Coming to 6 months in a week's time and your heart still skips a beat. Somehow it goes to show how much she still means to you. Yet you have to act like 路人甲, impervious to anything even though the heart is screaming in agony. You do your best to stay invisible, hoping that you have not been spotted, that it wouldn't start another round of un-necessary arguments and cause any unhappiness. 

如果雲知道　想你的夜慢慢熬

每個思念過一秒　每次呼喊過一秒

只覺得生命不停燃燒

如果雲知道　逃不開糾纏的牢

每當心痛過一秒　每回哭醒過一秒

只剩下心在乞討　你不會知道

Perhaps, it's all predestined. That you have to take that very path just because you wanted to check out how the place has changed since the very last time you came with J. But it doesn't matter anymore, does it?

You were listening to music on the radio as you drove down your favorite road when the lyrics of this song caught your attention;

It's been a long day without you, my friend

And I'll tell you all about it when I see you again

We've come a long way from where we began

Oh, I'll tell you all about it when I see you again

When I see you again...

While this song was made in tribute to Paul Walker, it has somewhat similar yet different connotations for you. The "friend" in part is the aircraft sitting at the tarmac, begging you to bring her up into the wild blue yonder and to flutter amongst the clouds like Peter Pan. Like what Leonardo Da Vinci once said; "For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return."

Sometimes it's a challenge to find a solution that fits everybody's requirements. Finding a solution is like crossing a minefield as everybody has their own interests and agenda. You can either thread carefully through it with a minesweeper or you can use demolitions to blaze a path across. But the career costs incurred can be prohibitive and a weak-willed person will think twice before attempting to do anything stupid.

 

Not yours truly.

 

You feel compelled to stand up to some senior management's personal agenda for the betterment of everybody yet you do not want to make it ugly. Perhaps age has tempered your trail-blazing days and hence you don't want to create any more trouble than you have already done. But if nothing is done, you cannot live with your conscience.

 

Sometimes you just have to make a stand and do the right thing. If one keeps dwelling on the "what ifs", they will never be able to move forward. You make a decision based on the prevailing information and do your best to mitigate the potential risks. If the decision is wrong, can you live with it or would you execute your exit strategy?

 

At the end of the day, no matter how much you do, how much effort you have put in, all will come to a nought because of someone's personal agenda, someone's fear for the unknown, etc. But does anyone even care about how you feel in the first place?

 

Guess not.

 

Because everyone is busy worrying about ensuring that their own interests are kept intact, that their current comfortable life is not affected. You are just a pawn on the chessboard or a tool for them to attain their goals. If you are gone one day, no one will realise it nor even shed a tear for you. It's been tested and proven so many times that you have lost count of it.

 

Thus it's better for you to strengthen your fortress so that no one can breach it and cause you so much frustrations, hurt or disappointment. Sometimes its better that way. Why stick your hot face on a cold butt when it will never be reciprocated?

It is starting to reach the stage whereby you feel that 24 hours is not enough for you to do the many things on your ever expanding portfolio. For a normal person who is supposed to be awake for 16 hours and resting for the remaining 8 in order to remain effective, you are already breaking the limits.

To say that you are slowly feeling the effects of a burnout is an understatement for you really need a good rest, away from the hustle and bustle of city life without any telecommunication capabilities. Your mental sharpness is slowly ebbing away from the lack of quality sleep as you jostle for a quiet environment to rest.

You feel as if you are trying to stay afloat in the endless tsunami onslaught as you continue to adjust to the life of part-time student while executing the day-time responsibilities of a manager. You know that you have to better manage your time and prioritise your tasks in order to stay ahead of the curve. In flying parlance, if you get behind the aeroplane and let it fly you, you are going to be dead in no time. But that would mean trade-offs in order to optimise whatever time you have.

The exercise routine which used to be a 2-3 times weekly routine with J is now relegated to a pathetic day (and that is without J or training partner). As much as you try to wake up earlier to head across the street to run on the track, most often than not, your exhausted state of mind prevents you from doing so. Instead, you walk to burn calories, cut down on drinks (the best record so far has been 2 weeks without a drop of alcohol) and eat more healthily. In between the NDP rehearsals where you continue to volunteer your services as a photographer, your weekends are largely spent studying, catching up on the lost time and doing your assignments.

You beg to differ when some say that your life these days is pretty fruitful as you immerse in studies to upgrade yourself and occupying yourself in photography activities. It is not fruitful as it seems for you are just using these activities as a form of distraction; a distraction from all that has happened. But the distractions are at the expense of overwhelming you all.

Perhaps you are not as strong as you thought you are.

Hopefully Vincent van Gogh will be proven correct for you need that. 

"As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the innermost strength of the heart is developed. Don't lose heart if it's very difficult at times, everything will come out all right and nobody can in the beginning do as he wishes."

You did another detour as you drove home from a consultation session today. Crazy as it may be, Love might have left, but your life is still penetrated by the vicissitude memories of the sub-conscious nature.

