Sel

I tend to turn conversations around. Too many musings and theories in my head that threaten to explode. Sometimes I can't help but want to expose them all, with whichever lucky person talking to me.

With a passing colleague, with a chatty customer, with one of my many aunts, I think twice before saying anything. I replay a question over and over, making sure it's understandable. I rethink the details of the story I want to tell, whether something is considered oversharing.

But with the right people, once I start talking I can't stop. Background information. Context. Unnecessary detail. The right people have been with me long enough to know the gun that is my mouth. They may have blank faces until I say something that doesn't quite make sense.

I don't know if my words hurt anyone. Maybe if I save all the bullets for myself they won't. The tendency to talk worlds about myself is justified by the aspiring writer in me. But snap myself out of it and it's just called self-centered.

Do I turn these conversations to be about me? Or do I nod in rhythm until they are so far into their story that there is nothing to add from either of us?

When she is telling me her reading interests, do I ask about the books she has read or do I tell her Ah, my taste is the opposite, blah blah blah me?

Weeks ago, I did neither. I smiled and nodded, and we fell into silence. I looked down to start plucking my nails. By the time I thought of what to say, she had started talking to someone closer, and I drifted off.

For a while I thought I'm doing better than I ever was, throwing Morning!s to every colleague I pass and talking to Pezzo cashiers until they give me a discount. But here I am on my second full-time job still bad with people. Lost as ever between my enthusiasm and selflessness.

I saw her stumbling around the back on her own today. Not too worried to run to her then, but concerned enough to blurt out Are you okay? when she entered my peripheral.

Cramps, which I didn't have the antidote to. Cold sweat, which for me could only be cured with a blanket. Again, I fell into silence with her. My hands are so cold, she continued, and she reached out to hold my hand in hers.

I noticed for the first time how small her hands were.
But apart from that, I didn't know what to do and I'd been silent enough with her.
I just gaped at her wedding ring, which I hadn't noticed before.

She helped me out by saying she was going home, taking half the day off. All I could say was okay, even when I had branches of words to tell her.

I made a mistake

This always happens. I want something so much that it unhinges me. I hold on to it so tightly it breaks, from its solidity to fragments. From my sturdiness to doubt. So, so much doubt.

Did I fuck up for leaving my work hanging from last year? The already-little confidence that dwindled when a local publishing company finally replied my e-mail, only to reject me.

Maybe the mistake started from the moment I decided to center my first novel around Wind, Rose, Flame. A story that has now long expired, a useless friendship tattooed on my back years ago.

Maybe it was the coloured-paper storybooks I made in primary school, or the diary entries from secondary school. Maybe it was the blog posts I furiously typed out in year one in place of overdue assignments. Or the poems I scribbled in my notebook on the morning bus rides to work.

I have fallen in love so deeply that I am now unsure. The happiness scares me sometimes, I think it's me at my most vulnerable. Anything can happen. Anything can break. Flames die out, except the ones sparked from anger. Nothing has changed, yet everything is different. I am high, but I am in the best place to fall to my death.

Once upon a time I thought a better man and a better job would bring me out this pit.  A better man brings tiny nephews and a better job brings colleagues exactly twenty weeks pregnant. A better me brings silent cries and carefully hidden pain. Who do I blame when everything is okay?

Now it's dawning on me that the higher I am, the deeper my trough.

fifteen thousand

When I was still with my ex-boyfriend, my mum already had her sights on my future with him.
Our wedding, to be exact.
Fifteen thousand, to be exact.
I thought it was ridiculous; I also thought she was joking.

I got to know that she was serious, from how she would not stop mentioning it. I reassured my ex and myself she was asking for such a high amount because of the trouble we had conjured. By that time, he had already gotten a job as a steward and I thought she was just trying to take advantage of the money he'd be getting.

Almost two years later, she is still hung up on a fifteen thousand dowry only now she is expecting it of someone else. Over time, as ridiculous it really is, I realise it isn't funny anymore. Something simple is being made difficult by my own mother.

As a result of how small this country is, I got to know that my boyfriend's brother is married to a friend from secondary school's sister. We spent a better half of secondary school as best friends, but as adults we drifted further and further until we just stopped caring.

But her sister remembered me from the one time I'd come over, almost ten years before. And just like that, I had an old friend back. The last time we met was the last day of August: the birth of her and my boyfriend's second nephew. Both their families were there, including her new sister-in-law.

Somehow I was still in the mindset that anyone who is married should be older than me, right? Her obviously pregnant belly assured me of it. When I first greeted her I'd taken her hand and put it to my nose; she didn't question it, maybe thinking I was younger than her.

Later when I started talking to my friend, I got to know her sister-in-law was 24, just like us. Somehow it slipped my mind that we were way past a marriageable age. That was when I noticed more engagements and weddings among my Instagram following. Some of whom are younger than me.

I can't help but to feel envious. Sometimes sitting on the couch with my love and his parents, one of them would suddenly bring up an upcoming wedding. Some way or another the conversation would wind its way back to our own plans for marriage.

