Sorry If…

You heard the same phrase every year.

Sorry.

You spent one month fasting and the day has come to celebrate. The goodness always win against evil. You aimed to visit your relatives, friends, neighbors, acquaintances to seek forgiveness.

Early in the morning you seek your parents or family members and you told them that you apologize for all the wrongdoings all year round (next Ramadhan will account for next year’s sins) and you feel relieved.

You’re cleared this year.

Zero sin.

Well done.

You’re like a newborn baby now. A white canvas.

Perfect.

Still it bugs me a great deal when someone or anyone gave me both their hands and while grasping my hands they would utter these items below:

I’m sorry IF I accidentally mistreated you, miscalculated my deeds, misunderstood you in anyway, did something accidentally towards you but of course I never meant to hurt you, bla bla bla…

So you’re sorry only IF you did all those things? If not, you’re not sorry at all?

I reckon the process of asking forgiveness from another person is a very humbling thing to do and adding an IF doesn’t make it as humble as it supposed to be. There is an element of not admitting that you’re a person who makes mistakes and it kinda make you sounds ridiculous though grammatically you make perfect sense. You are giving the other person an option. Yep, you can forgive me if and only IF I did these things to you, if not, forget about it. I don’t deserve your apology and you don’t deserve mine.

So I stick to the basics; forgive me. Not buts nor ifs nor maybes.

Just sorry.

The Guide: How Not to Miss Someone

This could be a guide to forget someone too.

There is a number of reasons why you are missing that someone. You may love them to bits and you are not able to communicate with them despite having their phone number, email address and Facebook account (I almost pity you), or you did try contacting them but the reply is pending (she might be in Congo distributing wheat), maybe the person mentioned moved to another place/country/planet, maybe (s)he was dead or not willing to speak to you ever again, maybe they disappeared and you’re not able to locate them, or maybe…just maybe that you like to spend your free time reminiscing about someone.

All we can suspect right now is that this person is extremely special to you, if not important.

Now I am sure that you knew the symptoms. It could start with a simple thought, growing to be a fat, gentle hope which will turns out to be a word. This word plays around with the image that resounds feeling over and over again. Imagine the word is a name, a random name of a person. There comes the image. Then the smile, the voice, the smell, the curve of her/his hand, her/his delicate birthmark on the neck, the way she giggle in the crowd, the way his eyes twinkles when he laugh, the way your heart skipped a beat when you heard his/her name across the room, everything. The simple thought whispering at first could turn out to be a mean battle cry in the deep of the night.

And you wonder why. Why hasn’t she call? Why can’t he text? Why wouldn’t he reply? Why? Why can’t you come? Does she think of you? Does he feel the same way too? You pick up that phone and put it down immediately. You don’t want to sound cheap. She might reject you again. You search for his name on the net and browse his pictures if there is anything new. You played her favorite songs over and over again though you have no idea what was the title and you hate Korean pop songs.

Sometimes you think you saw him on the street. And then on the television. Even the guy waiting for your table at your favorite restaurant starting to look like him. You thought you heard her voice in the bookstore. The silhouette matched but no, it wasn’t her.

If reality is mean, dreams are worst. He visits you every night, being sweet and nice attending to your perfect dinner late at night. Just when everything started on first gear, you woke up. You swore. You try to remember the details but Morpheus thought this is funny and treat it as a joke. Kill that hope. It’s just his usual business, nothing serious.

Torturing, isn’t it? But some like the pain of missing someone. They get used to it. I can’t.

So, moving on to our business.

1) Avoid things that reminds you of him/her if you really wish to forget. Avoid seeing his photo, or mentioning his name or anything that relates to him. Songs, colors, smell, etc. Try this for 40 days. Also stop listening to love songs, breaking up songs or seeing chick-lit-romantic-movies. It’s not going to work.

2) I would suggest walking. Do something that tires you physically or/and mentally. Brush up your Sudoku skills, start gardening, buy a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle, learn to knit, paint your apartment, bake a new recipe, etc. Occupy yourself with new things. Don’t let a tiny space of that person start accumulating inside your mind. Treat it like an unforgivable addiction. Brush it away.

