I am broken inside. Have always been. But it’s gotten bad. Lately. Lately being the last year.

“But everyone too is broken,” I sometimes whisper to the night in the lonely hours, to remind myself that I walk not on an untrudged path, that there are others, lost in the same direction. Misery loves company. Unfortunately, misery also loves me.

So, what of the last year that has made me cracked and ugly on the inside? Nothing really. I reckon it’s always been that way. But I think it is this. The only difference of late has been the way I’ve started to view myself, how I’ve now only allowed to let my eyes fall on the neglected areas of my being, areas that try not to exist but do.

Having embarked on this journey a year back—this crusade, this explorative mission in search of my soul—I’ve looked inward more than I ever had in my life. When you partake in something as I have done, naysayers tend to pop out of nowhere, uninvited, onto your path, and they try to shake your foundation of beliefs—that core—which at the point of your embarkation was rock solid, unyielding and confident. These people question you, they question your resolve, they question your ability, and in turn you question yourself, your resolve, your ability. Thankful I should be, that it was through this process of defending my actions that I’ve been re-acquainted with myself—the person I was, the person I am, the person I have the potential to be. But as much as you see the good, the flaws become visible as well. The brokenness.

The cracks have been there all the time, but it was only after I acknowledged them that they became real. My awareness has given life to them. It’s one of those you think there for you are things, or that proverbial tree in the forest mindbender. Quirkily, I think this whole shatteredness I’m currently feeling can be summed up by this two line poem. I chanced on it a decade back.

You told me I was ill
So I felt sick

Which would you prefer, being alone, or being lonely? Being alone I guess… if you must make me choose.

The road I’m on is a lonely one. Few have walked it. And not many can relate with the emotional rollercoaster ride I’m on. I’ve spent nights aplenty feeling like a lone horseman surging forward to ward off an army of gay soldiers looking for fresh meat. Peering through that fog of courage that has clouded my mind, I sometimes admit to myself, “Urrrrmmmm, I don’t think this is going to end well.”

Being alone doesn’t always mean that you are lonely. When I was 14, I used to sit on the beach in the pre-dawn to watch the sun rise, all by myself, the world still asleep. Never once, as best as my memory serves, did I feel lonely in those early hours. If anything, I felt a oneness with the earth. I was a drop of water that had fallen into the sea, and as the drop merged with the sea, I too became the sea. The sea in turn, became that drop of water and became me.

Being lonely doesn’t always mean you are alone. You can feel lonely being in a room full of people; amongst close friends, around family even. Unfortunately, loneliness, just like misery, does not like to be by itself. When loneliness finds a friend in you, it follows you everywhere, into bed, to church, onto the john, past airport security, across the ocean, across time. Of the many things I’ve been wrong about in my life, this is not one of them—loneliness is the most faithful friend you will ever have in your life. Heaven forbid that this should ever happen, but should your friends and family walk out on you one day, I guarantee you this, loneliness will be there for you.

So who is this loneliness person anyway, and what is she like? To me, loneliness is not just an awareness of being alone, but a longing, a longing to be with someone, maybe someone you’ve already met, maybe someone you’ve not, more likely someone you’ll never ever meet. And this someone need not necessarily be a someone. It could be a pet, it could be a plant you talk to all the time, it could be a soft toy or sex toy you forgot to pack on your journey, or your email that you don’t have access to. People feel lonely in the absence of the oddest (sometimes queerest) things.

Sometimes loneliness results from being displaced, and could be geographical. It could be that you long to be back at the place you grew up in, where the surroundings and associations are familiar. Certain places have the power to be so real in your mind, to the point where the place talks to you, and is almost like a person. Sometimes loneliness can visit you when you’re looking at a postcard showing some alien land you’ve always dreamed of one day visiting, and sometimes the pictures are not on a postcard but merely a sanctuary in your mind, in a place where genocidal soldiers don’t break your door down and pop you in the head. Loneliness is that unfulfilled something in your life, that emptiness that yearns to be filled.

In my books, loneliness is the worst disease the world suffers from. Some diseases kill you, some don’t, some make you suffer more than others. Loneliness just rubs it all in.

A number of businesses these days thrive on loneliness. That I know of, the biggest is Facebook; millions of lonely people, trying to lend existence to their existence, to make themselves heard, to say to the world, “Hey, I’m that tree in the forest. I posted an update therefore I am.” Many take up an existence on fake farms, are gangsters in mafia wars, citizens of countries that do not exist, and while they may walk this earth alone and lonely, in the worlds they have created they are not, and they all get to f*** the prom queen, to quote a Sean Connery line from The Rock. But even as I preach from here, from my high stool, I realise that I too am a part of this community I’ve just made fun of. One of the billions of unalone lonely people.

