STRANGE-R

and the last person who saw her teary eyes was a complete stranger

a complete stranger

who knows nothing about her, just another stranger
nothing about the reason why, how come, those big brown eyes were sparkling.
He wanted to ask her something, out of courtesy... curiosity... ?
So he looked into her eyes, with all courage, breathed in

..............................................
I sink into my own imaginary world, the very one that was carved out of the resentment of youth, made-believe tales, freedom and nobility of soul... in another word, madness.

My mp3 player keeps playing the same rock ballad: Thunder, I can't bear to continue hearing Heaven anymore. The violin in the background is just too painful, tearing every bits and pieces that is left unwounded in my heart. Why do I feel this way? I think - I rarely think deep recently - just to make sure I can keep myself sane. back to the point, I think that I am an island. The more he reaches out for me for the comfort of another wounded soul, the more I turn sharp and rude and sarcastic. Must I be this way? I don't think I have to. Just that it is for safety precaution.

I don't want you to sink into me, to intrude my privacy, so I shove "him", the universal address to all the possible attempt, away for he is just nameless being in my alternative reality. Like a land, a castle, a safety nest I hide myself away sometime, for little, or much fantasy. If I don't write out my thoughts, my fictions, if later on in the further road of life I am walking, I cannot become a writer, a novelist; I think I will become a very good liar, I mean, a story teller. Is there such thing? Who knows?

Back to the point, about that land where I feel safe, it is surrounded by a forest. I screamed out in despair: "Don't enter, or else you'll die"

What can I do? In the moment of desperation, he steps in, and stares at me: "What now?" And stabbed I did, wounded him I did, hurt is such a mild word I shall not excuse my crime, I admit them all. One of my female friend heard me over the phone. Thoughtfully she said: "He has a heart too, if you forget" I smiled wearily, I am not that dump, not that stupid, to punch a rock and hurt myself. I am aware of his weakness, his soft side... just to make sure I aim and push him away.


it's for your good
and my sanity


Those who stick around learn a new language: my native tongue. It is my actions that replace my words, filled the deafening silence around me.
1. Putting on my earphone = I really need space/ zone out
2. Glaring = ok, please stop
3. Watery eyes = let me be
4. No response = don't try to press, I am not deaf,I just don't want to talk about it

it's ok, you can be my friend, to care a little and ask not too much about me.
it's ok, you can consider me a best friend even, I will listen, to whatever you say, I care. Just that I don't want to be cared for and I cannot return that purity of soul you pour out. I want not to share the other half, tell my story. What for? I'm leaving, isn't it harder for you? I don't want to start something I have to end

it's ok, perfectly fine you can treat me as a non-gender companion.
but it is NOT ok if you love me, desire to possess me.
'cuz if you love me, you have to love all of my madness, scars and open wounds, misery, erratically obnoxious nature, my over sensitive soul and overwhelming expectation...

...........................................................

And for that, she stares back at him, not in a rude way, just strange, the kind that does not mean to offend you but just to examine your purpose of looking at her. Oh well, what to say, what to expect, she is a "STRANGE-R" from the start.
So he looked away, bad attempt, he mumbled

and she smiled, wearily in triumph, this is bliss, whispered the lonely girl whose loneliness is the result of her inexplicable choice. She sinked in again, drifted to another land with her mp3 still playing the same song like her midnight prayer to those nightmares she faces too often recently.

Thunder, this is not gonna be the soundtrack of her life. She has to snap out! But when and how? When her unconscious mind keeps returning to the same person of the past, "you left me", whispered her, in exhaustion, "why do you keep coming back to me, in my most vulnerable moment?"...

let me be

my prayer

... i thought I did... How innocent! How naive!

