Why Does It Hurt So Bad...Why Do I Feel So Sad

Current Music: [Whitney Houston - Until You Come Back]

At 9:20 p.m.

I'm drinking fine whisky, courtesy of my generous housemate, puffing Salem, and talking to Joe on MSN while directing my ears towards Whitney Houston's melodic voice. Nowadays, my hands shake for no apparent reason, mild shaking though. Is it because of excessive drinking? The first sip of my whisky tasted ewwww, it's so hard. I always wonder why do people like hard liquor anyway? I had it neat though, trying to imitate the movies when they always had a big gulp down. But after one glass, it feels better.

At 7:00 p.m. [ an hour earlier ]

Let's take a peek into my life, not that anyone is interested. After all, I'm just a pathetic 9-5er. I have a drinking problem. When we were young, we always thought that alcohol was cool. It's a brand we like to tag ourselves to. It's one of the few things we can claim to own, that it's ours. The same goes for cigarettes. It isn't necessarily the same when it becomes an addiction. I have a drinking problem and it's bad. And it's mostly attributed to emptiness that I drink. An abysmal misery, that's how I like to term my condition at 7:00 p.m. I wish this invisible envelope that wraps me up will just go away and disappear.

My vision was in a blur just now. I couldn't see anything in front of me. There was a obscure blurriness that prevents me from seeing things clearly. I walked into One World's hotel lift pressing 16th floor, which of course was my mistake. And then I scurried across One Utama without my soul being present. People were walking around me in an orderly fashion. They all looked alert and at ease with themselves. It came to a point where I almost did not know where I was or what I was doing. The only thing recognizable to me was my destination, to the carpark to get my car.

The whisky bottle at home was the only thing in my mind. The only thing. I couldn't think of anything else except that. Nevertheless, I headed towards a restaurant, sat down and consumed a plate of tasteless vermicelli. It was tasteless not because it was not delicious, because I lost my taste buds. It was really just a tool to fill up my stomach at that point of time.

Laughters, laughters, laughters, that's all I ever hear everyday, you know? Happy faces, happy faces, happy faces, that's all I ever see everyday, you know? I'm sick of hearing laughters and seeing happy faces. People tell me I'm an emotion extremist. It was never within my control. I'm always a slave to it. When I'm happy, I go beyond the sky and when I'm sad, I fall into an immeasurable abyss.

Problems, problems, problems, that's all I ever get everyday, you know? Emptiness, emptiness, emptiness, that's all I ever feel everyday, you know? Mom actually went and told Sis that I do not think of her as a family because of the money issue. Gosh, does she think that actually helps the situation? My father called me last night explaining to me that abandoning us isn't really what he wanted. My mother try to make it sound like it's my fault that I hadn't do anything for my father all this time, despite the fact that she always tells me my father sides with the other side. Any my sister sounded disappointed upon learning I do not treat her as a family. I could not take it anymore!! I just shut off everything and went off work. What's happening to me? What should I do?

Have the thought of suicide ever crossed your mind? The writing pad I bought just now had a new purpose. A enamored thought crossed my mind asking me to use it to write my suicide note. I would pass it to a few important persons to me in this world. Or write a will. Hand it to a few persons in my life. I first had suicidal thoughts in 2005 when I was in Australia. Things were so overwhelming. I was in the shower on day for 30 minutes with water splashing down my head and I thought that's it. It's time. It resurfaced many many times after I came back to Malaysia. It's not the location, it's me. I don't have the courage though. At times, I felt really hopeless and weak the thought crossed my mind, but I don't think I would be courageous enough to pull it off. But one day if I really do it, I'll be hugging 'Blink', one of the few things I want to remember in my life or in my afterlife. Sometimes after reading, I hug it to sleep close to my chest. It's something which I can fantasize that she's mine, that she's close to my heart. Every now and then, I open the book to read the greeting she wrote me. It still feels warm, like it's yesterday.

