Rendezvous
19 March 07 : 08.37 AM
You know what's funny? I said I didn't want to see you, and I make plans with other people to make sure that I keep to that. But today, I woke up at 7.00am sharp, without the aid of the alarm. If it's not because last night you said that you wanted to drop by in the morning to give me the letter (that you had sent over to me online), then it's because that's the time you wake up for work, and I had to, ever so often, nudge you awake and tell you the time in a whispery-half-asleep kinda voice.
You started off your letter, Dear Angel ... I am empty, which in its candour and succinctness, echoes the very feelings I felt the day before, home alone. I felt desperate, somehow, then. It was made worse by the fact that you were taking forever to reply, or worse yet, you not wanting to reply. You say because anything you say will make things worse, I say your soft stance is pussy. I had to get out of my house, despite feeling terrible (with a bad throat and a nagging fever, mild or not), because the emptiness was killing me, so I went to meet Raymond and the rest at a pub down Keong Saik Road.
In the spaces all around, I see our ghosts. It was especially bad there, because Chinatown just became a place I associated with you. No longer the place I associate exclusively with gawdy Lunar New Year decorations, overpriced tourist souvenirs and senior citizens. It became retreat place for one sick of wannabe clubs that play commercialised Indie music, in this case us, who just love the novelty of lesser known sophisticated bars with good ambience. There you see the offices with the prettiest decor, advertising and other media-related firms, contemporary architect and design firms, not to mention concept motels. We've been down these streets.
The point of this, well, entry, is to let you know how hurt I was reading your letter. It was not an intended effect, I'm sure, because there were bubbles of sweetness you evoked, and I loved that. I wanted to go because I thought it was something I had to do, to stand my ground and make my point, you wrote. And what better way to do it than to do while maintaining silence and verbal passivity, and not to mention, while Vicki still has fever?
I've said this. It was never about you going. You don't get my point, Danii. I'm telling you why it bothers me, but you're telling me to compromise based on something else. We are arguing on different frequencies, and it's tiresome.
I knew that if I silenced the inner whispers of my needs, I would be so slightly unsettled. I would be happy loving you forever but the naggings would always pick at the soles of my feet.
Compromise! Danii, you speak of compromising too much. What is it we are really compromising on? Why is there even a need for a compromise anyway in the first place? What have you compromised on your part that requires me to make this compromise on mine? I know Love's not about calculating and making sure we meet each other halfway, right on the dot, but I am piqued by the fact that you even talk about compromises. Compromises make relationships lesser, and compromises are concepts out of Cosmopolitan or Girlfriend magazine and self-help books that I can't see the link to our problem here. I don't have a problem with compromising per se, but I don't know why you can't see that I cannot and should not, compromise on this aspect. Danii, please listen.
I know you’ll probably refute this and say I’m bullshitting about me saying you’re number one and all after what has transpired. And you're right.
The fact that your entire letter was meant to drive home the point that you want that, badly, was more or less conveyed by you saying it over and over and over again, paraphrased. Danii, it's a point I've long understood, but it's not addressing my needs and my insecurities. The knowledge that it's so fucking important to you, so important for you to function and probably for you to fucking live, can only be seen to be a bad thing when I think about how it's like on my side. Haven't I said enough to let you see it my way? Why aren't you addressing the underlying problem from my point of view, and somehow assuring me that way?
The thing about hanging out with Raymond and the rest that night, was the fact that half the faces in the pub was familiar. It's not something particularly bad, in fact, in other circumstances, it would have made me happy, as you've seen that night at my old school. But the fact that I no longer knew them anymore, and that given the choice, I'd rather a quiet night in with you, made it feel all the more empty. I felt alone, and no amount of flirtatious teasings from lame guys and trivial conversations with people I used to hang out with, could alleviate that.
But that's just me, I guess.
The hours are longer now, and grimmer too. And the thought of impending moments alone on a bus or on a street in the gripping silence reminds me of what’s not here. Angelmine. I block everything out at times. Sometimes away from you, I feel like I'm back at step one, before you, where I can giggle about cute guys with selective girls, or somehow maintain an image of a perfect girlfriend with other guys (an old friend said that of me the night before), or share dieting tips with close girl friends who also suffer from the am-I-fat syndrome. This is a place where you don't exist, Danii. This is a place where I am comfortable alone, yet never feeling lonely. I'm not so much afraid of going back there and having to stay put, but I just don't want to lose you.
The first time I didn't catch it. But the third time I read through the letter, I saw that you signed off like this, " daniel ". And that made me cry harder. It reminded me of that night when you said you missed Dani and couldn't help but cry, the Dani I am somehow afraid of now, although that's the guy I fell in love with. The two personae that seem to be conflicting. I am conflicted.