I wish I had had the strength I always thought I possessed. To let go, all that I treasured. To reborn from the weakling I was. To walk again and away from the dead end I had been hiding myself. To run toward the sun... To let him go. Sometime I laugh at myself, bitterly: It's pretty funny when we come to think about it. We often act high and mighty: OH, I will let him/you/ her go... whatever! Here is the point: the person freaking left you, and by the way, how can you allow someone to go, if the person does not even ask for your permission? I am insane. I guess, I would never give him the permission, if I had that power over him, if I were in the position. So him left. So I moved on. I thought it could be simple as that. Last letter, proper farewell. Dried up all the possible tears, running one by one the procedures that I never wanted.

In my conscious mind, I never call out his name again so carelessly... knowing in some possible ways, he will struggle to reply, to give me a sign. And that hurts me tremendously to think he can't walk away with ease.

yet there are things, I knew not, which were out of my control.
The unconscious mind, the moment I slip into another world, the more honest one that my heart reigns, rules over my mind... Things are not that easy, right? When I screamed his name in the middle of the night, in the mist of my nightmare, I called out his name. For what? for protection? for help? for the salvation of my soul?

I'm sorry. I prayed.
Please let him walk away with ease.
I am as fine as I can be.
Please let him not be burdened by my nightmares, the exact definition of my reality since he left.'cuz somewhat, in a strange way, I have learned to be strong, loving this life. Maybe because I still have family to hold, friends and goals in my life. Maybe because I don't have an alternative. This is what I have, this is what I have to make do with.

Please, let him live with ease, let the last painful bits of our memories stay with me, I will keep bitterness so for eternity, he can hold sweet memories.

please...

disgrace

Despair!
Do I deserve the right to cast myself down this state of emotion as I fall into this situation of disgrace?

Don't give up, you whispered, how naive to think it is easier to give up? It is much harder, much much harder to just take the plunge and dive into depression or pack our bags and go home. What you have never thought of is the DISGRACE in bold, the aftermath of the messy equation, of your future, of 'what-if" and "I-should-have". THAT is worse than working your ass off now, even if, you have to start all over again.

I was not born with the privilege of giving up or an alternative of backing down for the second best. My parents taught me most words in the dictionary, most, not all. I did not even know the existence of that particular tempting phrase util much later. My entire life until this moment has been a long fight of endless battles. Killed or be killed... it is not easy to laugh in victory and quote from dear Shakespeare: "to be or not to be". What is behind all the A and all the "enrich" program I got myself into? What is behind all these happy moment upon the stage?

Absurd!

In this moment of disgrace what can I do but cry out? Cry out the pain of betrayal and despair. Just loud enough to reactive my idle brain.

Here we go again,
"With nothing. Not with nothing but. With nothing." - Disgrace, by Coetzee
I did not understand this quote at first glance. Absurd! it does not make sense to those who never turn empty handed, it will never make sense to those who never value anything in life. Yet it perfectly makes sense to me, scream to me every syllabus like stabbing sharp knife into my heart... and twist!

So Monday, I will walk into the class, in awe of the rest. So Monday, I will start from sketch, from the very beginning, from the bottom.

from nothing
with nothing


But I guess I am fine by it. To restart. Who will laugh anyway, at the end of the day, when all battles are "lost and won"?


ALL over again, I will claim BACK what is MINE.

I love it this way

I love myself this way.

Love that I can smile today- a unwary one, a satisfied one, a spontaneous one- for no rhyme and reason. Isn't it a bliss? To be able to enjoy carefree jokes, tiny accomplishments (like being the 1st to walk in Lit Lecture, making a mess out of Fanie's bed, having a heated argument with Van and Cindy over an absolutely trivial issue...)

Love that I can walk out of my hidden world with such look- an indifferent one, an unique one, an obnoxious one- and greet all the shocked eyes staring at me with a smile- a lonely one, a forgiving one, a soft one. Isn't it a bliss? Not being afraid to be who I am at this moment in time. Not freaking out because of the negative reactions to the new confessed fact that I have changed.

...