As if my problems are not enough, I found some irregularities in my hearbeat last Friday. It freaked me out and I reduced my addiction to two sticks on Saturday. Maybe it's because of excessive smoking. Maybe it's because of excessive drinking. Either way, God please don't take those two away from me. They are the two things in this world which at least I can proudly claim to be mine. I actually hope I meet someone in life who's in my situation, so that I can relate to him or her. Everyone seems to think I'm asking for it, that I deserved it because I'm negative. Haha, if anyone could be happy, wouldn't they want it?

Thomas Jefferson quoted in his speech on the Declaration of Independence that "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

The pursuit of happiness... Maybe even in Jefferson's time, he has come to realise that happiness is something that we can only pursue. It's elusive in nature, something that we can only pursue but never will be able to get.

My sickness is really getting to me. It's affecting my work, my relationship with colleagues, friends and everyone including my family. Most of the time, I don't know what can I do anymore to save myself, which is why I immerse myself in booze and cigarettes all the time. First it was cigarette, then it was beer. Then it's hard liquor. When is drug coming into the equation? It freaks me out that drugs will eventually come into the picture, and it freaks me out even more that when I'm done with drugs, suicide is next, when eventually there is nothing else more left to turn to. All these things, booze, cigarettes and drugs are really something to cover up my miseries.

I went to MPH today and read a gift book entitled "Love Book". It has quotes on love from famous poets around the world. There's a quote that says "every human has a basic need. they want to know someone is wondering what time they will be home tonight". I don't have that. I've hard really bad days recently. I just do not know what to do with my family anymore. Everything is so surface between me and my sister. In my younger years, I used to think people who comes home after work drinking whisky is cool. After all, he or she is a young professional urbanite ain't it? But now I know it's not. I'm the person now. Listening to Josh Groban's "Rememeber When It Rained" now, the phrase "running down...running down..running down contantly playing, I had smiles in my face and frowns in my heart at the same time.

It's near, it's near...the days of leaving this world...one day when I can't take it no more and if I have the sudden courage. I just hope for a miracle. Or I need a shrink...

Songs...songs and songs...

Current Music [Babyface: I Only Think Of You On Two Occasions]

I only think of you on two occasions, that's day and night....................

Today is gonna be the day where I post my crappiest post ever. For I do not know what it is that should be written. I do not know what should be written or rather say there are a lot of things that I dare not write here. I finally did it. Beers are out of fashion now for me. Not strong enough for my thoughts apparently. Now I'm doing whisky...at home. Finally felt that beer at Dave's is not gonna give me what I want.

On a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of tipsiness, the rank is on 7 now. I really need to write but I'm holding a lot and a lot of things back. I've just had two straight shots. Damn, that's what I'm talking about. Now I'm feeling something. Now I can write. Don't get me wrong, I do not enjoy this. Anyway whoever the reader is, you can forgive me for whatever rubbish I spout out tonight as you know, it's mostly on whisky. On the other hands, you could take me seriously for the whisky might bring out lots of hidden agendas.

I've gotta change the song list first. Yea, Brandi Carlile is playing now. These stories don't mean anything if you don't have anyone to tell them to huh? But let me ask you this question. What if you've always got someone to tell your story to, and suddenly the story you're gonna tell is something you can't tell this person? How'd that feel huh? Cool right? Totally man. Defense is really paper thin. For I feel so damn weak here energy is draining out my veins.

Alcohol, I'm sorry wanted to say something about alcohol, but I just broke down. I hope this will make me feel better. I'm questioning my life, my fate, my luck, everything.Finally, I broke down after all these suppressed emotions.

Today in the bus for ALC, i felt as if I'm Zach Braff on the airplane, except that I'm the opposite. In fact the whole situation is the opposite of Garden State. In Garden State, everyone was panicking on the airplane while Zach was emotionless. Today, everyone was happy, busy chattering on the way home but I was in so much confusion, pain, denial and heartache. I plugged on my headphones to avoid the crowd and tuned in to one song after another which makes me feel even more. Dashboard Confessional's Stolen, Michael Buble's Home, Dishwalla's Angels or Devils, Damien Rice's Cold Water, Michael Buble's Put your head on my shoulders, Deathcab for Cutie's What Sarah Said. I looked up the ceiling of the bus and Garden State came to my mind. Wait, now Angels or Devil is playing.

