Wednesday 1 May 2013

Of Schemes & Masked truths


...I used to be love drunk, but now I'm hung over
I'll love you forever, but now I'm sober...”
                                                                         - Boys like Girls, in their hit track 'Love drunk' .

Just so you know, I've got guts the size of the Titanic! Now isn't that marvelous? Oh it's gotta be!...And now I know you're probably wondering why the heck I'm blowing my own trumpet!? I mean, who's got the time to listen to the rumblings of a braggart huh?! Ha ha.. Chill out, you're not going to hear another word of it. Big guts or small guts, what does it matter anyway? This after all, is not a story about guts. Matter of fact, I would reckon it hinges more on the converse of that; on modesty.

Some time back, I got to share my most intimate feelings(well, some of them) with someone, a lovely friend, whom I had grown real fond of. Consequently, I went ahead and made myself vulnerable to them by doing so. Of course that wasn't the primary intention, but it felt right, if only as a means to an end. (Yes, a means to an end, admittedly, it was a scheme of some sort. But then calling it that would kind of put a 'deceptive' ring to it all. And guys you have to back me on that, it always is some sort of scheme when you're actually trying to work your way into a girl's heart! Except unlike the more common schemes, its usually a 'sincere' one, so to speak! And girls don't get me wrong, please notice I'm talking about a 'girl's heart' and NOT a 'girl's panties'! The latter is normally quite a disparate endeavour altogether!) 
So, it was all in the hope that they probably shared the same sentiments and would reciprocate as well. No wait, I wasn't exactly hoping for it, I guess I was more like expecting it. Hope in itself, rides a little too much on probability for it to be the best adjective for my disposition at the time. Yet I wasn't just imagining things. I could tell, our friends could tell; she was fond of me too. Well, how mistaken we were!

As it transpired, the feelings weren't mutual. Yes, ouch! You bet that feels awful!
Not to worry though, I took it in stride! All it did was leave me languishing in hurt and perplexity all at the same time, nothing serious (Okay, honestly, it was!)! Anyhow, it was funny how I then seemed to realize her being much bigger in my world than I had actually imagined she was. I'm sure y'all must have heard of the popular adage,"You don't know whatch'u got until you've lost it", yes?  Well,right then, I was living it! And for days on end I just couldn't stop wondering to myself
 
Had I been too conceited to see clearly?
Because my ego had imploded.
Had I been unduly optimistic about the whole thing?
Because my high spirits were gruesomely upended.
Or even more baffling, had she for reasons best known to herself, chosen to deny me the truth?
Because my mind was immensely doubtful. 
Was it really true that despite all the times we spent together, all the cheer and gaiety that abound, she never felt a thing at all?

Well, though not in as many words, that's what she said; she felt nothing. And it might very well have been absolutely true.  
Maybe I was the one in denial.
Maybe I was a little vain.
Maybe I was a little too optimistic.
That, I might never get to know for sure. They say, people hear what they want to hear. We tend to accept only the truths we are ready to confront. Quite the detrimental trait, but a real one nonetheless. All part of being human I guess.
Here's what I know for sure; In more ways than one, I'm a better person now than I ever was then.

..For us who love seems to know what route we usually take and runs off to another one far away, we have to learn to wait on the Lord. This statement has gotten so cliché I know, but God instructs us to do so, and waiting on him has never resulted in falure, you can ask King David..”                   
                - Xavier Mutulis in 'Providence'.
                                                                                               
  

Tuesday 9 April 2013

Mind Spell...


MIND SPELL”

A time when you shared feelings most candid
A moment when sweet dreams were all too vivid
A fairy tale in the making, or so you reckoned

Before the snap out of your trance
Before remorse befell your naivety

Its aftermath takes its toll on you
Its lesson never to be lost on you

You may be long gone and moved on, still
You can’t remember a greater thrill

Thou have always felt a persistent, profound, yet peculiar void
Thou shouldn’t lose yourself in trying to fill it

The mind devises its own bewilderment
The mind so restores its own tranquility

The truth you intently seek is so overt, that it’s covert
Peer long and hard.., break out of the spell first.


Monday 8 April 2013

Thanks for the memories: Epiphany.