This may seem a little random at the point of my asking, but I’ve got a question for you. Who would you rather take sex advice from: a priest, a rabbi, a sufi or Hugh Hefner? Who would you believe if he said to you, “Hey, you know all this hoo haa over sex? It’s all over rated.”

Now, getting closer to my point. I think Jesus was sent down to slum with us for a reason. So he could establish credibility. So he could look us in the eye and say, “I know how you feel, I’ve been there. Dude, you’re so going about it the wrong way. But no worries, we’ll get you untangled.” Being flawed, I feel, was of his greatest strengths, and one day I hope that it too shall be mine.

Here’s another odd ball question for you. “If you did not see the tree fall in the forest, but you saw it getting up, did the tree fall?” How’s that for a digression?

Don’t beat yourself up over that question. Don’t beat yourself up over any question for that matter. The world will do that for you. Sometimes, you just need to give yourself a break.

As I was brushing my teeth this morning, I looked myself square in the mirror and smiled. “This is me”, I said, “a compilation of beautiful shards, perfectly imperfect. Sharp, edgy, a wise crack looking for his next break.”

They found that the renegade tooth was one I had problems with about 6 months back. The root, like Adam Lambert, had come out of the closet. On a wing and a prayer, the dentist tried to bury the problem with more cement. Unfortunately, he didn’t pray hard enough, and the following day, I was flapping in pain. A root canal was inevitable.

The guy who did my root canal had a line of patients akin to the most popular ride in a theme park,  and in consequence went about his business in a very hurried manner. Once the chair I was confined to had reclined fully, he swung the light over my face to spotlight my mouth. And he went to work with the speed and vigour of a Formula-1 pit crew. He wasted no time sticking a needle into my gums, which numbed one side of my face, and then proceeded to prod, drill, drain and hum. Yup, he hummed… to the smooth jazz tones that were playing above. I wasn’t sure to be comforted by his confidence, or disturbed by his merriment. At one point I kicked out in pain when he drilled into my nerve. SOB seemed to have anticipated that this would happen, as he already had another syringe of feelgood on standby. Without blinking an eye, he delivered the shot into my gums and continued to disembowel my tooth. About a couple minutes later, he tells me, “I’ve killed the nerve, you can relax now.” I really wanted to believe him but just couldn’t bring myself to. My body at the time was so tense it was taut as piano wire. And it stayed that way until the parking lot.

After I got home, my tooth still did not feel quite right. A few hours later, when the morphine subsided, the pain returned in the same manner that the dentist worked, fast and furious. I was back in his chair again for a second time, and almost a third. Though my tooth still hurt like a mofo, I said to myself, “Timeout. My tooth doesn’t need to be cured. It needs to be healed.” And so I proceeded to meditate. And each day has been better than the last.

For one, my joints have started to creak. If I were to gracefully sway my body from one side to the other, the way a ballerina goes through her warm ups, you’d be treated to a symphony of cricks and cracks, almost as if a car were slowly rolling over a flat sheet of bubble wrap. It really is worth a listen. Really.

To add to my woes, my knees have lost strength, and I’m a lot less sure about doing the things I once knew I could do. So pirouettes are out of the question (they used to be out of question before, now they are even more out of the question).

~.~.~.~.~.~

I attended a funeral the day before Chinese New Year. He was of friend of mine since childhood—same Sunday school, same Church, same Secondary School. For a year, I sat beside him in class, when we were sixteen. So I’m sure, a big piece of him had been imbibed in me.

Paul left in his wake, and at his wake, a wife and two kids–one was 4-years old, the other 2, the same age as my Oliver.

Sometimes, when I’m gone for a few hours, Oliver asks, “Where’s Daddy? Daddy come back. Now!!”

How do you tell a kid that age, that Daddy’s not coming back? Ever.

It really gets you thinking, when someone your age gets a heart attack and drops dead. You stop taking things for granted. For awhile anyway, when the memory is still fresh.

The death of a friend also sends you a message that you’d better start smelling the roses before they make them into wreaths for you. And it reminds you that you should say your I love Yous frequently; if not in words, through your actions. It also tells you not to squander a good thing, and that life is short, so eat your vegetables, and wear your sunscreen. There is no need to make your existence here shorter than it already is.

I read The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari about a month back. It was probably the most cheesy book I’ve ever picked up, but I must say, I gleaned a lot of useful things from it. As the book had suggested that we all do, I’ve incorporated meditation into part of my daily. It’s amazing how the simple act of focusing your mind someplace else triggers physical change through your body. Meditation makes you aware of many things. Often, I don’t realise that I’m walking with my shoulders scrunched up and tense; my neck, stiff like an aroused penis.