I've listened to their reasons why they just can't give in to my mother's desired amount, even if they can afford it. And wouldn't I be a laughing stock? Not even a diploma, zero sense of religion, not very household-oriented.

Even if the dowry is out of the picture: knowing how my mother is, no daughter of hers will have an ordinary wedding. Not even an ordinary engagement. No, there must be an elaborate ceremony, with her colleagues and friends, more than her daughter's. There must be a five-star hotel, with a famous eighteen-year-old violinist from Malaysia that she is obsessed with.

That is the complete opposite of what I dare to envision.

weakness

This person was always someone to look out for, so they say. If there is even a sign that you'll get a good one, lucky you. On the contrary, if they take one glance at you and decide you aren't worth shit, then you aren't worth shit. They're a mother-in-law, already eyeing your every move, already blaming you for every wrong her own child does.

In the past, this figure I had didn't think so highly of me. I dare say she was probably the only other person who thought lower of myself than I do. All for the lack of a headscarf, not even saved by my long sleeves and jeans everyday. She even overlooked her hurricane of a child, not the slightest suspicious that he served alcohol on his flights and did the forbidden in the room he rented in Singapore.

I grew up sheltered, with a mum that allowed me to wear sneakers with my baju kurungs and supported me in every awkward phase I went through. I had an aunt who took me in when my parents didn't know what to do anymore, and my dad's many sisters and sisters-in-law loved me throughout my childhood and youth. You couldn't blame me for being wary, despite the many motherly figures I've had my whole life.

He told me his father was easy to go through because they were closer. That his mother was the one who so blatantly asked when he introduced his ex to her, "Betul, ni yang kau nak?" It didn't matter how much he really liked her; his mother accepted that, but it didn't stop her remarks and constant asking if he was serious. Not a good thing to hear when it was just about the same things my own ex-boyfriend's mother said.

She was the first of his parents I'd met, at a bus interchange I so loved and detested. I shyly asked how was she, before watching her kiss his cheeks and vice versa. Barely a month since we got together, I thought it was the purest thing I'd ever seen. Gone from my mind was the times my own mother kissed my forehead when she or I left for work.

I saw how fair she was standing next to her son. Got how the people in his stories were surprised to know he was her youngest child. My heart melted, and that day I replayed the tiny interaction over and over, unsure if my smile and shy "How are you?" were good enough. I was still falling for him, but I couldn't comprehend feeling the same way towards his mother. I didn't understand why my heart skipped a beat when he said she thought I was pretty.

I only got a taste of how talkative she was at our first dinner together. A contrast to the silence his dad sat in, she laughed and brought out memory after memory. I still didn't know what to say, or even where to put my hands. I just sat there with a dumb smile, wondering why his parents weren't interviewing me like they had joked they would. It seemed like there was always a gap in his family that was made for me and I'd simply just filled it.

Eleven months later, she too can't escape the random comments and musings that spill out my mouth. Sometimes she was the one who asked about my job or my plans or simply where her son and I went on our dates. Other times when it was just me being my own version of talkative, she simply nodded. She would make a face when it was clearly something she didn't care about, but that's the thing. I didn't take it to heart. She just reminded me of my love, with his straight face while I rambled on and on.

You're lucky enough to find a good person after a bad relationship. Imagine finding a motherly figure who only speaks well of you, even with your uncombed hair and ripped jeans, even after seeing you drool in her son's bed. I'd gone over with holes in my knees twice, but instead of reprimanding me or making snide remarks behind my back, her invitations kept coming, until my ripped jeans remained untouched at the back of my wardrobe.

She remembers my off days and my schedules, constant asking him if I would be coming over. She saved my favourite chicken part for me, and she refrained from cooking beef when I casually mentioned cutting it off completely to save the earth.

"Kenapa tak makan daging lagi?"

"Beef ada big environmental impact on the earth."

"Abih chicken tak impact the earth?"

She'd asked with a hint of sarcasm, but her giggles washed off the discomfort I would have felt if my own mother had said it. I thought of my own mum, telling me off for being 'picky' when I never really liked beef in the first place.

She was the reason why I went home one day and just decided to eat without cutlery for the first time. How I told her so sadly that my own family members laughed at me for my mistakes, thus why I only ate with my hand in secret afterwards.

Five new cardigans, a mix of my usual black and two shades darker, after a trip to Kuala Lumpur. "I didn't think twice, I just took the kind of jackets you always wear," she had laughed in Malay, tossing me bag after bag of cardigans.

Me, cutting hotdogs in her kitchen while she worked on the rest of the magic. How she had time to stop and correct me, while giggling at the mistakes I was making out of something so simple.

Now I am in tears, thinking of how much she loves me and I, her.

I've always wanted to ask her where she and her husband had gone dating in their days. What age she started donning the headscarf, whether it was her own will or out of love for anyone. I wanted to ask what comes into her mind when she looks at her youngest son, a split image of the love of her life.