3) Get to know new friends and when they start asking if you have any special someone in your life, remember to forget about him/her though your heart aches to complain about everything regarding the special friend, suppress it and shut up. Learn to listen to other people attentively. Go out. Have fun.

4) Travel is the cure for everything. You can try doing it alone or with a complete stranger or a best friend. Remember to bring your sunscreen, passport and an open mind. Organize it and personalize it. If you need to learn a new language then do it. Need to book a guesthouse or hotel? See to it. Want to book a package, browse the list of travel agents online and ask until you’re satisfied. Memorize the map if you have to. Expect good things from the people around you however serial-rapist-psychotic-face they have.

5) Pray. If it doesn’t work, pray harder. If still it doesn’t work, start fasting.

6) Read a good book. I recommend Matthew Reilly. It’s a definite page turner. Think Indiana Jones kind of reading. You will forget you haven’t slept for 2 days. All you can think is Jack West must get there first and save the world. What better way to end a story, right?

7) Get a pet. For beginners, a cat is a good start.

8 ) Laugh. Be happy. Watch a funny movie. Hang out with funny people. Laughter is the best medicine.

9) Move. Change. You need to get used to a new surrounding and new habit. Change your hair color, cut your bangs, rearrange your furniture, take the stairs instead of the lift, etc.

10) Random act of kindness. Buy a pack of lollies and distribute it to children (if possible if front of their parents) or if you’re not comfortable with strangers then give it to everyone you knew, bake a cake and distribute it to your colleagues, just be nice to everybody.

11) Pamper yourself. Manicure, pedicure, massage, face mask, foot scrub, etc. You can even do it at home along with friends provided that you have the right tools. A sleepover during the weekend with spa treatment is a nice thing to do.

That’s all that I can think right now. Hope it will work.

Believe that you can do it.

As for me, I still try. One day it will go away, I’m sure of it.

Soul Connection

There is a curious book with above-mentioned title and typical me, I picked it up like a magnet.

It has a long and detailed explanation about our soul. What is a soul exactly, how did it came to existence, when it will be destroyed, the lots.

There were a lot of diagrams and labels and terms that I don’t think I could explain. I can tell from the drawings the lady writer read a lot of classic Hindu books and based in on most Hindu teachings.

I spent roughly about an hour browsing which does not include everything. I read one interesting chapter.

The big title was Soul Mates.

Ooooh… Interesting! [eyes glittering]

From my comprehension of English, the book explained that before existence of anything (I immediately recalled The Big Bang so this should happen BEFORE the explosion) placed in a place high beyond our skyline there lived souls.

I can’t imagine how does these souls looked like but the writer said these little things fly.

So I imagined these souls are tiny little fluffy white heart with wings. Make any sense to you? Well I think I did fine for a beginner.

I do have questions for her. How did she knew about this if this happens before anything comprehensible and conscious available in the World? If all this happens before the start of time, before the start of anything concrete, then how can it be possible that this is put in writing? If she knew that someone that knew about this or that possess knowledge about this, I would like to know the process of compiling that knowledge.

How can you know something this abstract, this unlikely fact of wisdom is such detail?

Oh well. I’ll continue.

So these little souls flew for the longest time freely up and above and then The Higher Power decided to make humans so he choose a soul to occupy a body. It could be any body and the soul occupying it forgets it all. The soul forgets everything that she done before this, all the flying or what she liked or with whom she used to fly. She is one new soul.

While occupying the body, all her life she would meet many other souls from all walks of life. Some of it she might have strong affinity and some not. The ones that she can click instantly are the ones that she used to flew with eons ago, said the book. These can be nominated as Soul Mates. She might instantly recognized this other soul or vice versa or everything in her life would suddenly make sense. She doesn’t know this person that much but it feels like she spent forever knowing this other person already.

Maybe that explains it.