This is the last time that I'm ever gonna come in tonight.....This is the last time I will fall, I can see the love in you, I can see the pain in you...

Sorry I told you tonight's post gonna be crap. I just let my thoughts flow and wrote it down, doesnt think at all. Whisky's a bad choice, a real bad one. Shouldn't have because I didn't know it made me bolder. Now that I've drank, I feel like talking to her straight away. Augustana's Boston is playing now. God, I love and am so attached to every song I'm playing now. Weekend sucks. My last weekend was like crap. Seko said today that habits can't be changed, you can only hope to replace it but it can't be changed. If that's what you are from day 1, that's what you're gonna be. I tried to be strong, put it off, take it as nothing happened, but somehow I failed successfully. Jacob Golden's On a Saturday has never really appealed to me, but I'm trying to listen to it now as it's her favourite. I used to joke that it sounds to me like a Saturday funfair, which I find it really funneh. But now I'm trying to listen to it really closely.

I'm talking to Jac on msn and I broke down again. And another friend just called. What a night. Lots of attention suddenly. But i need to write. Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah is playing now. I still remember how we used to talk about this song. She said it's about faith in religion. I thought it's about relationship. I've always like talking to her as she is so insightful. How can I tell her all this? Oh, she's online now.

Now try to listen to the lyrics of this song Matchbook Romance's Tiger Lily. It' just exactly like what happened between me and her. We're driving tonight everytime after drinking and talking about our lives, it's so nice. It's really paradise. And everytime I just wanna stop my car and hold on to her, which most of the time I hesitated. And everytime, I don't want to speak those words, cause I'm afraid of making things any worse. I'm afraid of losing her. But I want more. I really like her. Everytime after the night ends, I ask myself, "Why does tonight has to end? Why can't we hit restart, please God?" Let it pause it at our favourite parts, let us skip goodbyes.

If I had my way, I would really turn my car around and run away, to a far away land, just me and her. I'm caught between doing and not doing. I want to do it but I'm afraid it might be the wrong move. This song just so reflects what's going on between me and her.

We drive tonight,

And you are by my side.

We're talking about our lives,

Like we've known each other forever.

The time flies by,

With the sound of your voice.

Its close to paradise,

With the end surely near.

And if i could only stop the car

And hold onto you,

And never let go (and never let go)

I'll never let go (i'll never let go)

As we round the corner

To your house

You turned to me and said,"i'll be going through withdrawal of you

For this one night we have spent.

"And, i want to speak these words

But i guess i'll just bite my tongue,

And accept "someday, somehow"

As the words that we'll hang from.
And i (i..), i don't want to speak these words.

'cause i ('cause i..), i don't want to make things any worse.

And i (i..), i don't want to speak these words.

'cause i, i don't want to make things any worse.

Why does tonight, have to end?

Why don't we hit restart,

And pause it at our favorite parts.

We'll skip the goodbyes.

If i had it my way,I'd turn the car around and runaway,

Just you and i.

Emotions Analysis [Dissection]

Current Music: [Jackson Browne-Stay]

It's Saturday night for me and it's uh 1:02 in the morning. I've just had my dose of 24 [Twenty-Four] from episode 9-13. The words "The following happened between 9.00am - 10.00am on the day of the California Presidential Primary" keeps ringing in my head. Haha, why am i being such a nerd to actually remember that. Jackson Browne's Stay has an effect on me I guess. It sounds happy. Another familiar voice that echoes in my head goes "My name is Jack Bauer and I'm a Federal agent. Today will be the longest day in my life".

