Closing Time

June is upon us, and my hands really feel as though they have been tied to… well, something. Something heavy, something cumbersome.

Time is unforgiving and indiscriminate in its advance.

Slashing and ripping through all that is, like a cruel menace time comes for me.




More so than ever before, I am closer to one end of my journey than the other. You know, beginnings are so much less fraught with baggage the way endings are.

The heavy burden of memory and experience is not something universally cherished or embraced.

But without endings, I tell myself, how then can new beginnings sprout?



It was about this time two years ago that I had looked to Australia for hope, escape and new leaves. Today though, escape seems only feasible within the confines of my grey, gooey gunk —which is arguably the very item I need escaping from in first place.


I have started to wonder if my life is one too sane. Is it one too calculated or one too proper? The temptation to flick the switch, run amok, pursue senseless and irrational excursions... and satisfy whims and desires of any and every sort... oh how tempting the proposition!

But then again, when all is said and done, who else would be there to clean up the mess if it was not for me, my own little self?



"A child no longer" voices in my head.

Responsibilities, the piggy account and relationships beckon...


And so, whatever little is left of my youth is being further robbed away from under my feet; time the termite sure loves its wood.


I feel opportunities dissolving into thin air. It is said that youth is wasted on the young, but somehow I have always sensed that I had never wasted my youth. The past decade was spent trying to be as grown-up and as sensible as I could…

But oh the irony!

I laugh now, thinking how these very actions were tantamount to my youth being laid to waste: I have little memory of joy and experience from my younger days. What of the crazy things you did as a child? What of the ridiculous things you said? What of the absurd suggestions you had made, or the outrages desires that you had expressed liking to, and even more shockingly, were granted with? Oh how exciting it must have been.

But if only that …I was there too.



So, with what little is left of my salad days, my time here in this city and the luxury of being “youngish", must I really walk away like this? Walk away on this path of continued arrogant, self-serving righteousness and the delusions of an unsullied life?

Must I really walk away from this one chance, guided by ever more sane and reasoned laser systems? Is the grass really always greener on the other side? Is Lord Dreamer sleeping again, or is it Lady Rationale moving on to greener pastures?

Time and the bubble of a world around me is just screaming at me to act …but if only the solutions were not lost in the very jungle of noise that they created.



But then again, none of this ever seemed to matter to me before. I wonder, must it really now?

Legacies

You know there’s this one thing I have long known, but never previously shared with anyone, neither in public nor in private...

Not that this is a particularly secretive nougat that should only be kept within the confines of my skull; I just suppose the opportunity never presented itself…


Twenty four months: that really, is the longest period of time I could spend at any given place or institution.

This is the duration long enough to be marked by epochs and cataclysms; for history to be written, new standards to be set, achievements to be celebrated and looked back upon in times to come, meaningful relationships to be made —and detrimental ones to be killed.

And perhaps most importantly: critical life lessons to be experienced, absorbed, and learnt.


Dragged on for longer, and the burden of memory and familiarity becomes unbearable; the weighty baggage of experience and contempt start to swell up into a pool of trauma.

Twenty four months is the longest amount of time before I pass from being too comfortable to being too sick, and before I get stunt from growing and get encapsulated by the very spheres I set over myself.


As the sliver of realisation falls, comes a reality that liberty and release looms ever closer beyond the horizon.

I now liken myself to a four-engine winged-tubed craft at one end of a runway, waiting for four green lights to signal at the other, before putting thrusters to full for the imminent pressure-differentials to do their aerodynamic witchcraft.

And then, freedom.

Like When We Were Children.

I wished many things.

I wished for —believe it or not— a better life.

One much less swarmed by academic hardship and pressure and the simmering prospect of failure and retribution.

And more cash. I wished for more cash to spend daily, to live more comfortably, to splurge a little, to enjoy life with, to be more carefree.

I need more time; time for my own personal self-development… the D80 and the weights beckon, the creative little child in me needs escape, and the world isn’t waiting for me.

I truly wished for more space, more time, and more cash to stretch my legs and spread my wings.

