Goddess, I Am.

I’ve never been particularly good at relationships. I like to think of myself as relationship-challenged, though really, I’m just dysfunctional.

The longest relationship I’ve ever been in was with my college boyfriend, a guy who I’ve known my entire life. It went on for exactly 2 years to the day, during the course of which I lost my virginity in rather disappointing circumstances. We broke up at least twice a month on average, and both had affairs on the side. I eventually ended it because I basically outgrew him. He is now married to one of my mum’s distant cousins, no kidding.

The second longest relationship I’ve had was with a guy who, to this day, insists that what we had wasn’t a relationship, even if it did last for almost 2 years. He’s right, though. We never did go exclusive because he was, in his words, “too selfish” to have a girlfriend. He did tell me he loved me at some point, and there was never any question that I was crazy about him; hence, probably why it lasted that long, albeit on and off.

Other boyfriends and kind-of boyfriends included a junkie who stole my computer and my money, an American who I was very briefly engaged to, and another who labeled me his “conquest (to use a slightly less callous word), numbered 800-something-or-other”, to name a few. Indeed, not only was I dysfunctional, I seemed to attract men who were just as bad, if not worse.

Until now. A year ago today, I started dating a man who ended my life as I knew it, and made it as it is now. We’re neither perfect, nor ideal. Sometimes he does my head in, but I know I do too, probably more. It hasn’t been an easy ride, yes, but it hasn’t been difficult either. Indeed, as far as relationships (for me, or anyone else’s) go, we’re nothing short of idyllic.

My past has had more than its fair share of heartbreaks, but maybe it’s true that everything does happen for a reason. Maybe forcing me to go through all those failed relationships was nature’s way of making sure that I learned from my mistakes. Maybe I was meant to suffer before I got him as a reward. Maybe I had to endure the worst to appreciate the best when it does come. Whatever the reason, it’s irrelevant now. He loves me and I love him, and the life we’re building together is all that matters now. Everything else is water under the bridge. I’ve found my Mr. Darcy and my Mr. Big, that same man that every girl wants – not quite perfect, but close enough. And yes, there’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that I’ll be keeping him for a long, long time.

Happy anniversary, my love. You make me so insanely, ridiculously, and deliriously happy on a regular basis. Do stay. Do stay for good.

When you love someone, you deify him. To what degree is relative to the extent of your passion. Nevertheless, to you he becomes a god, giving him the power to lord it over you should he so choose. For the most part, a good man wouldn’t – at least, not consciously or maliciously. But almost inevitably, he will, as men are wont to do upon attaining the esteemed status of pseudo-godship – all because he is loved.

How does one deify a mere mortal? One builds him up; first in one’s head, then in the heads of all and sundry who care to listen. And though the latter might not embrace such worship with even half the same ardor that you devote to it, you do. You only see the good that evokes your passion, and never the bad that could actually make you see sense. And what a folly that is because that is where your downfall begins.

When you love someone, you strive to become compatible. And because you’ve been told that you can never change your lover, you endeavor to change yourself. Indeed, there is no harm in such a cause, especially if it is for the good of, not just your love, but of yourself. And so you find yourself giving up this and sacrificing that until one day you wake up and you don’t know yourself anymore. You don’t know what you’ve become, how you got there, or even why; all because such a drastic overhaul of your “self”, of your “being” was achieved for the wrong reasons: not for yourself, but for the pseudo-god who you so desperately wanted to please, but who, more than likely, would never ever be pleased.

Nothing is more guaranteed to wake you up out of your rose-colored stupor than a stranger looking back at you in the mirror, and you start to realize that if you were so wrong about yourself, then perhaps you were also wrong about the lover you have come to hold in such high regard. And then you look back and realize that the pseudo-god isn’t quite as divine as you thought. You start to grasp the magnitude of his indifference – the indifference that was always there the entire time, but you deemed it natural in his seeming superiority to you; a superiority, I might add, that you bestowed upon him in the first place. You start to see the disregard, the disrespect, the dishonesty, and all other manner of painful truths that only the most honest of relationships can discern. You see them all, and suddenly you’re disillusioned and jaded, and you don’t know what to make of it.

Still, when you love someone, you try to make it work. So every time there’s a problem (and at this point, you’re already honest with yourself enough to admit that there are indeed problems), you find yourself conceding to keep the peace, to keep the status quo intact. This is because even though in your eyes he is now just a man and no longer a pseudo-god, you still do not love him any less. If anything, you might even love him more in this newfound attainability.

So you concede, and all is peaceful until the next conflict when you will concede again and again and again in a never ending cycle of concession for the sake of love and harmony, regardless of who is in the wrong. But when you really think about it, how long can you concede? How long can you give in? How long can you keep apologizing for wrongs that you did not do? Everything – and everyone – has a limit. Surely your ability to concede is no exception.

