's the point?' which is probably a fitting summary to this push-pull emotions or deluded sense of second chances.

the fact remained that no matter what we try to do we would never change to fit each other's personalities and values. so hanging on in this strange relationship of not quite lovers but still exclusive friends made things even more vague and confusing. she of course did not understand this as she sees things very simplistically, i.e you can still be ordinary friends even if we had barely broken up a month ago.

but i know internally i wasn't happy and i feared cycles of hurt from such a dangerously close friendship with deep emotional needs and trust which bordered on a partnership but without the 'benefits'. it became clear to me that we were both doing this for very different reasons. her from wanting to still have me as a close dependable friend with kids she adored and me from the deluded hope of getting back together even if instinctively i knew was a bad idea so it probably came from need rather than want.

ok so i sorted it out and by wednesday night i thought it was time to make a clean break, cold turkey even it sent her to a very dark place of hurt and anger. i'm sure in time this would be a sound decision because languishing in this manner was only going to build resentment on my part. who needs this when i've already things to sort out in my own healing?

anyway, i do feel a dull numb feeling of blah but i'm trying to fix myself through mindful breathing and focusing on what's out there. first i have to settle my finances and admin for the new car, then i  have a few new teaching assignments, and the kids' exams ahead which will require supervision and tlc, and my day job with their exams ahead, and that longawaited nepal trip and then seoul in december. there are real things to plan ahead so emotionally i really do not need to engage with the past anymore. with each detachment comes and acceptance and with that true healing.

and maybe for xmas i will reward myself with a left inner wrist tattoo to remind myself of my light and inner strength:


it is a tribal lotus with the inscribed prana meaning life-force in sanskrit

ah well, it's going to be all right. i will really have to work on my inner disciplines of mindfulness and attainment. a day at a time

So im abt to make a major decision on sat involving half my savings. Im stoked but also apprehensive. Im sure i will have my share of regrets but im at a threshold of a major crossroad which i want to be positive abt.
 
On this first day of august i have resolved to let go of every single thing in my past n look forward to improvements. Even if i royally screw up the mistakes will be my own to relearn from.n then i can truly say i have made real progress and grown up. No more second guessing. No more minefields of perceived fear.every mindful step to a better me.