Flight.

Freedom.

Fantasy.

They've been too far and too few of late.

Distant Ties

There were quite a number of you.

Back then you were, all of you, my saviours from ...so many ugly things.


Sometimes it pains me to see how far we have all drifted apart from one another, the currents of our lives taking us toward our individual destinies, as we set off to make our mark in the great big world.

We have grown distant; friendships stretched just a little too far, and just that wee bit too thin. It’s as though we never met, as though we never knew each other, as though the other person never existed.

Then again, I suppose there isn’t much to be said between us in the here and now anyway. Simple hellos, simple take cares, and simple goodbyes.


But memories of the warmth, the good times and the good deeds linger in my head and in my heart still.

I cannot for the life of me find words to express gratitude for everything that you have filled my life with —if only in times past.


Wherever in the world you are tonight, you are not forgotten.

There’s a little piece of me, wishing you all the best, in whatever you are going through.

Golden

Carnage

The world is filled with it.

Amidst all the beauty, all the joy and all the wonder that is life, there is so much that is not so.

You left so many reminders of youth lingering in my head. What is it like to be 18? What was it like to be young, to be new, to be fresh, to be innocent and untainted by the struggles and the realities of life?

I see it in your face. I see it in your eyes.

We… we’ve lost it all.

We’ve all lost it.

What was it that took the fiery sparkle from your dark hazel eyes? What was it that put those wrinkles on your face? What was it that aged you down?

Was it one turmoil all too many? Was it one event too nasty?

And as for me?

From life’s bloodbaths I’ve lost enough of myself to cynicism and bitterness, a permanent shade of jade hovering over my corneas… a young child inside shies away from the senses of the world, scarred by the burns of life, and the need to grow up.


There is so much in my life that is going so great right now, and so much can so easily be lost.

But losing won’t kill me.

Not anymore.

Not after everything that I’ve gone through.

Not since I was the boy I used to be.

12

No news is, as they say, good news.

And this is especially true of me, and this half-arsed blog of mine.

The days and the weeks preceding my return from Sydney has been marked by a distinct lack of posts, with as many as one in thirteen weeks.

This is not because I have found another source for an outlet, not because I started a ‘secret’ blog with a corny, melancholic URL, and not because I found someone to talk to —if you seriously thought of me as that sad a sod, well then, it’s you who needs someone to talk to =)

The simple truth be told, life really has been good to me lately.

I’d like to go on about the warmth of home, of family and friends, the company, the coffee, the car, the speakers and the DAC, me having gained 8kg from the weights and the whey, and hundreds and hundreds of other such details, but I shall digress and leave it as such.

I have had no realisation so deep nor revelation so profound that I needed to ponder or write out in words. I have lost the necessity to use the word processor and subsequently visit this place post-completion.

So with things the way they are, this trend will set to continue into the foreseeable future; and seeing how I will not be around (that is, won’t be around and can’t be bothered enough) to write something that sums up the past twelve months in reflective reminisce, but as is tradition to do so, this will serve as the rojak post that will accomplish that sub-task as well.

I am reminded to the lyrics of a song that goes:

But before I learned to listen
And if indeed someone said it
Then I guess I must have lost it on the wind

Still, all in my own time is all in good time I suppose.

As per the short, succinct (or possibly shadowy) theme of this post, it is to end here without much ado, or glossy detail. Perhaps indifference would best characterise my current attitude, and if so, would anyone blame me? =)

Liquidity

The third 17C night in the middle of spring. In my room at this end of the world, its quiet, solemn and cold.

Cold.

Old wounds and past mistakes have a habit of catching up to you from time to time.

Today, yesterday, are one of those times.

Regrets, mistakes, what ifs, the many maybes and could have beens start to swirl into a tornado of distress. I think, I wonder, I wish… but what good does that do?


The shot glass, the beautiful golden hue, the woody aroma… this isn’t the first time the thought has crossed my mind today.

And it wouldn't be the last.

I can survive without it, I tell myself. Repeatedly.