I am wearing a half of couple shirt set for the 1st time this Friday. Already I can laugh about it, laugh and smile- a devious one, a mocking one, a nonchalant one- thinking of all the speculation going around my strange behavior. What do they know? What do they care? About who I am and my tiny little happiness. Am I just another topic for their daily dose of gossips? In that case I am willing to entertain them. I should give back what they brought me: a smile- a painful one, a bitter one, a tearful one- when I heard they called me a slut. What have I done to deserve such title? Comforting a guy friend when his girl friend/ my close friend left him? Walking to the bus stop, talking cheerfully with another guy friend in a fancy dress, boarding the same bus just to part at different stops? Or laughing away about my "ideal" relationship with a non-existed Indian boyfriend?

I do not dress up for guys. Don't insult my pride, confidence and fashion sense for that. Just because you think I am dolling up, does not mean I am. Just that our standard of what should be worn outside the hostel differs like sky and earth. I envy your confidence of your original beauty, the one that let you wear an FBT short and a weird shirt with a pair of slippers to Orchard Road. I am just not like you, must you force your definition on me?
...

My friends ask me, once in a while: how I am, if anything change, any progress, and carefully. without making a sound, they whisper a name from the past, the one that once could bring me to all the extreme of emotions. It once was a forbidden topic, the one that first created awkward silence, then an outburst of hidden feeling. I can see them trembling with the mere anticipation of my reply. Barely giving out a hint, I smile, this time- a effortless one, a honest one, a gentle one.
"I am doing ALL RIGHT, not alright but ALL RIGHT"

...

I love it this way. It is great, don't you think? To be able to set a goal and work hard toward it, with all your heart and soul.

...
I really love it this way
love myself this way, in this particular picture. I have not taken such narcissistic and self-obsessed pictures for a long while. I stopped loving the way I look. Now I do, like falling in love with myself all over again. Loving the 20 year old me, the one without make up,the one that can stand in front of the sea and SCREAM out many things insignificant, the one that can smile- an aloof one, an unpretentious one, the whole-hearted one



P/S. Kiss the baby sky by DBSK, this song became the theme song for ZOOM IN, Jap weather fore cast program. Some bits and pieces of the lyric, really something I want to share with the person I am meeting this Friday
"Another day, on waking up, I suddenly became aware
in the photograph left behind, the two of us are always smiling.
Good day Good time ,enveloped by your heart
I want to reach out to the sky,kiss the blue sky,your sky.

Baby Sky All the dreams and hopes are made of your eyes.
Tomorrow, certainly the sky will clear up, just like you are here with me."
Until I get the pictures with the couple shirts and the particular person that actually came up with that idea, I will continue my smile, the trivial one, the mocking one, the unforgiving one... for fun, for a while

Batch outing - things I learn

8 a.m.
Message Rach to Rummy:
Morning darling, I am in front of VH, going for batch outing in ECP.Up yet?
Reply from Rummy:
Since when do you go for "batch outing"? lol

Ruam certainly knows me well. Sometime too well to be true. The last time I went for my nationality-batch outing was in 200... never mind the memories, it was in sec 4. The last attempt to salvage something that could never be the same. That, I learned the hard way out. It was not pain any more, the messy after math but indeed bitterness. I was not right, but I can't bring myself to blame it all on me either. What I did, I paid the price. I walked off, never looked back.

As I walked with a different group of people on the same path I once shared with my initial batch mates, I could not help but compared: myself 2 years ago and now. They all call me with the same name: My Linh but certainly a name cannot possibly depict a person. The same name can carry so much negative at the same time, sweet connotation. I have changed so much I can hardly recognize myself in my own reflection. But I am not sadden, someone pleased, someone regretful I could not keep my pure heart safe.

There is a clear difference between a friend and a mere batch mate. Many people confuse themselves thinking naively that we are all friends. WRONG! Class mates, batch mates, school mates, room mates.... you name them, are not friends. They are simply people who share the same situation with us. What makes you think by putting a two strangers into the same box (box -mate, j/k) they will be able to understand one another, like one another...? Define friends, and you can jolly see it for yourself we all don't have that many friends. Acquaintances, beautiful definition! It takes so much more to be a friend of someone.

