My fears

A few days back, I suddenly realised that I am very afraid to be alone. As much as I tried to convince myself (and those around me) that I enjoy being alone, it is actually the opposite that is true.

I suddenly thought about a lot of what if-s: What if I did not find myself a partner by a certain age and had to live and die alone; what if (and I am sure they will) my parents are no longer around anymore? What should I do; what if I died. Who is going to settle my funeral.

Questions like that kept coming up and I suddenly felt panic. Plus me being very anti-social and shy, not sure when I would ever find myself a partner any time soon. Worse yet, as age catches up on me, I have crawled deeper into my shell and do not really want to waste my time meeting new people.

All these just increased my worry and fear. Guess I am writing all this down to calm myself down. Guess what Ally McBeal (and some other shows) talked about that biological time bomb ticking away is very real. Not in the sense of making babies but in the sense of finding a mate to spend the rest of my life with. Not necessarily (to find a mate) to marry but to watch the sunset with.

Need to calm down, need to calm down.

Children: Angels or devils?

Children. You never really think too much about them until you come into contact with them. For my case though, it was more like, I thought I knew a lot already about them and then I find that I discover lots more about them with each and every growing day.

My new job (although I really should not be talking too much about it) has allowed me to do things that I would usually do before. When I first heard that there was such a thing as bath time and nap time, I did an Ally McBeal roll eyes. Bathe them? you mean literally bathe them?? My mind went into panic mode.

Turns out my kids are already bath trained and can do so themselves. Phew! The only thing is that the boys like to play with water and I would have to check in on them once in while. You know, even at 6 years old, these boys know what it is like to be shy. Kekeke.... What I do is to make a quick entrance and exit so that they do not feel so immobilised by my presence.

Then there was nap time. All my life (I mean when I was young), I was patted by mum to sleep. Never have I patted anyone else as I do not have any younger siblings. This time round, I need to pat some of my kids to sleep. This was quite some experience.

I observed from the way that they lay out their mattresses, how needy or insecure a child is. They would need bolsters and even a stuffed toy and usually, they need to be patted to sleep. These are also usually the 'naughty' ones. I really feel for these kids for I think they pine and crave lots of attention from their parents and because they are not getting enough of it, they act up in their daily lives. They are the ones that need more love and care.

The kids are still feeling the lost of their teacher, who have been with them since they were 3 years old. The boys express it through their actions. They become a little rebellious. The girls are the one who can verbalise it and tell me that they miss their teacher. Different development stages and different ways of expressing.

At this point of time, I can only say that I am blessed with pretty well-behaved children. I am only hoping that I will be able to control them when I start teaching, formerly. They still see me as the lady who owns all those books. Hahaha! Sweet! :)

Love, perhaps

Ironically, as I type that I am better, my heart began to sink, deeper and deeper into a pit, a bottomless one. I feel a little like a schizophrenic or someone with bipolar tendencies. Happy at one moment and totally depressed in another. Then again, I may be wrong about the bipolar bit coz apparently they move from high to low without going through the depressive stage.

This is upon the realisation that I may never get to marry another Catholic boy. After going one big round to make myself forget about love life (or lack thereof) and relationships, I am back to it again. After going one big round to make myself come to terms with my own religion, I am now sort of back to square one again.

As I have said time and again, there is no such thing as a divorce when one is a Roman Catholic. There is only annulment (to me, it is just a substitution of word. It means the same thing). I have heard so much about people trying to get annulment etc that I am so worried that I may never get mine. There was this guy in the States who applied to the Pope (or was it just through the Vatican) to get his marriage annulled twice and both times, it got rejected. The whole time too, it was not his fault. His wife was the one who walked out of their marriage.

It is at such times when I like to ask, "Why God? Why make it so difficult? How long are You going to punish me and people like me?"

When I have calmed down though, I know, in full consciousness, that I was the one who made the choice(I am speaking for myself of course. Everyone has their own unique situation), but not without reasons. Reasons that I do not want to reveal...yet and maybe never (to be fair to the other party). Will my reasons be accepted as grounds for annulment in the eyes of the Catholic Church?

No, it is not God's fault that I am in such a messy situation.

Sometimes I have these Ally McBeal moments whereby I am constantly using the spiked whip to whip myself and afterwards mentally ask myself, "What for?" Or that God was the one whipping me for disobeying Him and walking out of my marriage.

Then there are times when I tell myself that I can actually walk away from all this and believe in some other religion. The truth at the moment is that I DON'T want to. I am most comfortable with being a Catholic at the moment except for this little part. Ironical, I know, but I feel most connected with God like that. Maybe that is what they call blind faith and I am OK with it.

Even if I do become a Christian of some other denomination, I still cannot get married in a Catholic Church. Unless the Catholic boy is super open-minded about it, I don't think they will accept this fact of not being able to get married in church. Or at least I have not met any who is willing NOT to get married in church.

I am of course, way ahead of myself. I have not even found that someone special yet and even if I did that special someone is already in sight, it is way, way, too early to even think of starting a relationship, let alone marriage.

Anyway, not so long ago, I did tell most of my friends that, if given a choice, I will not get married again but I will find a partner to be there for me. So what made me change my mind and panic now? Love, perhaps.

p/s: The views about religion is entirely my own. Didn't mean to offend anyone. Therefore please just read without (much) prejudice :) Thanks!

Eh! Apologise properly, Jerk!

Sometimes it's tough. If we are too fierce in telling patrons not to use the phone, we get complaint 'love' letters. When we tell them nicely, they give you half-f*@cked apologies and glare at you a little. The look that says "you are not worth my time and stop wasting my time by talking to me".

Might as well don't apologise. Such insincerity! If you do not know manners and behave as deemed proper in a certain environment, then perhaps, you might want to re-thinking about stepping in. You don't see anyone using the hand phone while watching a play or ballet performance nowadays. Or has Esplanade theatre been smart enough to block any form of signal? Felt like slapping him across the face, but of course we can't and so I did an Ally McBeal again: virtual slap.