We all have had crushes growing up, and for some us even after we are all grown up. Some stronger and lasting longer than others, some stubbornly intermittent, while others were so tenuous we can barely even remember. Its all natural I guess. One thing is for sure though, they all come and go. They go. They have to somehow. So I happened to be pondering about how and why for some reason or another, we have the proclivity to get over our crushes, without fail. And then it hit me, quite astoundingly, the rationale behind it; crushes are perpetuated by fantasy, more or less. There and then, my mind reverberated with Collins' words “...let fantasies be fantasies!”. How stunned I was by how meaningful that statement was to me then. 
 
Fantasies, are merely creations of our imagination. Fiction at best. Yet there's a very fine line between fiction and non-fiction, fantasy and reality. Consequently, one can so easily obscure the other. And that for me, explained why we never crushed on someone forever; why sometimes we suddenly stop crushing on someone just as soon as we had come to know them for real; why we so often start crushing on a different person and forget about the previous one in the blink of an eye. Among other things not necessarily 'crush-related' per se. 
 

It got me thinking again about how I had been obliged to end my relationship with Hailey. Just why it had to come quite soon after I had finally met her, rather than later. I saw her for the very first time, and almost pronto a doubt crept into my mind. I all of a sudden doubted that I was in love with her; doubted that I was going to be with her forever-after as I had promised. Well, for the moment we were together that day, I almost effortlessly held back the doubt. I couldn't let it ruin it for me; for us. That meet had been such a long time coming. I had every intention of having a great time and making the most out of it. Then again, time waits for no man, and neither did it for us. Evening came and she gracefully departed. Right then was when the flood gates crashed open. The doubts in the depths of my heart began burgeoning. Hell, I couldn't stop thinking about it! 
 
By the following day, they seemed to have overwhelmed the love I thought I had for her. I reckoned all the months we had been together, I partly had been in love with a fantasy of her. The image in my mind that embodied her voice and character during all that time, was a distant resemblance of what she was in real life. She sure was pretty and all, but different from what I had imagined. However hard I tried to fix her real image onto where the fantasy-image was, because I really did like her; it just couldn't feel the same as before. And I remember thinking to myself, that if I just suppressed my doubts and focused on loving her, maybe the doubts would all vanish over time. After all, they say time is the healer of all things, right?..

But again I thought, what if they didn't? What if they'd tenaciously bug me until such time when it would be too late or too costly to back out? I would never wish that on anyone, let alone myself or someone I regarded so dearly. I would never forgive myself if I strung her along just for kicks. So I weighed the pros and cons, and saw it wouldn't be worth the risk to hold on. I did what I had to. And I couldn't lie about the whole thing or even barely sugarcoat it to soften the blow, much as I wanted to, by the way. She was too smart a girl for that. She'd already figured it way before I confessed it, which didn't make it any easier for me. Oh well, the confession I wrote earlier gives the long and short of it.
So much for love. :-)    

...As a man of honor I cannot promise eternally what I've never felt momentarily.”
- Leopold in 'Kate & Leopold'.

Saturday 6 April 2013

Thanks for the memories: Confession.

Once upon a time, I looked someone so dear to me in the eyes, and lied to them. Up until after I had committed the act, I had never actually thought I had it in me. I was taken aback a little by what I had done. A while later, when I sat to think deeply about it, having already tried to brush it aside with no success, I was overwhelmed by guilt. It weighed down my heart like nothing I could remember had ever done before. I knew then that I couldn't live with it, not without it turning me into someone I didn't want to be- a cold liar. I had to divest my chest of it. By all means, they deserved to know the truth. But, the thought of the consequences only served to distress me further. I feared for what the truth might do to their heart. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place! How I'd gotten myself into the situation, I couldn't quite pinpoint at the time. Things were far from pretty. 

Nonetheless, I eventually got the pluck to come clean. As expected, it was far worse than forcing a whole pint of vinegar down your throat. The flurry of emotion, the tears, the sighs, just a terrible ordeal for the both of us!.. So anyhow, after all had been said and done, the seemingly inevitable hurt had been caused. I broke a lovely girl's heart. In the wake of this, remorse came flooding into my heart. The sheer memory of it all in the days after would make tears well up in my eyes, and how I would fight to hold them back. I hated myself for what I had done. I didn't want to be forgiven, I would rather be punished. It was only in my conviction, that the truth sets us free, wherein I found some solace. I silently hoped that I would be vindicated for what I had also done; I had been sincere; I had chosen not to live a lie and be laden with guilt, but rather to tell the truth and be laden with remorse.