Enough of the introduction eh. Tonight the topic is on emotions analyis or dissection. Think of emotions as a cadaver. Think of yourself as a forensic specialist in charge of dissecting a body. Whether you like it or not, emotions, this damn word flows into us every minute of the day...except when you're in deep slumber. Wait, even when you're in the faraway dreamland, emotions actually do seep in as you dream. You wake up in the morning and you discover you have develop more freckles today than yesterday. The emotion with a tag called "frustration" flows in. During lunch, this beautiful girl from the opposite table hands you a smile so genuine the emotion called "happiness" tags you because you feel worthy, appreciated and you realised you're actually attractive. You've been kissed the night before by the person you like. You wake up feeling you're on top of the world the next morning even 9/11 can't bring you down. Out of the blue one day, your boyfriend just decided to say goodbye and starts isolating your books from his CDs. Saddest day in your life, I suppose. Negative emotion on that one.

Well the thing is we need to learn how to dissect our emotions piece by piece, analyse them and solve them. One of the favourite pasttime of human beings is to hoard emotions, put them all in a big pile until one day they burst. Not a very interesting pasttime activity but definitely one of the most common one practiced. Let's pull an example to elaborate on the cadaver dissection. You wake up one morning feeling like shit. Work sucks and you can't communicate with your colleagues. As if those are not enough, you dread the chicken chop with rice you've been having for the past 2 days. And to top that up, you think you're a lonely sucker for going home alone after work again at 6 p.m. Blames start flying in on everything around you...boss sucks, colleagues are losers, above all you are the most pathetic person in this whole wide world. This is where my theory comes in. Ask yourself deeply, what is your problem really? Was it really the boss, the colleague or the chicken chop with rice? Nothing is easy in this world. To get results, you need to put in efforts. Your effort in this case would be to really do some soul-searching and ask yourself, i repeat, DEEPLY what is really missing in your life that makes you behave the way you do? After some deep thoughts, you think, really it's because I lack love in my life. I need a girlfriend to be there for me. So do it, get one. Problems solved, maybe not all, but I assure you a substantial part of what we just mentioned. You start to realise that the boss is not that sucky after all, because despite the workload you get, you know at the end of the day you get to see the one you love. The core of the problem is "emptiness" really. If you try to psychoanalyse your emotions, like we did above, emptiness is the thing you should work on improving or solving and BAM! you feel happier.

I had a problem once with my ex-girlfriend. When we broke up, I felt really down. It lasted for a few weeks. I've been hoarding all the memories that we had together and every morning I thought of the things we've enjoyed together, the food we ate in some restaurant, the bookstore we went to. I was constantly blaming my own misfortune. Concentration was just a pure failure at everything I do. That is what we call psychological hoarding. We human try to cling on to too much rubbish from our past. What's worse is most of us won't even take the initiative to clean up those rubbish. Most people argued that it's part of their lives, sweet memories, etc, bla bla bla that they need to keep for it to be meaningful. But let's face it, selfishness is a trait that everyone shamelessly possess inherently, sad to say. Now the question is, why be cruel to yourself? The other party doesn't care if you think it's a sweet thing to be remembered in memory. Your ex lover may have moved on, and instead you're clinging on to something which burdens your heart more each and everyday of your life. Dump it, accept that it's the past, move on, life has so much more to offer. So, having said that, I woke up one morning and realised that it was her company that I enjoyed, not because i loved her. I realised it could be another girl and I would still feel the same. I would still miss her and the places we hang out at. The dissection of my emotions took place. I took the effort to dissect my emotions piece by piece and I don't live in my past now. So sometimes you need to ask yourself, be it your past or your current, do I really love him or did I? Or is it just because of the company? Or is it because of the familiarity that's so hard to kick off? It's very important to understand this simple yet subtle fact of life folks.

Don't get me wrong. I never made this to sound easy. I failed too at times. Like I said, nothing is ever easy in this world. But the choice of being out of trouble [I wouldn't really use the word happiness here because it's quite elusive to me], being not unhappy at least is really in your own hands.

I was supposed to stop at the last paragraph above but Jann Arden's "Hanging by a thread" kicks in. So to let my readers have a feel of what I'm going through now, I'll upload that on my blog, hopefully it works. With this song playing, let me write something. It's about this girl in my life [I think she knows who she is]. I've been contemplating for the last 48hours whether to write something. Not only that, I've been having doubts over what is right to write and what is not. It is not some risk I'm willing to take. To this point, I feel like erasing my earlier posts on some of the girls who were in my life because I know I was wrong and that I'm right about this girl...all along.

