Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Trompe L'oeil


Your facade will crumble, and your masquerade will end.
Sometimes I almost wonder, if it's me i'm looking at in the mirror.
If perhaps, I am who I am, because I keep telling myself that.

I wonder if the nitty gritty does actually bother me, except i'm too busy to notice.
Or really, am i busy because i don't want to notice?

No, there's no one i'm thinking about as I fall asleep at night.
God maybe, believe it or not. And how i feel bad because i've gotten my life back on track with him and yet, haven't been spending that much time.
I digress.
Besides Him, there's the odd fleeting thought now and then, but i'm usually asleep too soon to think much about it.

I'll tell you what keeps me awake for the last half hour before sleep takes me though:
The knowledge that i'm so absorbed in Singledom that there isn't anyone for me to fall asleep thinking of. The idea, that Singleton has taken over me so completely that while I very much miss falling asleep in someone's arms, I freeze at the idea of a relationship. And i do mean that literally, mind you.
One of the last times i slept over at Vee's, i crawled into bed still slightly woozy but more tired than anything. When i was about eighty percent in lala land, floating images of me and a particular guy going into a relationship together attached themselves and taunted my semi-consciousness. I completely jolted awake, mentally. Eyes wide open, staring out into the dark and my chest heavy. I kid you not, i even found it difficult to breathe.

I figured, at that point, that i had become a complete commitment-phobe.
I'm not anymore, i'm figuring out.

What still is true is that-
1) I'm too lazy to start anything
2) Too busy to
3) I've given up on guys and I'm too vulnerable with girls
4) I'm too damn lazy
5) I'm quite enjoying being swinging single
6) I need a whole bunch of space
7) I'm too damn effing lazy
8) and i think there's a part of me that's a little bit
insanely scared of falling and hurting again.

That last bit's my inner-self speaking, the inner-self that tells me to stop because buying a pack now will keep me hooked on for the next week and a half.
It's rather sobering, that thought.

I guess I've never found myself at a point where i didn't know that he-01 preferred coffee over tea, or that he-02 always liked hot drinks and took exactly three packets with his coffee, or that she-01 felt the same about divorce as i did. That she-02 never thought she could fall as hard, or that he-03 was scared shitless about exams even though he studied superbly hard for O's, That he-04 hated his dad, and she-03 had been in love with a man once and he is still the only guy she'd sleep with or that ohigiveup.

I think i used to ask, once way past the point of sensitivity, how it felt and if it got lonely.
Being swinging single is very different from being single and in love/crushing on every other living thing (though i swear i wasn't like that).
And i would ask, in all my naivety, of the one area i knew absolutely zilch about.

Strange isn't it, the hand that deals you life's cards?

I've been digressing like a freaking train wreck! ugh!

My point is, I'm wondering if I feel this way largely due to what i tell myself.
I'm quite, quite sure that the close-to-ten reasons listed somewhere above hold truth,
so that leaves me asking why I still let my mind wander to the very remote areas that occasionally think about a relationship.

Most of me is scared out of my mind, to tell you the truth.
I don't see myself getting into anything majorly serious until i'm well past University. Which, as you probably know, differs greatly from the me who thought i'd be married by 24 and popping out kids by 26 (so that getting back into shape is easier. not that i have much of a shape anyway).
Another worrying bit is the line that goes "nothing majorly serious until..." because, as you probably would know too if you're a friend of mine, I've never been a fan of swanning in and out of relationships and would never get into a relationship with someone i couldn't see myself with, long-term. Not even a remote chance.

Reading this particular book (which is pink and which i am reading) is also kind of what got me thinking.
I've wondered how the 25% of my generation, who are unmarried by choice, feel. Surely, there must be those lonely late night moments where they are suddenly uncomfortably aware that, while they have their career, a cat and a gorgeous penthouse, they are also sexless and alone and even if they're not, might have a tendency of waking up beside unknown hairy strangers and being caught in them dingo-gnaw moments.

La Trahison Des Images-
Though Rene Margritte's art piece has nothing to do with what I am talking about, her title caught me for a bit more than a moment.

It pretty much brings me all the way back to what i meant (or was trying to mean) from the very beginning-
Is this all but a front?
Can YOU answer that? Can I?

We can tell ourselves things, make excuses and even lie. Shamelessly.
But we be the fools eating thine own shit.

Most of the time, we don't know.
So i guess i'm still very big on gut feel and following your heart and all that jazz.
Inside and out, i'm very much a die-hard romantic who, scarily enough, might even be in love with romanticism itself.

Trompe L'oeil, another quote to keep besides C'est La Vie.
It's up to you to decide whether you're fooling the eyes of those around you, or your very own.
Such is life anyways.





Trompe L'oeil

You're the lie, that you tell yourself
late in the night
You're the rain, that's still falling
just before the sunrise
And when bodies melt,
like ours did
And faces, they fuzz
You're her truth,
oh that she believes
And yet she is your lie

We're the pieces, of a broken vase
too shattered to fix
We're the dogs, on the shortest leash
too far away for this
But when bodies melt,
and it's not ours
Memories, they blur
You're the truth
that she grips on to
And you believe in your lie

She's the rose, you fall back upon
thornless and pure
The antidote for sorrow,
might she be your cure
But when memory boxes come unlocked
and sand vials break
You're standing there, clothing her in shame
and you're the truth that she'll hate

For now bodies melt,
and it's not ours
In the dark it's not her.
And while you're her truth
She's fallen for you-
She's still your lie

(c) Charis Vera Ng
March 18th 2008

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