I don’t know how she would explain other circumstances for example divorces or pedophiles. So this one soul like to fly with other souls and mess around? Seemed like a pretty shallow thing to do, right? Does corrupted souls exist? I always imagined that souls are pretty little things that could do no wrong, that there is goodness in each soul because it’s like the essence of your being.

Why do people do bad things to other people or themselves? Do they have a bad soul?

I should have finished that book.

I remember one part of the book that said that if you notice that for some people it’s easy to learn something, for example how to cook or how to pick a lock or how to speak a foreign language then the explanation was your soul was occupied with another body in another place in another time that did that exact thing effortlessly.

So we recycle souls too. I never thought that this one I’m using is a second-hand or third or fourth or God knows how many bodies used this one.

Still I am wondering how did the writer discovered this. What fascinating way of trying to make sense of something incomprehensible.

No one would know if this is true or utter rubbish because when we die the soul would fly up above, picked again for another body and reformatted.

Again, it’s a cool twist of fate and cycle of the universe.

 

 

Dinosaurs, Stars and Time Traveling

My favorite dinosaur is Triceratops.

I think he’s a good looking one. Everybody knows T-Rex, so easily he could be anyone’s favorite. I love Brontosaurus, Bracchiosaurus and Diplodocus too because they seemed friendly and nice.

Big gentle giants. I can easily slide from their pretty little heads to their pretty little tails. That was my biggest ambition when I was small.

Father bought me an encyclopedia about dinosaurs and everything started from there. I made him bought their colorful-glow-in-dark stickers, coloring books and small figurines.

I even had this huge embellished dream that I wanted to be a paleontologist.

Until I realized that they don’t really offer that kind of course here. Even if they did, I don’t have other choice but to learn science and its derivatives. Biology, Physics and Chemistry.

Euw.

That was the only choice that I had. The school only offered Science stream, with one little option on Accounting. They want us to grow up and be somewhat doctors and engineers or maybe accountant, as if life offers two or three options only.

The country needs these people.

Whatever you said.

I wanted to learn Geography. I love History. I absolutely love Archeology. I love art.

I don’t know if people realized this, but if I didn’t write this article, no one would. If Da Vinci hadn’t paint Mona Lisa, no one would. If Chopin didn’t write that piece, no one would. If  Shakespeare or Hugo or Pushkin or Márquez or Neruda or Twain or Kafka or Voltaire or Rousseau or Cervantes didn’t write their masterpieces, no one would. Ever.

But if Faraday doesn’t discover the electricity, someone else would. If Einstein didn’t discover that fated equation, someone else would. Someone else would find a way to invent something, to patent a machine, a design, anything to make our lives less miserable.

It does make a great difference.

Which one do you prefer?

I do like authenticity so I picked the first one.

The next thing I love is the sky. I don’t mind staring at it for hours. I like counting the twinkles, the planes that passed by and following the colors that washed in and out bit by bit.

I feel so small and insignificant.

Which is awesome.

Think about the probabilities. The moon orbiting the Earth while the Earth orbiting the Sun, while the Sun must be orbiting another gigantic big star and this gigantic big star must be orbiting one helluva big-big star and this helluva big star must be orbiting some sort of humongous god damn monster star and this…

You get the point, right?

We are so tiny. Itsy-bitsy. Teeny-weeny.

We thought that Pahang or Sarawak is big but America is bigger but then Russia is big. The World is a big place but still it’s measurable. But the galaxy? It’s infinity. Our tiny little brain doesn’t go that far. We are limited.

We are weak. We don’t know many things.

Sigh.

When I pick a star along the horizon, I think about the distance, the time spent to get to me. Is this one still shining out there? Maybe, just maybe for the light to travel into my delicate iris and to see the beautiful flaming blue light it took 200 million years and by the time I can see the light, the star was dead.

It was not even there anymore. Gone.

So the light that I am seeing right now is the light 200 million years ago, the time when my beautiful dinosaurs were grazing up their breakfast, hunting a small (for them) rodent or just hanging out with families and friends.

Looking into the eyes of yesterday.

I think that’s magnificent.

