sentimental valium

happy belated national day! been a great long weekend sleeping, drinking, tennising, shopping, movieing and catching up with friends. nepal seems like such a long time ago and its been some time since i had so much time on my hands to fill!

but luckily i've got great friends to hang out/crap/drink beer/shop with, so thanks to them the three-day weekend just flew by at the blink of an eye.

i've been reading a lot too these days. murakami seems to be the goût du jour for me now, but just the other day at the library i came across this book, The Bastard on the Couch, and a particular paragraph so accurately captures the stream of consciousness my head works most of the time and so many of things I've thought/journalled/said to friends.

enjoy:
"There were also those mornings, especially holidays and weekends and times between assignments, when I had no plans, when my buddies were out of town or with their wives or girlfriends, when I wondered if I would die alone, when I wished there was someone next to me, someone sweet and loving and warm and funny and sexy, someone who, even if she might curtail my sports-page reading and sleeping late and e-mail checking, might let me hold her, might hold me, might ask me to help her work the crossword puzzle, might murmur with affection as I worried aloud about a vexing work project, who might bear my children, grow misty-eyed at how I would teach the little rascals to be strong and to shoot baskets and how to be helpful and sensitive to others' feelings while remaining true to their own convictions, who would indulge my sneaking them sweets between meals and telling them scary stories at bedtime, who might agree–exuberantly–to be my partner while we moved through the world, shoulder to shoulder, fingers interlocked, someone who would stroll underneath aged oak trees with me as we turned white and wrinkled, leaning on each other, someone whose fears I might help recognize as puny phantoms compared to our enduring and transcendent bond, someone who might liberate me from the crushing burden of myself."

my favourite overly long sentence of all time, i think.

that sentence welled up something inside me when i read it. instead of bringing about a big sigh and make me feel (more) sorry for myself, it produced this incredible happiness for all the couples out there. maybe not the idyllic and naive everything-will-be-perfect vision those of us on the unrealized side of marriage and relationships have - but the companionship and deep peace they find from that other person. and that is what i have been looking for: the unspoken easy comfort on a sleep-in sunday morning with coffee on the roast and her in my arms.

but domestic life for me is difficult because i believe in living my own life, and living one’s dreams is difficult because it usually is a lone undertaking. there is no such thing as shared dreams; they are personal creatures. and while my peers are settling down and buying HDB flats, I continue to drift and search on for myself; i plod on the path alone. yet I do not feel despair. trite as it may sound, i recognize that life is about the journey, and not the destination.

there you have it. damn emo. but what were you expecting at 0037 in the morning, and from a title like sentimental valium?