Mum getting more and more visibly stressed. I'm getting more and more nervous as her complaining worsens. I'm really bad at measuring stuff and all that technical things. She asks why I dun help. If I do I will only make things worse! And then she will say ask me do might as well she do herself. sigh..if she wan me to clean things contact the contractors and lias with them well no prob but ask me do tech? I will die ah.

this next section is dedicated to Joyce,who will probably not c this at all.

I come from a broken family. Father died when I was young, about 5. So my mother brought up the two of us almost single handedly. Of course there was a lot of help from my grandfather. During this period of time she broke down psychologically a lot of times, contemplated suicide and beat the hell out of me with every chance she got.

I never understood why she did this to me. The senseless beatings, the restriction of freedom, the excruciating punishments. To what end? For wat purpose? Am I her son or the damned?

after today's meeting with Joyce I came to understand.

I met her at sembawang. It was not a premeditated one. Rather more of a spur of the moment thingy. The whole meeting lasted not more than an hour. As I waited for her below her block I wondered about our history together.

counting this year I have known her for about 3 years already. A lot of things happened both for me and her these 3 years. We started off as friends, then became lovers, then lived together. She betrayed me and then regretted immensely. She pleaded to be back together with me but I was not the same anymore. I hate a deep intense hatred for wat she did to me and I used it to wreck havoc on her life. Even though she was married I made her love me back, made use of her for sex, incite the jealous rage of her husband, thus making her life hell. At 19, a mother, a wife, she was also a wreck.

I did all this without a tinge of remorse. Where was she when I needed her the most? The day of my court proceedings where was she when she promised she would turn up? When I was caught where was she to rescue me? When I was down who was the one who abandoned me to run off with another guy, a guy who she knows I despise! This was her come-uppence I decreed and nothing was going to make me think otherwise.

until today.

she walked towards me, the little girl in her arms. Upon seeing me, she let her onto the ground and she scampered eagerly forward. She has put on much weight since I last saw her more than 6 months ago. Her pregnancy caused her to balloon and she has never really lost the excess weight. Instead she seemed to steadily pile on the pounds. Today she was dressed in an ill-fitting black blouse and skirt that seemed to threaten to burst and spill its contents anytime.

she walked gingerly towards me and sat down opposite me. I looked at her and asked her "what's up?" she looked up at me and asked " what do you mean what's up? "

"no one to take care of her for awhile?"

she didn't answer and just looked at her as she continue her joyous scampering. At this point I looked at gerger (what I call her daughter).

she has grown quite a bit since I last saw her. She's able to walk unassisted now. She can mumble baby gibberish and some very very basic chinese. She also has some teeth now and much better voice and face recognition abilities. I continued looking at gerger as she went about doing stuff only babies do. Try to climb onto chairs, running around and mumbling endlessly. Suddenly I felt very very weak.

I saw her face. It wasn't the face of someone who 3 years ago club like mad, did drugs, went to bed with guys for money. No. This was the face of a defeated soul. Trapped in a situation she has no way out of. Clawing helplessly to get out of a deep pool of mud and not progressing at all. She can only keep clawing and clawing. Her only impetus? gerger.

it was a tired face, a hopeless face. a face that knows that this is as far as she can go. Whatever dreams she might have had was of no consequence now. She could no longer work towards them. She can no longer fly. Her feets are tied and so is the rest of wat remains of her life.

the fact that she has survived thus far surprised me. Throughout these two years she has coped with a marriage to man she does not love, gave birth to the man's child, coped with her mother's complete lack of support for her wishes, and took care of gerger almost single-handedly.

this may not seem like too big a deal to everyone. There were worse cases out there. True. But none which I have experienced first handedly. Imagine u were a bird flying high in the sky when lightning struck u while u were flying and damaged one of our wings. You could fly no more. The wound became a permanent disability. Everywhere u go the wound will follow u, throbbing painfully with every step u take. That was gerger to her. She was her permanent disability. With her she could no longer do what she wants. Freedom which was a necessity to her now became a luxury. someone who stays out to have fun as often as she eats now has to stay at home to feed another mouth. Wherever she goes she has to take her and care for her. At 21, a time when teens are just entering adulthood, she was already a mother.

I felt weak. Y? Because I saw within this pain the resolve and strength she must have had to go through all this mental and physical torture. She was not only mentally tired and drained, she was also sexually frustrated. With her current size the guy she married was no longer interested in her sexually, rousing to fulfill his obligations to her only when he feels a insatiable need to quench his own thirst. But she bore all that and continued to crawl on, one slow day at a time. She couldn't see past one day. The future was blank for her. She had no aim no ambition. She couldn't have. But she continue to strive on because of gerger. The power of a mother.

she brought gerger to the playground to play. as she carried her up to the slide i saw what my mother must have felt when she brought us up. the despair. no one to vent it on. that guy she married was working during the day and he had no idea nor interest in being a father. joyce was also no longer attractive to him. the marriage was a pain in the ass. whenever they talk it would always end up in a quarrel. her mother cared little too. now that she was married off. her duty was done. the world seemed alone. just joyce and her baby.

think about being married to the person u dont love for forever. how scary is that? 60 years of sharing the bed with him, eating with him, going out with him, kissing him, having sex with him. time can ease the pain? true, but not when the person you truly love is still alive and still within contact of u. its like having a million bucks being dangled in front of u but u can't get it because your tied to a rope.

gerger fell down and started crying. she immediately picked her up and tried to hush her. 1 year of waking up in the middle of the night to change diapers, dealing with incessant crying, feeding five times a day, cleaning up the mess that she leaves behind, teaching her basic numbers and alphabet. 1 year of following her wherever she goes, of attending to her every need, of shopping for her baby supplies when she have no idea where she's going to next get money. i looked at her as she hushed gerger and thought, she has lived 21 years of her life and this is the end of the road for her. i had no right to feel pity for her because i know i helped contribute to her despair. but tears just started swirling in my eyes when i thought of how much she has lost because of that one mistake she made and how she has to continue to pay for it for the rest of her life in the form of gerger...

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[richel] [2/11/2004 09:43:00 AM]

havent popped by to do some writing in a long time. v day coming. working on that day for that big event the hyundi 5-a side at the padang. my biggest event management thingy yet. good luck to moi on that. im confident, but then again confident about what? i have no idea what its like!

things getting pretty tense at home. my bro STILL hasnt talked to my mum yet since that incident. and my mums getting all jangly about the new flat, renovations and all. i wanna help with that but again, i have no idea wat to do! i cant get quotations from contracters. i cant look for the right kind of tiles or the right kind of paint and i know shit about toilet bowls. sigh..actually my mum aint an expert on that too but she moved houses pretty often (about 4 times in the last wat 20 years?) so she knows a bit about the whole she-bang. i got work on my side to do too. but i would really like to help but wish she would tell me what to do instead of her waiting for the initiative cause i seriously havent the faintest idea wat to be initiative about.

will try and write some more when i more inspired. but really, i dont have much inspiration to write. im like creatively empty.

cd bought which have made me realli happy: --
speakerboxx/the love below (outkast)

songs downloaded that have made me very happy: --
emi fujita (every and any song from her!!)
ross stone (wow wow WOWWW!!!)

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[richel] [2/10/2004 06:59:00 PM]