I've been stalling for about 15 minutes but I can't really decide on things to write. I'm afraid of saying the wrong things. She is just special to me in short.

Ok...I uh went for a smoke..and I stood outside the balcony for like 30 minutes staring at the lit-up stretch of condominiums up far. And I've decided to re-edit this post, add something. Previously I can write freely about the girls, because they were in my life before. For this particularly girl I am talking about, I can't. I dare not write about her here, because she's not mine. I uh...decided to watch OC now at 4:28 in the morning.

Season 2: Episode 1: The snO.C. - at 40th minute and 30 second. Well, to be precise it's at 41th minute 10 second...between Ryan and Lindsay. That's what I experienced. That's how it is to me. And that's how much it meant to me. I watch it to remember what happened. Again too much ramblings. I'm going for a smoke again...

Don't be a stranger...

Ever met a stranger who did something nice to you? Be it a favor, carrying your groceries to your car, helping you up when you accidentally fell down, or just a mere smile which totally makes your day. I've came across this really amazing blog "One Minute Writer" and a sub-topic titled "Strangers", which has about 132 comments from all over the world, narrating their experiences with strangers who made a difference on their lives. http://oneminutewriter.blogspot.com/2008/11/todays-writing-prompt-stranger.html

My first day in Adelaide and I was lost in Rundle mall at 8p.m. Shops were all closed. I had no idea how to get back to Mile End. I met a business-suit man and asked for directions to the bus. He was kind enough to offer me a lift home in his over-sized Land Rover. Before dropping me off, he gave me his name card and asked me to contact him should I encounter any difficulties in Adelaide seeing that I'm a new-comer. He defined Australians; he carved an image of Australians in my mind from that day onwards, that they are friendly and helpful people. I could not forget how nice he is until today for he really made my day. Simple things that strangers do can leave a mark in someone's life. It makes you feel that the world is somehow not as cold as you think it is.

The owner of the BMW parked opposite mine in my condominium. He did nothing but unselfishly offered his smile everytime we met in the lift. It brightened up my day after an usual long one.

Likewise, I started having conversation with strangers nowadays, partly to feel good about being nice to others and partly to experiment with the reaction that I am to receive when I randomly strike up a conversation with them. The world should be a harmonious place, isn't it, where people greet each others with smiles everyday, caring for each other instead of being cold, selfish, living in one's own world.

Today, I had two conversations with two different strangers and I received smiles from both of them. It made my day and I'm quite certain it made theirs too. The first was with a woman at the lift. We were waiting for the lift together and she was having a rather tight facial expression. When we exited the lift, there was a bunch of 12-13 year olds shrieking at the top of their lungs in swim suits heading towards the pool. I struck up a conversation with the woman.

Me: "Gosh, they were noisy, weren't they?"

Woman: " Yea, they definitely are (sounding totally agreeable). "

Me: "Kids, huh..." (laughed)

Woman: "Yea, kids " (laughed too).

Before she went off, she smiled at me and wished me a good day.

The second conversation was with a Domino's delivery guy. It was simple. I was about to enter my condominium which needed access card. Obviously he did not have one and he followed me in when I swiped mine. Before I exited the lift, I gave him the most untainted, true smile (somehow I just felt really friendly today) and wished him good night. I can tell I made his day by the facial expression he had at that point of time. Okay, I may be assuming his thoughts , but what I gather from his expression, or my own thoughts when I get that kind of treament is "Wow, he is really polite and nice, there are still nice people in this world and the world is not exactly cold. Well, as bad as my day seemed to be, there is still hope in this world. At least that guy made it better".

I guess all I wanted to say tonight is sometimes, if your emotions allow of course, smile to people. Make someone feel nice. For me, it feels nice to make someone else feel nice, not sure about you though, whoever you are reading this.