Having made that confession, you most probably have a hint of what transpired after Hailey and I had met. As I hope you should. Because that there pretty much sums up the story, albeit not entirely. Well, the intricacies of it all are somewhat hard for me to express. Like I said, it was far from pretty.
Once, sometime after my break-up with Hailey, me and a buddy of mine, Collins, were marveling at this beguiling girl in his class and wondering what it would possibly take any of us to win her heart. He briefly paused in silence, contemplating, his gaze fixed at the young lady, and then turned to me and said, “Steve buddy, lets let fantasies be fantasies!”. We laughed about the wisecrack and went on to discuss different matters. The remark, witty or otherwise, might have seemed frivolous at the time, but the full magnitude of its meaningfulness dawned on me much much later.

Thanks for the memories: Beginning

...Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end...”
-Third Eye Blind, in their hit track 'Closing time'.

The journey of life as we know it has never been short of unforgettable experiences. Some for good reason, and some not for the best reasons. Its what memories are made of. I, like most other people my age, have lots of these. One of my fondest of them all, which I unravel in the lines that follow, was during the twilight years of my teenage-hood.

It was back in 2010 when I was seeing this girl, whom here I shall refer to as Hailey. She was special.. I know because I've not yet met any girl quite like her ever since, then again, I guess everyone is somehow. So, just to be clear, I’ll put it this way, I haven't met another lass that made me feel half what she'd make me feel. I don't suppose you still want me to spell out what or how it is I felt? Your guess is as good as mine. That must have been love. In retrospect however, I sometimes doubt that!
Its 2013 now.. yeah, turns out the purported 2012 Armageddon was all a hoax! God of mercy,that would have been terrible for me! Let alone the high likelihood that I was bound for heaven's opposite number, I had only blown 20 candles, fallen in love(or was it?) only once, I hadn't yet met my soul-mate ! Never watched Arsenal play live from the Emirates stadium, never had.. Oh am sure you get the picture! Just a constellation of things on my to-do list. 
 
Anyway, I digressed.. getting back to it, 2013. So its been a little over a couple of years down the line. Yes, two years and in all that time..,wait for it...; I haven't gone out with any other girl! Hey, hold it right there.. don't rush into conclusions! I know what it looks like; All 'evidence' incriminates my poor heart.. that I haven't been able to move on huh? No. Trust me, it's quite the contrary. I like to believe that I made closure, and moved on, as many years ago as I've been single. But wait, is two years that long a duration really? Am not so certain of it, time really seems to have flown by! So sometimes it doesn't seem to alarm me that much. Anyway, long time or short time, however you take it. 

Now, for those who that length of time strikes as alarming, I think I just might have another surprise for you; Hailey and I only met once in person! Just once. Again, hold it.. am not talking about a love-at-first-sight thing here(if that even exists!)! No, we had actually been dating a few months before our meet. Yes, online obviously.. technically though; not exactly, because we'd actually text and call for the most part, besides, we didn't meet on a social network or an internet dating site or something like that! We made acquaintance through a high school buddy of mine who happened to be a cousin of hers. So we 'met' over a phone call, after which we started to chat a lot, and the rest you can figure out. 

I liked her a lot, still do as a matter of fact- but that's a story for a later time. I bet you're wondering what transpired on this one and only meeting we had. The much I can tell you for now is that, it went down almost as ordinarily as any of its kind.
Plenty of nervous moments, some awkward silences, coy smiles and all that. We both did have a nice time, and to top it all up, we made out, and seemed to cling onto each other when time came to bid each other goodbye. 

That said, I know how perplexing it may sound to tell you that, that day we met up marked the beginning of our ending. There sadly was to be no other such meeting ever again. No, she didn't zoom out of the country soon afterward if that's what you're thinking! I do wish that is what would've rather happened than what actually did though. “So what was it?” you wonder. I'll tell you what. But first, before I get onto that, maybe I'll let you in on a rather solemn confession, just so you have a hint.

The Sights Yonder...


THE SIGHTS YONDER”

The glance backward
To the faint wake behind you
That merely left much to be desired
Mysteries still unsolved
Milestones seeming less broader
Misfortunes beckoning harder
It leaves you wishing…


The look around
To the path you tread
Emptiness so profound
Despite the engrossing company
Inspiration strangely evasive
So much spoken yet only so much done
It leaves you sighing…


The gaze forward
To the depth of your dreams
Envisioning the brink of your success
Except there’s uncertainty looming
Fear constantly burgeoning
Desperation for changing
It leaves you hoping…yearning