About The Last Two & A Half

For some reason, this blog's revival has made me want to lay out the past 2.5 years in writing.

May 2007.

The Stiletto and I broke things off. He read this post, and just stopped calling. When I called him, we had words. To this day, I'm not sure what was said. I just know that when I hung up, it felt as if my world had bottomed out. Whatever anger I'd felt before was gone. What was left felt pretty much as if someone had taken a vegetable shredder to my insides before tying everything into choking knots.

I don't remember much of what happened after. I left my job and pretty much any semblance of what had been my life behind. Most days I wouldn't get out of bed. I ate when food was placed in front of me, slept when my eyes were too tired to stay open, bathed when my family shoved me into the shower. Mum broke down trying to get me to snap out of it, but I didn't care. I left my phone off and all emails/SMSes unanswered. I lost all concept of time, of day and night, and it was a good thing. As long as I was unaware, it didn't hurt. As long as it didn't hurt, I could cope. Television and the Internet were vital crutches - providing me with sources of 1-sided interaction, distractions that had become as necessary to my survival as oxygen.

Depression. It's such a melodramatic word, one I always thought was coined by a bunch of self-serving wimps looking to absolve themselves of any responsibility. Hear that gulping sound? That's me swallowing my own words.

Aug 2007.

Realisation that The Best Friend's birthday had come and gone without me even knowing it shocked me into partial awareness. We hadn't spoken in months. I called. It was awkward. The gap had grown so wide I didn't have a clue on how to bridge it.

Sep 2007.

The Stiletto was still everywhere I looked. Clothes in the closet, tubes in bathroom, places we use to go, music we use to play. Despite my recent resurface into the world of the living, I didn't want to deal with shovelling of debris from relationship-past yet. And so... I took the coward's way out. A 6-week trip to Quebec, where I met The Boy.

It hurt when I came back. Especially when the festive season rolled around. I struggled not to succumb to swamping feelings of loneliness. I thought about The Best Friend and Miss Jay, and prayed that they would call. They didn't. I could've called them. I didn't. I'm not sure why.

Jan 2008.

I finally cleared out The Stiletto's stuff. That included packing up all his clothes and throwing away his toothbrush. Then I sat down next to the bathroom sink and cried for an hour.

Apr 2008.

The Boy came to Singapore and ended up staying for 3 months. What I'd thought of as a rebound was working out to be way more than expected. Sometime during this extended vacation, I realised that I could deal with the thought with another relationship, even one that was going to be long distance. Not thinking about the past no longer required a conscious effort. And thinking about the future didn't crush me under a 10-ton weight of panic.

Aug 2008.

I started working again. And I found out that The Best Friend had gotten married. Apparently the breach was bad enough that I didn't merit an invitation. A part of me understood. Another part was completely shattered. It also got back to me that The Stiletto was seeing someone new. Inexplicably, it felt like salt was being rubbed into a festering wound.

Work, to an extent, was a godsend, as were the daily chats with The Boy, who had returned to Quebec and was already saving for his next trip back.

Nov 2008.

Things in the office took a quick and sudden down slide. People were laid off, workload tripled, and I was back to pulling 15-18 hour days / being stuck in the office till 4am.

Christmas came and went, as did the 1st few weeks of 2009. My life revolved mainly around keeping my head above water at work, where the situation had become pretty desperate. Once again I found myself questioning my professional judgement. Whatever had possessed me to return to a job that I loathed? Oh yes. That big, bad, 5-letter word - Money. :P

Jan 2009.

I got invited to a wedding of an old friend. And, as luck would have had it, found out that A, whom I hadn't seen in over 3 years, had been invited too. And of course, we ended up at the same table. The usual moves were made and deftly sidestepped, which, given my crappy track record with A, made the entire dinner a pretty significant event.

Mar 2009.

I received a call at 3am from The Best Friend. I'd seen her all of once in the last year. Our conversations, if you could call them that, had been limited to brief and somewhat stilted exchanges via MSN. It took less than 30 seconds for me to find out what was wrong and suddenly, nothing else mattered. Her reaching out somehow managed to bridge that gaping hole between us, perhaps not the way it was before, but nonetheless, I felt a reconnection. And it was like a drink of cool water I hadn't known I needed. The circumstances that brought it about sucked, but I guess that's what they mean when they say that every cloud has a silver lining.

Apr 2009.

I turned 31. And, having handed in my resignation the month before, was once again a lady of leisure. The Boy returned, and stayed till Sep. We talked about more concrete plans for "us", in between short jaunts to Bangkok, Perth, Penang and Phuket.

Dec 2009.

3 months after returning home, The Boy decided that come 2010, he'd move to my side of the world to find work.

Jan 2010.

Something tells me that this year is going to be different. I'm still trying to determine if it's "different - good" or "different - bad".