Who said time traveling is not fun?

Soul. Mate.

My old post in Facebook.

I didn’t agree most of my mother’s suggestion in attempt to look for a Soulmate for me. In fact, I didn’t agree at all. She’s not the only one that told me that I’m picky or have an extremely ‘high’ taste or I might end up alone if I keep at it.

Keep at what, exactly?

Doing some mental arithmetic, well if you are allowed to choose for a movie thoroughly (the time, the place, the price, the summary, the genre, the actors/actresses, the food that you’re going to smuggle, the language) that you would need less than two hours of your life to commit, or a book (the writer, the language, the genre, the font, the shop, the main plot, the thickness, the prizes won) that will take 2-3 days/less than a week/6 months/1 year to finish or even for a house/room/apartment (the size, the location, the housemates, the cleanliness, the landlord, the rent, the furniture, the ambiance, the projection of light, the neighbors, brief history) that you’d spend less than 10 years to sleep in and out and yet this thing called marriage which is a lifetime-no-money-back-guaranteed commitment and I am not allowed to choose?

This is just unfair.

Last year’s Raya I really didn’t have the will to go back home. I went home after the 4th day, which summed up my unwillingness. I dread Raya because I know this would be the perfect time for the interrogation of all the family and relatives and I have no answer for most of the jackpot questions. For most of the time I limit my time to 3 hours at grandmother’s place and quickly pack up and leave.

This simple plan saved my life many times since the past 7 years.

I know this year would not be any easier. My friend is getting married and that put my mother in a very uncomfortable situation. I know her since we were 11 and our family is quite close. We had been through a lot since school days and suddenly last month she decided to get engaged with her Soulmate.

Wow.

This is the best news so far. I was over the moon when I heard it from her but I received a different reaction from my mother. Even on the phone you can tell if someone is feeling queasy or trying hard to sound cheerful with a frown on her face. Her first question was everything about the Soulmate (how did they met, how long have they been seeing each other, his job, his looks, his family, his education, his height – size does matter?) I didn’t know that much though. Everything happened so fast. They are getting married after one month of engagement and several weeks of courting (by email it seemed.) I think we have a saying about this, when it’s written then it shall be done.

How does one recognize another soul which complements her in such a short notice perfectly?

I conducted an informal survey about Soulmates. I asked everyone around me, especially the ones that had been married for many-many years. Many years for me count as more than 10 years.

The million dolar question was simple. ‘Do you think you married your Soulmate?’

Out of 10 beautiful couples, only one couple managed to say ‘Absolutely!’ and they have been together for 23 years. The husband told me that according to Astrology and Numerology, they are both not compatible for each other but they go on with their plan and have their own way. They are still together and loving each other’s company with 2 beautiful children. Others that I asked said ‘it’s for the sake of the children’ or ‘he take good care of my family’ or simply ‘I can’t manage everything alone.’ They can put up with this for 10-20 years, which surprised me.

Does Soulmate actually exist?

I think I had watched or read too many fairy tales. Is it time to give up this sculpted image of Prince Charming on his stallion (or Ferrari, whichever comes first) that one day he would come and claim me for real? Do you marry a person because he’s convenient? (His family lives in the same village/town/state/country, speak the same language, have the same skin tone color, same religion, same hobby, same birthmark, same workplace, same shift, same class, same university, same dentist, same laundry-Walla, same building, etc) Do you love a person because he’s the total opposite of you? (big-small, quite-riot, tall-short, PAS-BN, white-black, likes gardening-adores extreme sports or anything anti-gravity, etc.) Do you love him because your mother told you so? (He can support you here and afterlife!) Do you love him because he’s the only one that fits your gene pool preference? (I want your dimples on my children.) It should be simple, right? For example, do you love him because you just do?

Does this person that you wish when you were naïve and so full of ideas of Mr. Right would turn up one day? What happens if he never would? What happens if he is dead? (Please refer to Malaysian road accident statistics), What happens if he already married, taken or met another person who grab him by the horn and would never let go? What happens if he’s just not into your gender? What happens if he saw the glimpse of you, felt his heart vibrate but left it because he didn’t believe in this Soulmate crap? What happens if he’d just gave up looking and settled for someone he’s not supposed to?