I was once full of eagerness, hope to redeem what was seemingly my sin in the past, while yesterday, I was pretty much apathetic. I was up at 7.30 a.m to make bread with Cindy, Fanie, Pei Xia and Michelle. It was really fun till I snapped and walked off. Do they know I was nervous?

I was afraid I would not enjoy myself to the max as I would keep thinking of the past, the night my initial batch sat together under the stars, talking and having fun - the last bit of sincere enjoyment we could share. It was bliss, now what is it?

However, yesterday was a BLAST.

I did not once look back and burdened my heart with what I had already buried into the sand of time.

Things I learned today, things that are real: I can walk without the past weighing down my shoulders. I can run in the sun, let the wind comb my hair, then mess it up with salty water of the deep blue sea. I can tug bitterness inside my heart for years, unable to trust and love yet one day, unconsciously I will be able to receive love sincerely like the sunshine naturally pours its warmth on my tanned skin...

I had fun today. I was touched by certain gestures of Innovians, of Cindy-Fanie-Vanessa who learned to enjoy my erratic behavior and sarcastic nature, of the ever-emo yeat surprisingly caring Andika, of the brightness in Lintang's smile...

4 more months and off we go. I will bring away with me to another land, the music of youth
+their laughters
+Vanessa's unbearable, unlovable scream which freaked Andika out
+Ibam weird music in his Ipod and his obnoxious nature
+songs that we sang along with Ivan, Chandra and Andika's guitar. Emo songs... break up songs, songs of friendship and love, for who knows how many of you have ever experienced true love or will ever encounter it in our lives

I will bring with me moments
+the games: Frisbee, Captain (Ibam's) Ball, throwing people into the sea...
+the process of "taking" excessive number of bread slide from OH to make our packed lunch fr the whole batch
+the mixing and cooking
+the waking up and screaming at one another

I will carry in my heart, the touch
+My hands in the firm and protective hands of Andika, Cindy, Pei Xia, guiding me when I was learning how to do in line skating.
+the high five when my team score a point in Captain balls
+the soft touch Cindy placed on my hand early in the morning to wake me up from my lala land
+the hug, me and Lintang, again, I truly miss her. me and the girls, I wish I can keep my promise with them till the end of time
+the light push in the head, me covering van's mouth to stop her from screaming as we carry her to throw into the sea

...

Unconsciously I call them my friends, not all, some, most of them. Unconsciously I place a tremendous burden in their hands, the power over me, to bring me utter happiness and (hopefully not) shatter my heart.

...

I haven't been to the beach for such a long time to relax and chill out. As the wind messed up my hair, I found bliss... I shall not think to much...
Yet there is something I know for sure, I am walking away from darkness, bitterness of the past toward the warmth of the sun

I am only 20 once

think

it's funny, in a sad way
how it is so hard for some people to understand?
eps. for someone who is turning 18 (for crying out loud)

may be it is easier
not knowing what is wrong or right.

It is really NOT about WHO you wronged that turns me off
you did not wrong me, as far as I am concerned
I refuse to take side... there is not such a need to complicate my life this way.

It is really WHAT you did that make me look at you in a totally different light.
I am not perfect in any possible way.
Still I have not yet lost my moral compass

why is this simple thing so hard for people to figure out?
Please don't insult me by thinking that I have to take my friend's side to maintain our friendship. I don't trade my morality for such absurd reason. It does not make sense. When my friend is wrong, I can tell her straight ahead: you are bloody incorrect. The only different is that I would not leave my friend even though I may disagree with her. Are you my friend from the first place? Are you "friend" enough to understand where I was coming from?

I cared.
with the capital D which denotes the past tense.
It also implies I don't bother anymore.
it is a waste, to explain to someone 3 times that the person is not correct
and see no change
I do not talk to just anybody, not to mention attempt to correct things that do not affect my life.
yet I actually tried.

