Protected: Recalibrating;

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Afterthoughts;

Talking to a few people last night helped me realise that we’re all busy in our own ways. (Okay, this(ese) thought(s) didn’t exactly derive from the conversation but from the observation I made of people during and after). Nobody’s going to (really) care about you, and stop to hear you whine. We have our own lives to lead and somehow, when our lives become intertwined, each of us are just guests or hosts for a while for a certain number of people and then we move on (with life) until life suspends (and we move up to heaven – for those who are). Then, we serve each other indefinitely just as time will come to be infinite.

At present, though, we’re all too busy to lead our own lives. We make time for some people at some points (or should I say, select points of time), but ultimately our time remains as our own (or maybe with God – if you believe in Him).

We just suck it up and get on with what we have to do, hurrying here and there, but at the same time hope (and sometimes stop) to admire the beautiful things around us.

This is what we learn to do as adults: suck it up and move on and then get whatever it is done.

Months in the adult world taught me that. It’s a sad revelation. Where has all the innocence gone?

To make matters worse, somehow, it seems that children these days outgrow ‘childhood’ very easily. What will become of our next generation(s)?

I daren’t even imagine.

Henceforth;

I would speak if I had the words and I would sing if I had the melody.

Sadly, though, I have none

of the above.

To sit here waiting, as a fool would,

and distant myself to search for you in vain hopes that you would

come.

The tangled thoughts tumble out of my mouth; my head, only to be

incomprehensible – to you; to others

but not to myself.

The waiting; the fighting; the resisting

At the end of the day, sadly, but surely life

goes on.

 

And I’ll take comfort in the fact that You

would come.

I need to air my thoughts, if not I might just go crazy. But the thing is I don’t know what to expect anymore. Of myself or of anyone else.

I feel like everything I’m doing is so substandard. Either with regard to people or things or students or relationships. They’re all so fragile and I seem to be determined to sever the thin threads that still hold me together with everyone else; still hold me together.

I’m a perfect example of the phrase I always use on my students – pressing the self-destruct button and hoping to get better.

No, I’m not getting better. I’m barely getting by.

I can never be a writer;

I think I’ve figured why I love doing literature so much. It’s because I can to take peoples’ thoughts and lives apart and from there try to understand them bit by bit and then maybe, just maybe, figure out another part of myself that’s not known to me. I think I’m pretty good at that, which is why I cannot be a writer.

The things I write about are so microscopic, so minuscule and I don’t think they matter. Not for a larger cause, a larger purpose, or do they cover much of what the other humans are after. That’s a sad and, at the same time, relieving revelation that dawned upon me while briefly talking about Jhumpa Lahiri with a friend today.

Besides, I’ve been misunderstood so much because of what I write that on most occasions I just don’t even feel like defending myself.

I’ll stick to a less vulnerable form of art.

Protected: Intimate moments’ and green tea latte

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

My throat’s sore and my heart’s hurting;

The past 2 days have been eventful and both days my waking moments seemed to revolve around children.

On Saturday kid got almost-strangled by a youth and that was the first time I threw myself between a kid and a danger source. Parental/Maternal instincts I guess. At that point I was in a frenzy and I couldn’t remember much except for shielding the child and yelling at the youth. I was amazed by myself even because I didn’t know that was how much that child meant to me.

For the longest time I’ve willed myself to love those naughty monsters, reminding myself that Christ’s love compels me and I’m here to serve. But on Saturday I think I learnt to truly love, and to truly know what it feels like when one’s willing to give up one’s life/safety for the other.

The aftermath of the incident involved that youth wanting to leave the church because of his violent tendencies and ya da ya da. Honestly the moment I knew the child was okay, physically at the very least, I had forgiven him. But on my way home I couldn’t help thinking that if I were really that child’s mum, would I have reacted a lot more strongly? Would I have been less able to forgive? These questions plague me, still.

Maybe God was trying to teach me something – that loving Him is more important than loving the ones He gave me. For now family and friends, and in future my own family and eventually my own children. I’ve been able to be honest before some of my closest friends, telling them that honestly if God ever took away my family, or friends, or even my spouse, I’ll still be able to love Him. But if He ever took away my children, I’d never love Him the way I did before. Maybe God was trying to remind me that nothing is meant to be more beautiful, more glorious and more precious than He is. Maybe I’ve been after the wrong things after all.

