Let's not lie to ourselves that we all have one of those bad days to give up hope. Feeling exhausted when you have not done anything at all at the start of your day. You keep hearing the same expected lies after every cycle of apologies and empty promises. You tell yourself, at the back of your mind, back of your heart, your bones and in your blood, that it will all be alright, one day. Like a quote, you chose to believe in, "there is light at the end of every tunnel." You repeat all kinds of positive mantras just to maintain the stability of your mind, and when you were about the sleep at the end of the day, all the talks in your head just would not shut up and the endless scenes of what had already happened and what may happen, repeats itself until you fall asleep. You just want to press the skip button on that invincible remote, which you do not have, to as many days as possible and finally land on one of the good days which we all have been craving for or look forward to. Many days have passed, and whatever you think you are actually doing right, will eventually punch you back in the face as you circled back to the start of the cycle. At this point, you start to bottle up the feelings which you brushed off during the moment, then tried to share a little something with a friend, or post about it somewhere just to tell yourself you're ok, to put off the weight a little and whatever you think your problem is, it was just a petty issue. You then burst your feelings online, offline, tell a friend, a family, and things are still the same for you.
I grow tired of the same appetite I can't fulfil until I don't remember what hunger feels like anymore. I stop adoring any valuables, knowing that someday I will have to sell them off soon and getting attached to these things will just handicap me. I'm sick of feeling over the moon one second, only to then be desperate to survive another day. On top of all that, people around are expecting me to be everywhere when in fact, I can't afford to be somewhere at all. It makes me feel funny even when I'm trying to put my thoughts into words right now, and it may or may not, make any sense tomorrow when you and I read this, again. So, I'll rant.
It was his birthday recently. With the problems that are strangling me, I can't get over the fact that despite the efforts I'd put into trying to make for his birthday, (after paying triple hundreds and making demands for our $3000 utility bill and continuing working with only a few cents.) I did, somehow, Alhamdulillah managed to celebrate his birthday over seafood dinner at Newton. What's a birthday without a cake right? He blow candles off of his muffin of choice, and we sang birthday songs, not once, but twice on his birthday at 0000 of the 13th and also on the night of the 13th. Noticing that he still looked sad, with the obvious fake smiles he gave me, probably because his family was busy celebrating the birth of a new member to the tree, I told myself that maybe it was just me, trying to make him see the only little efforts I could afford on the table. Wait, did he expect me to surprise him with a gold bar? (Now that I think about it.) Nah, that's insane right, since he is aware of what rough time we had for years. Anyway, we even went out to SEA Aquarium, and Sentosa over the weekend until late at night lying down on that swinging bench as we looked up to the sky(basically just resting because we walked a lot.) and caught small fireworks through the night together as a family and what more could he have asked for? There are lots of candles, 2 songs, a tiny cake we all eat, seafood dinner, a visit to the SEA Aquarium and his colleague bought him a surprise present of a gigantic portable monitor, which I thought was pretty cool because you can plug it to your phone and also it's a touchscreen, so it kinda turned your tiny phone screen x1k larger.
My phone was sold and I continue my days using my daughter's time-limited-age-controlled phone. I live the days without Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and whatever that made you aliens scroll your finger even without looking at the screen. It feels like I was going through some detox on screen time. I borrowed more books, finishing my Luxe serious novel which I'm on book 3 currently, and when I'm tired of reading, I would watch a movie on Netflix, Disney+ or play Fortnite with my son trying to complete season 4 and achieve Spider-Gwen at level 100 with the battle pass, of course, then stare at the cats, fishes and the plant that are now filled with holes because of my cat's fangs, lastly kept myself busy solving math questions together with the children, learning how different the school teaches now and during my time. I don't even care if my phone doesn't ring any notifications for days, because I'm very busy being present at work and at home.
But when I check our shared Instagram yesterday, I feel a lot of emotions. One, he posted pictures of the day we went out together to the aquarium, nice, but he also shared that we indeed spend $0 as his caption. Are you trying to indirectly update your friends or family that we went out for your birthday? Indirectly telling them that we indeed really have no money? I don't know. I would've posted the pictures the same but the caption though...I would've given my thanks to the 'us against the world' family, and feel proud to have made some memories heading out with what little shit we have, but no. It was him man, not me, just wasn't me, but because of self-love, I am proud of myself and I appreciate the hard work and efforts which I'd put into the day. Two, in another post, he gave special thanks and dedication to his colleague who actually gave him a gigantic physical present. In the caption, he specifically said, "....one and only present." I wouldn't want to feel crazy in 1 second. So, I put everything aside and went into the living room. There were no tears left to cry.
The pity I felt for myself, the sadness I think I feel, the disappointment, the fucking anger I imagined in my head, trying to hit the edge of the phone on his damn skull which only happened in my mind. It was hopeless. From the moment I laid eyes on him years back, I've only wanted to impress him. Make him feel happy, make random surprises with paper and scraps, trying to make something out of my own without buying things. More like the efforts and memories, he can keep, but in the end, it's either he fuck behind my back, then I stop making surprises for him because he doesn't deserve it, and now all of this. I rather focus my time on myself and the kids, which he's missing, which everyone is missing.
I will work more, dedicate whatever time I have to juggle between home, education and work to more visits to my father, and my mother, going to the libraries, to the pools, the places the kids want to go to, and many more family bonding without him. He can continue to sit in the room, sliding his phone, dwelling on the $1 he has in his wallet to his mother, Facebook, Instagram or whoever.
A heart can only turn sour and never be the same sweet again. Here's my 1 cent thought of ranting which by chance, no one knows, but I recognise my hurt in words. Shit.
