the secret escritoire

I have moved to authorgal.wordpress.com. Wordpress seems to provide a better and more user-friendly template though I haven't got the hang of it yet. Anyhow, I like it better :)

I shan't think about it. I musn't think. I cannot think.

I've been acting really weird lately. Hate and dread myself. Even pissing off so many people. (Oh yes. This time, I'm really pissing people off.)

I had reached into the back of my closet and found that tattered box, its edges waning off and the stickly tapes lessening on its grips. The contents are still the same, with some new added items, but they are not pretty anymore and I wonder what happened? Looking at it now, it sends a lump in my throat and I feel smothered. I've been waiting for the day that I'd be able to browse though each and every single item and feel nothing more than nostalgia. Alas I was never able to, each time just taking a quick peek, feel my heart sink with sadness, and quickly rewrap the box and stuff it back to its corner. It's not time yet, I'd say.

This time, I refused to look at it, keeping it way back. As if I was hoping, that by some stroke of miracle that it would be renewed again and not made out to be what they all say - It's nothing but junk. Hear another person say that again, and I'll snap.

It is nothing but junk. But junk that I hold so dearly. What am I holding on to? Memories, hope, or just a dream that will never come to pass?

I cannot feel God now. Cannot hear God now. I'm shutting everyone out. Including God, including myself. I don't even know what is it that I want. I know what I want. I want to do anything to get rid of the box and the closet all together if possible. An accident that can wipe off my memory. Anything. Just get it over with. Then again, I see myself, desperately holding on to the box, and even as the car heads towards me, that I'm looking at it and holding it tightly. I screw my eyes shut and make one last wish - Please remember - and then the whole world goes blank.

Alas I awake and find merely a few weeks has passed and I'm neither dead nor alive. But just walking on. There's something I'm waiting for. But everyone says there's nothing to wait at all. The box is still there. Only that now, it's just an empty box and the contents are gone. Still I look into it and see them all there. Or at least, I must have imagined them to be.

It's about time I started practising my writing finger and keeping the pulse on more serious issues than my broken heart.

But it's hard - you know what I mean?

Made a trip down to SPH again today and had the greatest honour of coffee with both the editors of Stomp and Straits Times. I'm seriously falling in love with SPH more and more and if I shan't get the job there, I think I'll just crap up and die. But I've been feeling so much better this week. Perhaps it's the knowing of realising more important things in life other than love and broken hearts, pride and self-worth, but really just concentrating on what pleases me and what can propel life to greater heights.

I cannot stop thinking about the essay I wrote for Wed's test and think I'd made a big shit out of it. They are so gonna toss my script into the bin. On hindsight, I should have chosen the one about marriage values. Wouldn't that be a more familiar topic?

But God is always in full control - I assure myself.

Something I did bothered me a bit on my way to SPH this morning. It started drizzling slightly when I got to the main road to get a cab. I had 25 minutes to get to SPH for the greatest interview of my lifetime and there was this other couple and their mother-in-law already waiting. Although I had stood behind them, as per the queue courtesy call, they decided to walk down further on to the bus stop that was behind me. The woman looked like she was six months pregnant and was supported by the old lady beside her. Meanwhile, her husband looked frantically in need for a cab. So i debated with myself if I should let them have the next cab first and thought a good deed will beget good fortune and I could certainly need some on this big day. Alas a cab finally arrived after almost 10 minutes of wait and just as it halted to a stop, I debated if I should ask the cabbie to drive on to the bus stop and pick them up. But just as I was hopping in, another available cab swept by and stopped right ahead of us for them. I thanked God for having resolved my dilemma but just as my cab took off, I realised the other cab, for some reasons, did not want to pick them up. I could have told my driver to stop and exchange my place for theirs but something in me just sat still and looked at the wife and husband livid with frustration. I regretted it instantly and thought if the child died because they were slow to reach help, then I'd never forgive myself.

It's my forth sleepless day and I feel real drained out. But Marwin had talked about visiting so I guess there's really no way I'd be able to head home for an early night as I'd planned.

Two more hours till closing and if I don't do some writing, I'd prob go insane. Lorraine has promised to drop by with Ace and James - two most decent and sweetest men known from Ngee Ann Poly. The former protraying the most patience I've ever seen in a men and the latter, a mild-mannered, yet God-righteous to a point which almost puts me off.

I was called up for a writing exercise at SPH and am duly impressed by the orderly professionalism that the office coupound, both staff service and architecture exudes. I've made a conscious decision that that is the No.1 place in Singapore I want to work with. Why, don't most other 2,000 of my peers?

So I sat for over two half hours examining and typing furiously at an essay with the topic of the naivity of a person who thinks life is fair. At the end of one and a half hour, two deleted drafts and almost 100 words pass the word count, I sit back and realise I'd in my haste, interpreted the entire topic wrongly. But it was too late for changes so I tweaked a bit here and there, hoping to hide my stupidity as much as possible. Then there was a grammar test which I couldn't quite tell from one mistake to another, and finally, a rewriting of a press article which I'm not certainly sure of. The other applicant, as I discovered towards the end of the test, that she was from NUS, a tough rival, and it was then that I felt discouraged at what little chance I must stand from the local more academic-excellent graduates.

Two nights ago Simon wrote about his younger brother who has three children. It then struck me that he might be even older than I'd first thought he was. So I dished out a reply and carefully constructed, in a most tactful, yet amiable manner, that perhaps it was time that he rethought about where the whole objective of us emailing was gonna go because clearly, I am so totally out of his age league. It's scary how he must think that I'd be even starkly interested and for once, I'm not flattered in the least, but instead, offended that he might even be taking me for a cheap thrill. He hasn't replied and I'm taking it that he's gotten the message and have backed off. I know how mean it is of me and retribution must be around the corner, but i cannot and will not imagine even befriending him!