I wanted to talk to her about my mother, about how she never took me seriously. About my father who beat me senseless and always let his anger speak first. I wanted to tell her about how my parents only used religion in their favour, the reason why I could never head down that path.

I want to tell her that she has changed me, with the way she brushed my boyfriend's hair and touched his face. The way she leaned against her husband and called him Abang... so adoringly. The way she laughed in the backseat when I talked mindlessly in shotgun.

With her teasing and giggling and remembering the little things about me, I chose the only other woman who is your weakness.

man

I saw you first, from posts on his Instagram. He has your eyebrows, though yours are more faded and sprinkled with age. You saw me later through photographs he kept in his phone. I looked younger than I was, making you tease him for courting a kid.

Two days before his graduation we finally met, though there was not much more from your subtle nod and my shy smile. You reminded me of my own dad, from how you spoke quietly to the way you brought your head back to look at your phone screen.

You were always the subject of our conversations at the marble table. He respected you, he was weary of you, he kept secrets from you. Your discipline was just as tough, but he never hated his father the way my older brother and I did ours.

Years ago I thought if our father was shorter than us, it was our turn to stand before and protect them. I long had the honour of being taller than mine, but it is nothing compared to how he towered above you. I had to watch the way he cared about you in a way my heart couldn't comprehend.

Maybe it is the way your face lights up whenever I visit, and my father's frown whenever he sees me. Maybe it is your longing to teach me about religion, compared to my father's usage of god's name in anger and pride. Maybe it is the way you take our relationship seriously instead of shrugging my feelings off like a phase.

It was him showing you pictures of me that tugged at my heart. It was looking at the old photographs where you looked exactly like the love of my life today. It was being told how much you'd wanted a daughter, that made me cry before him for the first time.

At first I envied him for that ability to love a man for his harshness. Through your impatience with your three sons and love for your two daughters-in-law, your gentleness with your nephew's autistic child; eventually I understood.

It was your family that welcomed me, from your mother who only stops grumbling about everything when I visit; your niece who insists I don't have to kiss her hand despite the age difference; your nephew who got me to try durian for the first time in my life.

Sadly that meant the fatherly love I felt came from somebody else's instead of mine. Against all odds, I chose the man who was the spitting image of my love. For now I can only smile at him in greeting, until the day I am allowed to hold and kiss his hand in respect.

// foreshadowing

28 02 19 // 16:27

This wouldn't be the first time I tried this writing thing again. Only two years ago I was painfully loyal, checking boxes after each successful day having written a diary entry. Getting bruises and ink all over my fingers, rough and callused skin at the edge of my middle fingernail. 

I write numbers everyday. Invoice numbers, purchase orders, customers' contact numbers. I'm not a numbers person; I can barely multiply single digits without losing my head. But words are always mine, and until now I believe I do not have blood but ink in my veins. 

Two years ago I was in an entirely different state. I mean, I'm stuck in the same country with no means or intention to ever leave; but my mental state was different back then. I was unsure. I was a child despite being on the way to 22. 

Maybe now I am still scared, but of better things. Back then I was afraid of disturbance in my own space. Of buses crashing into me when I was just standing at the sidewalk. Of lunatics attacking me while I'm minding my own business. Tiny ripples that I'd remember forever, even after they've long dispersed.

Now I am afraid of bigger things. Of crashing into stone instead of a soft bed designed to inhale my shape. Now I am afraid of cars swerving suddenly to the lane I'm on. But the fear could only come from the fact that I was out there in the first place. On a parachute, on pillion behind a new man.

I found a better man last year, albeit one who abused my affinity in the worst way a love could. He smokes, but it is the smell of cigarettes sticking to his skin and lips that I grew to love. Sometimes I think about the past, about a boy whose affection I grew to hate. I was the reason that he started smoking, during his days at Outram Park. He is why I wish I am the reason for somebody else to stop.

Next month would make it the ninth since we got together, since I found him. He found a best friend in me, as empty as I am, a void to fill his pent up emotions into. He had been lonely for the previous four years, left behind without explanations and missing thrice as many almosts. While there I was, chasing the same two impossibilities.

Somehow we found each other, even when we are completely different. Maybe the other sides of the spectrum, with his logic and my imagination. Different from whom we loved, five years ago for him and five years long for me. Even with our differing tastes in music and faith, we found comfort in the same marble table, the same lullaby that is his thirteenth floor flat, the same longing during hard days at work. Most of all, the same person: each other.

I got unbelievably lucky there. Maybe next I would find a better job, with better things to love. I would love colleagues who did their part instead of relying on me for every enquiry. I would love friends who spoke in English first and would never leave me out. I would love as an equal and not a superior.

In a way my relationships would correlate with my careers. Here I am now, with a man I treat as an equal. In no way have I belittled him or felt neglected, even after more than eight months. I've never been happier and healthier. For now I am not only content but genuinely happy.

At least, until I clock in tomorrow and remind myself of my newfound indifference for my job.