The fact that there is no change, simply shows
the person does NOT have the intellectual capacity to think

Out of frustration I am typing this out, after remarkable reflection of self and acquaintances'behaviors.

A lesson learned: if someone even bother to insult you or tell you off: the person still CARES about you and at least, in stead of fighting back to show that you are RIGHT (chances are: YOU ARE NOT): LISTEN and REFLECT

I am learning also.
in every possible way, I am trying to control my behavior most of the time. Van said I am someone who cannot tolerate stupidity. it is true, I guess, not knowing something, not realizing something is a misfortune. It is plainly ... sad that you don't have the capacity to understand it. But pretending to know something you don't to look good, worse still: pretending not knowing you are wrong to commit an act, well, that's what pisses me off the most.

If you know it is wrong yet you still insist on doing it, at least don't pretend that you are morally correct. In that way, I can still respect you and your determination to continue what you started. You can't have it all. Pretending to be a nice person while stabbing your friends from the back... or something like that.


I don't know in which direction I am developing my characters and principles. One thing for sure: I don't want to pretend to like someone I don't, to be fair, I will tell you what I dislike about you. We try to figure it out. If it does not work... let's not bother.

GOSH, think!
How hard is it?

どうして君を好きになってしまったんだろう？

どうして君を好きになってしまったんだろう？

I whispered... breathless!

I am exhausted of questions falling into emptiness... without an answer

どうして君を好きになってしまったんだろう？

I long to be able to sleep with a smile.















どうして君を好きになってしまったんだろう？
why?

Something lost

it is like walking bare in the wind...
You know you are missing something... something is not there and it is not correct.

I am much too young and it was much too wrong.

It is tearing me inside.

As if I am walking bare in the rain, bare...
Just that it is much too cold... much too wrong.
My body slips into this state of numbness...
unable to feel each drop of bullets, smashing against my pale skin which was deepening into purple shade
I know something is missing yet I am unable to spell it out.
How can I make it right? When I don't even know what goes wrong?

Aimless existence without any passion, without fire, burning desire
What am I doing here? now?

I am aware I am lost.
Yet my trembling lips frozen in the ice of my breath cannot call out... that piece of heart missing.




나 단 한사람 그대에게만

속삭이는 설레임에 눈이 부실...




It is this feeling that I have traded for my mental stability, for carefree sleep at night, dreamless nightmareless... painless.
it was this feeling that made me human, made me... ME.
I tremble... as each and every word spelling out to me each and every word... As if the fire finally was able to crack the shell, melt the ice... I bleed again... red, warmth, ache


yet


I am much too weak and this is much too wrong
I am much too weak and this is much too out of reach.
here I am... capturing my missing heart piece in my mind... for what? I laugh at myself with pure sarcasm... Even if I finally realize it, will I be able to make a change? Am I too afraid to make this change...

I miss this feeling which is lost.
or maybe it is still here, under layers and layers of ice.




I really miss this.
...pure.... innocent... sincere...



나 단 한사람 그대에게만

속삭이는 설레임에 눈이 부실...



piano... I play piano again. Play, not practice. Play means,spending time with the black and white notes, having fun, talking to them... caressing them with my fingers... press... light and hard! My emotion awed me. I thought I was unable to really touch and feel wooden notes with such emotion again. Yet piano tracks are the only thing I listen to now... Memorizing the notes.... let my deaf ears hear again.
I played something for myself, the elegy of my heart, this song, for something lost. for that particular feeling which I froze inside. This simple song... nothing special to most pianists means the world to me now.

This trade... Why does it cost so much to keep my eyes dry?

for someone else

sometime, when I cannot have something... something great
sometime, when I cannot reach for something... something far away

I give my dream up for someone else
I give away this chance to experience love for others who have someone to love and to hold.

Just like that, I pray, one day I can cry out love in the middle of the the earth and he can hear me even in heaven.

