Him and them

i’m afraid of people like him. people who are cheerful, really really cheerful. these kind of people always has a hidden, darker side that they choose to hide with their so called “joy”. but yet i choose to surround myself with these people, because they choose to reveal that troubled side they have to me, so that we know we can still be human, still be plagued by problems, but yet still laugh about it. as for him… i really have no idea what is the dark side he is hiding away so well.

maybe it is his past? about how he struggled to grow up amidst poverty? but he is doing well now isn’t he? then again i suppose these insecurities continue to plague a person even if they manage to break out of their poverty cycle. the fear of reverting back to the life of hardship. no i know he’s not afraid of that, he is more afraid for his mother dealing with that than him. so yea. maybe that’s what he’s trying to hide by being so happy-go-lucky all day long. oh wait no. he’s not even happy-go-lucky, his cheerfulness has a very disturbing tense-ness to it that… i’m not sure other people notice, but is very very obvious to me. such a paper-thin defence that can be seen through so easily, but underneath that is a very very thick layer of defence that i couldn’t even scratch the surface of.

occasionally he has shown me glimpses of his heart, but the defence barrier has never been striped away. and i guess what got me uncomfortable was that he kept asking me to bare myself to him, when he doesn’t do that himself. maybe that was why i felt so insecure with him, even though i know that he can protect me, but only physically. mentally and emotionally, he had a lot of baggage to deal with, so i knew (early on perhaps) that there was no way he can protect me in these 2 aspects. was i too naive, too idealistic, to have pushed it on? i think i was. i tried my very best to be positive, to have hope, but in the end our little fairytale ended, and i gave up first. maybe he hasn’t forgiven me for that, so he’s not talking to me at all now.

that brings me to the next point. he absolutely does not talk to me at all. and i still can’t wrap my head around that. it’s your fault uncle, you’ve made me expect him to continue a “friendship” after a relationship. but then i remember, we never had a friendship before our relationship. we were lovers way before we even thought of a friendship. is that another reason why? i don’t know i don’t know… all i know is he makes me feel as if all the things we’ve done last time didn’t mean enough for him to even think about maintaining a friendship with me. he makes me feel inadequate, and i hate to feel that way because i already know that i am. ahh… i used to say to myself, no friendships after a relationship, but now it just sounds cruel to me. having a friendship after a relationship tells the other party that, hey you’ve done things to hurt me, and i’ve done things to hurt you, but all that is done, and i appreciate you enough to still want you in my life.

now i understand uncle’s standpoint on this. and i totally agree with him. then again, is the idiot waiting for me to make the first move? i don’t know. all i know is i’m not as spontaneous as that. and if he is waiting, then too bad because i’m not gonna make the first move. i sound evil don’t i? well i’m still a conservative girl. and i really have nothing to say if i lose this friendship, because i never knew how life was like with him as a friend anyway. why miss something you’ve never experienced before? and anyhow he seems to be perfectly fine with the others, so i shall leave him to that.

i guess what i really wanted to say was… i’m just hurt that the others would go out with him and everything, but they’ve never asked me along for anything. maybe they didn’t know that i was staying for winter, so they assumed i was away for farmwork. but it just sucks to be the one left out in the cold doesn’t it? and that’s how i feel right now. i am not needed, so therefore i will not need! simple isn’t it? sounds like a woman with a vengeance if you ask me. but that’s the way they make me feel. i was never that close to them, and perhaps i will never be. you can’t make friends out of everyone.

but what’s this sense of disappointment that weighs down so heavily? is it that i’m disappointed in them not wanting to include me in their little gang, or disapointment in myself for not having tried hard enough to fit into their gang?

i hate feeling inadequate. seriously.

Music

music is my life. it’s my everything. i don’t make it. i don’t perform it. i don’t even make money off of it for goodness sake. but it means the whole world to me, be it in the past, now, or in the future. i don’t know when it started. it has just been there, inherently present in my life, ever present.

was i always obsessed by music? i don’t think so. but ever since hearing my primary school choir perform a song called “Sakura” (in a not-so-good way mind you), i was introduced to it. or at least that was my 1st memory of music. ever since then i really wanted to join choir, to… sing? hmm not exactly. more to immerse myself in music i guess. started listening to the radio back then as well, listening to all my friends talk about the pop songs of those days. it was an attempt to fit in i suppose? but i’m glad i did that.

in secondary school i finally plucked up enough courage to join choir. i think that was the best decision i ever made. i do remember the insecurities i felt back then when i decided to join. it was the first time i tried to step out of my comfort zone and trying something i’ve never done before. and trust me, i didn’t like to do anything i know i won’t be able to perform well in. so this was a first for me. never regretted since.

in those days all i knew were pop songs on the radio. i entered choir based on that tiny bit of knowledge of music i had. but the seniors warned us early. they said, don’t think we’d be doing pop songs! this is a choir, so expect chorale music. what was chorale music, i though to myself. the only impression i had of that were those boring church-y music that put people to sleep. my stomach churned as i started to feel a tinge of regret joining this weird choir thing.

but alas i was not disappointed. i can’t remember the first song i learnt, but it was the SYF season then. so i guess we should have started with our SYF pieces. i don’t even remember the names of the songs (ok maybe one, Full Fathom Five), but their melodies still resonate around in my memories. and i remember my first time at the SYF, listening to all the choirs sing, and knowing full well that ours was the best. those was the days…

i’ve learnt loads of songs. i’ve even passed grade 1 theory, just enough to cover me through all the score reading. actually i learnt that by myself, those 5 lines and the little tadpoles that reside there. quavers, crotchets, rests, breaks, slurs, triplets, bass clef, all those words mean something to me now. our conductor was a great teacher. she may be slightly cold, and her level of knowledge slightly menacing for a beginner like me, but she really taught us. not just how to sing, but how to appreciate singing. in a way, it helped me learn to appreciate music as well, far deeper than i though was possible. the subtleness of a break here, the gentleness of a slur there, the little swells in the music, and the expressiveness of the lyrics. it always occurred to me, a musician must be a magician to be able to take care of all the little bits and details in a single piece of music. that only deepened my relationship with music.

i was glad to have been exposed to this other side of music, this side that few can appreicate without proper backgrounds in chorale music. i’ve sung hymns, musicals, folk songs, pop songs (yes a few with chorale arrangements). i’ve sung songs about love, death, sleep, dreams, floods, babies, christmas, drum making, roses, horses. i’ve sung in english, chinese, french, latin, mongolian, spanish, malay, tamil. and i’m thankful for these experiences.

music has enclosed me, protecting me in its thick buffer of melodies, stories and emotions. music helps me get through bad patches, music can make me depressed, music also make me high as well. it’s my au naturale depressant, stimulant. i just can’t live without music. or maybe, i don’t want to live without music. it has become part of my everday life. when i’m out and about, music fills my ears instead of the sounds of the birds, trees and cars. and sometimes, at that rare occasion when the right songs plays at the right time, with the right mood, now that is truly magical. it makes you… feel. feel even more deeply, with richer emotions, greater insights.

i like to silent-sing when i’m walking about with my music plugged into my ears. love to mouth the words and feel the emotions being expressed in the song. i’ve seen myself do it in the mirror before. looks really weird and unglamorous. but i just love to do that. so one day, if you see a long hair girl walking down the streets with ear phones plugged into her ears, looking forward with a sparkle in her eyes and mouthing the lyrics of a silent song, do smile back at her.

i’ll try my best to smile back as well. promise.