I’m sure there are different ways to meditate. I do mine in a quiet room with the lights turned off, Lisa Gerrard’s Sanvean playing in the background. Eyes closed, I breathe deeply once the music starts, and my body magically relaxes. Suddenly, you feel alive once more, as if your blood, which without your permission stopped flowing some time during the day, started to flow again. Often, my mind wanders, just like in church. But I let it. Fighting it, I feel, is unnatural, and strenuous, and would defeat the purpose of the whole exercise. As you can probably tell, I make a lot of this stuff up as I go.

The monk manual also suggested that I engage in rigorous exercise, daily. But to go in head first was ill advised, not in my fragile state. Anything more rigorous than climbing a single flight of stairs would probably cause my limbs to dislodge from my body and crumble into pieces, the way wooden blocks tumble following a wrong Jenga move.

So, to jumpstart my exercise regimen… Correction. So, to slowly move my exercise regimen into gear, I chose to do strengthening exercises first—stretches, lunges, some yoga and the like. It really has helped, and I’m a lot less wobbly these days.

~.~.~.~.~.~

After two weeks of mild conditioning, I felt my body was ready to take on something bigger. No, not Roseanne Barr.

I went for a jog this morning. The route took me from the house to the park, a lap around the park, a walking lap to catch my breath, another running lap, and after that, I dragged my feet to the roadside stall for breakfast, across the street from my house.

Again, as almost every time in the past, I was the only Chinese fella there. I ordered an ice tea and unfolded myself a Nasi Lemak. Their version here is unique; they have a small square of salt fish embedded into the rice, and it is sublime. There was a dead ant in my rice. I ate it without a second thought. I think that only happens on Tuesday mornings (Man Vs Wild is on at 8 every Monday night).

The stall filled up quickly after I took my seat, to the point where a Malay guy had no choice but to share my table with me. He ordered a Roti Tampal. I had never heard of it before and was curious. Translated, it meant ‘patched bread’. I waited in anticipation for his Unidentified Food Object to arrive. When it finally did, I couldn’t quite make it out. It looked like there was some kind of coconut layer married to a piece of Roti Canai. The guy didn’t look like he welcomed any questions, so I paid for my meal and left.

~.~.~.~.~.~

My writing has taken up a very prominent center in my life. On my jog, I was thinking of my book. Well, of that and of my burning thighs. Quite often, when I meditate, my mind wanders to the book as well. The same thing happens when I’m going through my stretches, or taking a dump, lathering my body, lathering my teeth, trying to sleep, while driving, while gardening, while watching TV.

This morning, while walking back to the house after breakfast, I realised I did not once think of my book over breakfast. And it was nice. Like a burden had been lifted off my shoulders. I asked myself how it happened and came to this conclusion: I was too busy thinking about what the other people thought of me, sitting there, almost alone, a thorn among the Kembojas. In that moment, it occurred to me, that in this country, more important things than the bread needed to be patched.

Jeez. Next we’ll have peace in East Timor?

While we’re on the topic of East Timor. The word Timor, translated in the Timorese language Tetum, means “east”… which would ultimately make the name “East Timor” sound a little awkward… don’t you think?

The people of Timor would probably laugh their heads off if they learned that I just claimed rain in LA. “Pfffff! You call that rain?” For a country that gets 1400 mm of rain a year, the 0.005 mm of dampness we got this morning would probably be labelled imposter rain or pussy rain.

And they have a point.

All I know is that I won’t be betting my kidneys that it rained today as I didn’t hear any thunder, see any rain or lightning…. nope…. no pitter, patter, pitter, patter, rumbling sounds in the sky and all that good stuff. All I know is that on the way to work, I could see the bottom of the car in front reflected off the road…. and the air today was so thick with moisture you could catch a water-borne disease by breathing the air. Actually, the air today kinda reminded me of the time I got back from a weekend in St Louis, stepped into my Waugh St. apartment and realized I did not turn off my humidifier before leaving.

I was stubborn at first, refusing to run the windshield wiper on my way to work. I mean, it wasn’t raining. Why use the wiper? Drops continued to accumulate on my windshield to the point it got too thick for me to see. I reluctantly flipped on the wiper. It swung left and it swung right. Now I really couldn’t see shit. Paper mache.

Those of you who know me also know that I wash my car…. ummmm… on average once a year. I normally welcome heavy rain with open arms since it saves me the $5.75 I would have to otherwise spend at the car wash. I do not, however, welcome lethargic, half-hearted rain mainly because it eats into that even coat of silky dust on my car’s skin, leaving its complexion looking like open pores after a cold shower. The way a car is dressed reflects a lot on the owner of the car and today, I had to deal withthe consequences my car looking neither clean nor dirty… as though it were confused… lost… or still in search of its identity.

And to make matters worse, the new rain coat formed an adhesive base that changed my car into a giant piece of scotch tape, vulnerable to everything in its path. I think I’ll adopt a highway.