This lesson came quite timely, especially in light of the various…attractions. A great reminder after all.

The second incident was perhaps when my heart really broke when the children misbehaved. I hate to yell at them like that, even F said that she was taken aback that I was that fierce, though it was necessary. Well, the shouting could have contributed to my sore throat but what upset me most was really the children’s lack of respect and lack of discipline. It sucks to have to remind them time and again that they’re in God’s house and love should reign. Not gossips or mean words.

But deep down I know that they can never ever be not naughty because they’re children. Not meant to be restricted or pretentious like many adults have become. I guess there is a fine line, and I hope I didn’t and will never cross that line.

The third incident happened today, with a child who’s usually boisterous and would come begging me for food, even after he’s had his lunch. But today he was incredibly quiet – and early. I kept bugging him but he didn’t reveal a thing. Only after I started hugging him before he broke down but even then, he refused to tell me what’s wrong. Eventually I found out that his parents fought over the division of property (he’s from a wealthy family and from a crazy prestigious school – his allowance is the same as my pay and he’s only in primary school). They probably hadn’t noticed that he was watching them the whole time they’re fighting.

Another lesson on parenting, I suppose. The more I see these things, the less I think I’m ready and the less I think I’m grown up. I’ve aged but not really grown.

Maybe adults need to see that while they’re trying to make themselves heard, they’ve sidelined the supposed more important people in their lives.

And I still can’t give you up.

Things;

they’ve been getting a little intense and so have my rash. I know I should be more resilient than this but I am really looking forward to June when I can chill properly.

On second thoughts, especially after the conversation with you till the wee hours of this morning, I don’t think I want my stint to end that early either.

Sometimes we forget, so we don’t have to forgive at all;

A few years ago my Pastor shared that a good thing about him involved his forgetfulness. I thought that I’d never reach there because I cling onto almost everything so tightly.

But as I grew older – maybe this forgetfulness thing comes with age – I realised most negative experiences are forgotten easily as well. Sometimes I don’t even remember what terrible things happened last week and when I truly forget, that’s when I’m stripped of all those burdens that come tagging along with those emotions or things. I can read something I wrote a while back and have to rack my brains to associate an incident with it only to fail.

I’ve come to accept that it’s a good thing. I just hope that I don’t forget all the pleasant memories as well. They’re already beginning to slip away from me.

don’t shut me out;

Watched/read a couple of things today that were tearjerkers and perhaps for the first time in a long time, I welcomed those moments. They were cathartic, releasing my balls of pent up negativity accumulated over the past couple of weeks. The irony is I don’t even know when all these started.

I don’t want to give up on myself just yet. Nor you. But each time I talk to you I’m confused. At points I  thought we finally had something understood. Other times I feel you slipping right through my fingers – like yolk. Like I had you for a moment only to break you and lose you.

Don’t shut me out. Let me in because I think I know. I don’t pretend to know but I do. The next time you ask me, I’ll agree.

Had an adultish moment today. Feels so odd to be old, or to think like one. A fine example of how age is just a number and a gauge of one’s maturity – not very accurate for the most part.

I’ve been a teacher for a few months, but it seems like a long time. So long that I’ve forgotten what’s it like to be a student. Been an adult, or trying to be one for so long that I’ve forgotten what’s it like to be a child.

Saw a parent ‘educate’ a child today in public. Well, not educate I think. I’d use the term ‘go crazy.’ I couldn’t find a reasonable enough reason to explain the parent’s actions except that she’s been an adult for far too long to know what’s it like to be a child. It sucks for those few crazy moments when she was just railing at her, she’s failed to realise that her kid’s still a kid. Perhaps I’m being too judgmental here but I think the root of the problem doesn’t lie with what the kid was doing wrong but how much the parent failed to educate her.

Educating or disciplining a child shouldn’t involve shame, let alone done publicly. It should help her child understand what’s wrong with her actions but not by shaming her into fearing when her mother will go crazy the next time she does something wrong.

That’s the fine line I think. And having been through situations almost everyday where I face the trouble trying to help a child understand what I understand, that’s the difficulty of trying to teach a child from right from wrong.

I can teach all I want, but the child may not understand. Until I help my kids understand, I have not succeeded as a teacher.