I have a list of qualities that I look for. I don’t reckon he would fit the requirement like a glove or a last piece of a complicated jigsaw puzzle but this is the least I could do to ensure my happiness with another person. As far as I’m concern a Soulmate can drive you up the wall too with his smelly socks and pickled undies no matter how compatible you are with each other.

I have a ‘thing’ for humor. I like funny men. Funny for me here does not mean men who crack jokes that you didn’t get and you pretend to laugh so that you’re not the only one who appears retarded. I mean witty conversations that tickle you to the bones with regards to anything under the sun. (I would try my best in politics) I like men who don’t take life too seriously. I don’t want men who argue about which hypotenuse does a diaper should be folded or plan the entire outing by the minute and asking for my plan in the next 10 minutes, 10 months and 10 years. I like to be spontaneous or be surprised. I like to be cared about. I think that is important. I never had a man who cared about me except my family members. I imagine it would nice to be cared about by someone you really like and like you as much, no? Not stalking-care but just hints that he-is-thinking-about-you-care.

I like that this person is intellectually and emotionally better than me. I can say that I am a VOC (Volatile Organic Compound) and that is not good for my mental health. I need some balance – too sensitive is not good or too stubborn. I also have this really stupid ‘thing’ with men who speak foreign languages. I don’t know why. I find them attractive. Do they actually are or in my mind they are just sexy? I like traveling and I wish to extend my next journey to parts further than Europe and he should not mind this because he too, is a reckless vagabond. I like the idea that life is a constant learning process, not the last stop on the map. If he agrees with everything else but this then maybe we should opt for another option like being neighbors who visits each other once a while or just a partition will do. A double Decker would do the trick too.

I have issues, do I?

It is frightening to face the World alone. It is not easy and a company would help tremendously. A friend is worth the trouble but pushing through it with a Soulmate is different, right? Was it worth all the pain and heartbreak? We are all wired to search for the Other Half of the Orange (Media Naranja) and we would keep at it until we think that we found what we’re looking for. We give excuses, we lie and we tell ourselves that no, we will never get what we wanted because it’s too good to be true. What if it’s always what you wanted in the first place? What if you’re the one who sabotaged yourself thinking that you can’t?

I don’t know what will happen in the future. There is too many ifs and uncertainties. But just maybe, just a tiny little hope would go a long way and I of all millions of people around the World would found what I’m looking for.

Money

What a dilemma.

You can’t really live without money at all nor live for the love of money.

From what I’ve seen so far, money can make you a different person. As they put it simply on bumper stickers, ‘Evil inside.’

Yes, money buy things. It will get you that diamond necklace you wanted all your life, it will get you that designer jeans, that gorgeous shoes, that car, that trip around the world, that house, that trophy husband, that tummy-tuck, that awesome yacht, that superb tan, that implant that you dream about at night.

It can get you anything.

But having money is different than wishing to have a lot of money.

‘If only’ was the frequent term.

But if we stop and think that there are always two sides of the coin then we won’t frequently wish that we had what we don’t.

I had money, lots of it, once. You suddenly have friends who suddenly wanted to go out for lunch that turns out to be a polite way of lending money because they’re short a couple of hundred before the wedding. Your family wants you to buy a car or upgrade their laptop or to buy another pair of RM500 spectacles. Suddenly, everyone is your friend.

And you can’t say no.

There were times when I can’t find two coins to rub, inside my purse and a friend had to cook her food for me because I’m too proud to borrow and preferred starving. Friends who came to see me because they’re worry about me, estranged and morbidly stupid in a strange place knowing nothing but chasing empty dreams and lent me money though they too, don’t have much.

I know someone who saved up all his savings and lost it and he was almost mad because half a million is not little.

I was asked why settle for a job that pays so little. Why?

Because it makes me happy, and I can’t think of anything worth more than anything to replace that.