I did not like hospitals. I do not like that particular place until now. But since I cannot take care of my grand mother who is old and weak, I volunteer to work in Alexandra hospital, to talk to other elderly, those who need accompany. Maybe somewhere at home, my grand mother will have someone young, some crazy twenty year old girl to lessen her loneliness. Since I could not take care of my own lover, I reminded my friends every now and then not to be selfish and give in to their bf more. I talk to them when they fight, try to be the bridge (and pray that they will build their relationship strong enough to close all gaps and discard this bridge asap for I am not that interested to stand in between). Since I could not do so much when I was young due to a lack of direction, I took internship as teacher. The money was the worst among all the jobs I was offered. I stayed back late after my classes just to talk to them. I wished someone could have told me all these things before... Since I did not have, I gave it to them now. Hopefully they can be better off

I wish I could do more for him. But he is no longer mine, maybe he is still, but only in my mind, I pass this love away to others, those in love, those who still have this precious chance to fight, to be angry at one another, to break up and make up again... Places that I kept as secret for us, unknown restaurants that I wanted to share with him... things that usually my friends would not notice, I do. Waited and waited for for him who could not meet me at the end of the road eventually. Shall I hold on to those little secrets? those precious secrets? Love is a funny thing... I treasured it, held it so close to my heart. It slipped away.

I could not do anything. Should I say sorry for even with that NOTHING I did, I did my best? Maybe not. Cuz we part out ways. I am walking in another direction today. Yet when I see things that I could have done, I would love to have done them yet unable to... I smile though feel something tearing inside... and give them all away the couple T-shirts, the address of that romantic places... well, you name it, you know me.

Since there is no more "him" to begin with, why should I be selfish and keep them for myself? While there are others who can be so happy - for my share of happiness?

Happiness is not enough for everyone to get... As I give up, one by one things that I want to do, objects that I want to possess... I wonder: what is left for me?






P/S:About the MV. Another Korean MV. I wanted to post something of DBSK.I had something in mind, but it is too heart breaking. Kiss Shita Mama, Sayonara. So I put this instead. Like one of the characters who could not give his sick girlfriend a good break out of the hospital before she died, he brought this stranger out... let her breath life... and dreamed that it was his girl friend he did this to. If we can turn back time? Would we? Could we?

5 min

5 min with mom

That's what it takes to make my day

5 min with mom to talk about all the nonsensical stuff that one can possibly share with her best friend, soul mate.

That's what it takes to make me smile

We have this emotional and spiritual connection, me and her... wherever we are, we are connected. Like a red string, connected by thousands of tight knots. I have not been out of my hostel for 2 days, so has she not gotten out of our house for the same period of time. Sometime, i will call her, crying just to hear about her heartbreak experience at the same time, just a week later simply for one reason: either one of us has to be strong for one another.

But today we laugh, about mother and daughter, about how proud yet worried she is about my SAT result. I made it! Now there are more opprotunities for me to get out of this land. yet when I think about it, it must be much harder in the future to just sms and expect mom to call all the way from Vietnam to America.

But this is the bond I am talking about, the one and only long distance relationship I have that never fails. She is there and I am here.

Sometime, no matter how depressed I can be.

Just 5 min

Talk to her

We may fight, oh gosh, we do fight a lot about thousands of issues.

But who cares, at the end of the day, I long for her cool and slender fingers, I miss her laugh and her silly remark upon my fashion or my taste in guys. (I still strongly believe I will find a better man than my father - who at the moment, is the best possible husband one can dream of)

Seriously who cares, if people laugh when I announcemybest girl friend: mom. Ruam's best friend is also her mother (whom I totally admire and love) Mothers know best if you bother sharing with them your silly little secret (like I told mom I am nuts about Yunho DBSK and I am so gonna learn Japanese)

5 min with mom
It really makes my day

more colorful... with rainbow
more cheerful... with laughter
more love... with her unconditional love


Back to work ^^
Not another song of the day, though I have a piece in mind. I think mom would go crazy if I associate her with a Korean song. But if she permits, TIMELESS, definitely is the one for us