I've decided to go ahead with the CG transfer with or without Z. It's time some sense is knocked into her that no one can tolerate her prissy manners. There's a fine line between me being understanding and patient and her taking it out on me. I seriously think she should stop acting like an heiress and my saviour because friendship is one thing I take seriously and will not tolerate yet another fit thrown in pique because I'm heartbroken and have lost enough faith in friends and will easily let another one go should my wellbeing be threatened.

By the way, I defied my honour and let myself go at two tops at Topshop yesterday. It's awfully sexy and cute and bares a lot of my chest (not the boobs) - my most flattering body part.

I'm learning to control what I eat and am considering researching into Blood Group Diet. Mum is delirious with happiness at our now-almost-finished-renovated home and it's looking really lovely. It's prob came as a good thing that Z has left me alone so I have more time to hang out with other friends and stay home more. It's nice and cosy, and even more so complete if I had a boyfriend to fuck with when I get home. Muahaha!

Simon, a new friend I met recently has been sending me emails. He writes almost like Tom Hanks in You've Got Mail and I'm pleasantly flattered if not for the fact that he's in his mid-thirties and is absolutely of no attraction to me at all. Z reckons I should let him on to my background, my status, which she believes is enough to put him off. But no, he's not a fantasy.

Donny, my (soon-to-be) cell group leader is a chubby fellow in his early thirties. Big-eyed and a winsome smile, he's a man of God full of vibrancy and sunshine. And his cheeriness is so infectious, I love just seeing him and it's becoming so obvious Z tells me to hold my horses and stop staring at him. She reckons he 'discerns' my spirit and is aware that I have lewd thoughts about him. Thing is, I do. But it got quite difficult to imagine so I went back to thinking about J and off I went like a boiling kettle (now that's a bit exaggerated).

Jonathan, my counsellor is a gentle giant who gestures and talks like a woman. If it weren't for his height and angular built, it's easy to mistake him for a female for his skin is sheer porcelein. He's married to a Hong Kong wife - the ring, a nuisance sight at every counselling session. I used to picture him walking through the door with his file and after putting on the 'Counselling in progress' sign, turn towards me, fire in his eyes and hungrily start ripping my clothes off. An hour and a half later, we'd walk out nonchalent, a professional handshake and with a brush of a stray fringe and promise same time next week.

It's a start of a whole new month already. And I've just realised it's been exactly a month since I'd returned from Melbourne. Rather, a month since I waved goodbye to him at the departure gate till the sliding door closed itself.

One month - what have I done? Where has that left us? Or a better way to phrase it would be: What is now left of us?

I think and still yearn for the day when he'd come to me and say he's sorry for having let me down. I wonder if there's any trace of me left? Among his room, his bathroom, his diary, his life. Did my presence there only served him nothing but bad memories, self-reproach, or gratitute? If there was any thought left at all, would it be the closeness that we shared, the loving and understanding closeness that I offered?

I want to shout out to him that I accept the way he is and love him for the person he's been. I want to tell him how I hate the way they criticise him, the way they expect nothing but the model in him. I want to tell him that I love his babyish ways, chauvinistic at times, and that I could never think of him as being selfish, until it's become about me.

I miss him. But it's too painful to think about it. Even though I still do time to time, day to day. Still learning to control and to cast it away. I'm happy being home - that is until thoughts about him flood into my mind and suddenly life becomes inadequate; like nothing i have could satiate that void that used to be him.

Jonathan applauded me for my strength and my nonchalence. And though I've stopped weeping about it, my heart pangs at his every thought. Creeping in like a sneaky thief and makes me realise all that I'll never own - all of him that I'll never have.

Still I'm coping well. Don't feel bad. I'm fine.

What is it about having pride in yourself?

I'm starting to realise why everyone says I'm just not half the person I used to be. And I think that's where the problem lies: I've lost all sense of pride. I've become this fearful, uneasy walking person that is just waiting for things to happen.

On Sunday, God said - in the words He'd said to Adam when Adam told God he was ashamed of himself because he was naked - "Who told you that?" But the paranoid in me denied it. I have no pride.

I've been asking myself if I've been thinking this way because J said it to me. Or did I really realise that for myself? The me now seem to be throwing myself at everyone, hoping to gain whatever bit of attention I could get, irregardless who it was. And that's me now after Melbourne.

Last night Winnie and I re-read what J had said to me on MSN the other night and he was marvelling at how this trip was part of our destiny for him to heal my wounds. Alas it's come to this - he's ended up hurting me even more. With watever left of me from Paul, I was hacked into little bits. And now, I think everyone despises me, and I really despise myself too.

There's nothing to do and nothing to feel good about. P looked a picture of bliss and she too. During the short span of three seconds, I saw them basking in what should have been mine. My man, my romance, my love, my smile. All taken by two pple out of their own selfishness. How could I live this down? How could I ever embrace life and even the little things that I hold so dear?

Someone freaks me out. Like a mirror. He seem to talk the kind of things I talk, muddle over the kind of personality flaws that I do and fire back whenever I snap. Chatting with him is like talking to a mirror. The words just bounce back. And I realise, our characters are so identical it clashes!

Maybe because he's Leo too. I've never 'sparred' with a Leo guy before so it was quite an eye-opener after the frustration. I realise, hey, he's pissing me off the way I'm pissing others off. Never could understand why P, J and N made such a fuss about my character when I always thought my honesty was a virtue and my straightforwardness was simply hilarious. And then I meet someone who is like me - arrogant, egoistic, frank, honest, and shoots off his mouth - and I'm suddenly pissed off. Wow.

I'm intringued. I do piss people off. And he pisses me off.