You try to contain these memories, by forcing them deep into the abyss through a busy schedule of studies, work and exercise. You keep on moving, trying to sleep through it. But even if you go to the ends of the earth, you won't be able to escape it. But such is life for  that's why these memories are so tightly held by you  because memories are the only things that don't change, even when people do.

Neglect.

That's something which you have been up to these days. 

Neglecting your studies and using fatigue as an excuse to wash away the guilt. 

Neglecting your exercise regime and using the warm weather and fatigue as an excuse.

Neglecting to update the going ons in the dynamic environment which you live in.

If the negligence of your life is a chargeable offence, you guess you would be lined up in front of a firing squad and shot. But it doesn't matter for death can be a salvation to the mortal sufferings one may be undergoing.

No matter how much you tell yourself that through adversity will you emerge stronger, there come's a point that a motivator needs to be motivated. From Gary Chapman's little test, you have come to realise that words of affirmation and physical touch are what keeps you going. As such displays of concern have been far and few between, you just have to adapt and learn to live with what you have.

It's akin to those productivity campaigns of doing more with less; You optimise with whatever given inputs and churn out the output of the same quality, if not better. Just like spending time with J. Any opportunities for meals, exercise regimes, sending her to work or home has taught you to appreciate the short time spent together, due to her busy commitments. It also gave you the chance to fill up the motivation bank with a surplus to keep you going

Unfortunately, such things are non-existent these days and it's no longer possible. You live with a motivation deficit, hoping for some kind souls to give you some words of affirmation and hugs will top off the motivation tank. Isn't it ironic that you have been neglected for so long and that no one has realised it?

Perhaps it's because you wouldn't want to trouble anyone and that gave the impression that you are able to manage it well. But sometimes you wonder if anyone will even respond if you take the trouble to ask. Or perhaps, it will come, albeit too late to do any good when irreparable damage has already been done?

Oh well, such is the life of someone who has always been taken for granted, neglected and where the loss won't be mourned or even remembered as time passes by.  

Heading back to school after a long hiatus can be a stressful affair. Throw in the work element and it can be an interesting juggling act. Studying on a part time basis and being on your own sponsorship is a constant challenge as you need to balance your time and finances creatively.

While it should be easy for you given the absence of commitments (both financial and emotional), you still feel that encouragement on the emotional level would had done wonders to boost your sagging morale and energy. A long hug and kiss would had taken away all those stresses and tiredness away, just like those days with J.

But one can never have all that they want. Such is the journey of love, one that starts with a single step down, making the journey together as one down unknown paths and facing tribulations together. But now you walk this path on your own, facing the tribulations of life on your own, hoping that you will turn out stronger and better. You just have to rely on those memories, those reassuring hugs and those soulful kisses to charge up the drained emotional battery bank. 

And through that, you are able to tell yourself that no matter how tough the journey has become, the best is yet to be.

You had an interesting dream last night. You were flying in a yellow-coloured single engine aeroplane and tearing though the wild blue yonder. You came in to land and refuelled for another sortie. When you took off and flew the traffic pattern, the engine decided to quit; the noise of the roaring engine replaced by silence. 

You screamed in anger, feeling the pain of betrayal. The pain, which despite your best efforts at the pre-flight checks, the bird has failed you. How many times have you screamed to yourself this way? To purge yourself and release the pain in your soul? But somehow you have never done that. Maybe those who felt free to do so were only those who didn't possess the guilt of having put the pain there in the first place.

But there wasn't any time to waste as you debated between turning back for the airport or putting it down, away from populated areas. As you gently nursed the wounded bird back to the airport, trading altitude for speed, you felt like Robinson Crusoe. At one moment he was sailing on a ship without a care in the world, in the next, his ship is going down and he wakes up on the beach, head caked with sand and eyes stinging from the saltwater, the taste of salt on his lips. Shipwrecked, castaway, hoping to be rescued off the island one day, some day.

Filled with adrenaline as the comforting view of the runway filled the windscreen in front of you, you cranked the flaps down, lowered the landing gear, you said a silent prayer, wishing for that extra lift, that strength to keep it going. As you did so, the chirp of the wheels connecting with the asphalt was the most comforting sound you have heard. Despite having being failed by the bird you trusted the most, you have cheated the odds.

Now that you are alive, you just hope that your life can be like what the great poet, Lord Alfred Tennyson has described;

Be near me when my light is low,

      When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick

      And tingle; and the heart is sick, 

And all the wheels of Being slow.

Be near me when the sensuous frame

      Is rack'd with pangs that conquer trust;

      And Time, a maniac scattering dust, 

And Life, a Fury slinging flame.

Be near me when my faith is dry,

      And men the flies of latter spring,

      That lay their eggs, and sting and sing 

And weave their petty cells and die.

Be near me when I fade away,

      To point the term of human strife,

      And on the low dark verge of life 

The twilight of eternal day.