So now you’re faced with a dilemma. If you continue to concede until every drop of concession is wrung from your body and until every smidgen of apology is no more, the time will come when you’ll have nothing more to give. Inevitably, you can do no more than watch the demise of the relationship that you so painstakingly built.

On the other hand, you can resist taking the path of least resistance and fight for what you believe is right. You can attempt to make him face his inadequacies, instead of mollycoddling him and pointing out your own to make him feel good about himself. You can endeavor to put your lover in his place when he’s done you wrong, and force him into submission for you to finally receive the apology or the appreciation that you so deserve. This is risky because though there is a slight chance that you will accomplish your objective, it is exactly that – slight – and you may invariably do more harm than good, leading to an even earlier demise of the relationship. Is there even a path that doesn’t lead to the relationship’s demise? I do not believe so, for even those who stay together for the rest of their lives eventually die and become no more.

When you love someone, you give him the power to destroy you. And until you start to accept love as it is – fleeting – you will find yourself constantly destroyed throughout your lifetime. You will only emerge whole when you stop believing in forever and start accepting that nothing lasts forever.

Indeed, when you love someone, make every moment count because that’s all you’re ever really going to get – moments.

Note: This was inspired by the movie ‘Becoming Jane’, an adaptation of the life of Jane Austen; hence, the slightly Victorian undertone (I imagine).

I remember my last year of high school. While everyone else talked nonstop about the courses they were going to take and the universities they were going to attend, I did nothing. Oh, it wasn’t because I was a lazy slacker who couldn’t care less if I ended up selling my body on the streets. It was mostly because, short of becoming a porn star (seriously), I didn’t know what I wanted to be.

So I ended up heeding my mum’s advice and taking up accountancy, the same degree that she has. I lasted a full year before I conceded that I didn’t have a head for numbers. Because I needed a good excuse to transfer to my best friend’s university, I chose a course that was offered there but not in my then-university – journalism. I transferred too late, however, so I ended up taking a few unimportant minor subjects that first semester.

By the time the second semester rolled in, my family had already convinced me that I couldn’t possibly have a future in journalism. The future was in computers, they told me; hence, why I ended up taking up IT. Three very long and very excruciating years later, I finished the course and couldn’t be bothered to turn up for my graduation. I was just relieved to be rid of school forever.

Off to the job market I went, and because I spoke English with a passable American accent, I ended up working for a call center. This was the start of my love/hate affair with call centers. For 3 years, I ended up working for 2 of the big centers in my city and one “publishing” company that refused to be dubbed as such – a call center, that is. I also worked in a bank, at some point. The pay was crap and the work bored me to tears, so I eventually ended up taking calls again. I dabbled in technical support, sales, and customer service. Eventually, I worked myself up to quality assurance.

Somewhere along the way, I got it into my head that I wanted to be a teacher. I applied for various training jobs, but always got turned down. I even went back to school for a spell to get a teaching degree, but ended up quitting in the middle of the term because juggling work and school was too exhausting for me. I eventually ended up in Thailand in some obscure coordinator job, and eventually to teach English where I was unceremoniously fired after my first week.

So where does writing fit in all this? I would say it was when I started blogging, but looking back, I think it was far longer than that. I kept diaries as a teenager. Eventually, the diaries became blogs. Back in high school, my best friends and I started an underground newspaper that everyone loved – everyone except our English teacher, that is, who promptly outlawed it. We also wrote a bunch of silly ‘novels’ to rival the Sweet Valley series in grubby, old notebooks that are now gathering dust under my best friend’s bed.

For the longest time, I’ve been having my love affair with words, and I just didn’t know about it because, to me, it was always just a hobby, something that came as naturally as breathing, and it was never really nurtured or encouraged. I didn’t even think that I was actually a good writer until a blogger friend of mine, who I was (and am) a huge fan of and who I respect most, told me that she enjoyed my writing. It was only then that I even considered writing freelance for a living. And even then, I could only do it part-time because I, like all and sundry, didn’t think it was a real job.

If I never left the security of the call centers, if I never had delusions of being a teacher, if I never got fired from a job that I hated every single day that I was doing it, I wouldn’t have had the courage to pursue what I love most. I wouldn’t be writing for a living, and I probably wouldn’t be happy. Indeed, I probably wouldn’t know who – and what – I really am.

Somewhere along the way I took a wrong turn that kept me from my ultimate destiny. But I found my way back, and I’m here now. I’m now where I’m supposed to be, something that a lot of people can’t say about themselves. And really, I’m not going anywhere. I’m here to stay.

Last Saturday saw me and my man at the cinema in Central World Plaza to watch The Incredible Hulk. It wasn’t a particularly exceptional film, but it wasn’t bad either. I enjoyed it anyway because of two words: Edward Norton.

But I digress. The film ended about 10 PM, and we left Central World shortly thereafter. We walked about a couple of blocks towards the Pratunam area to catch our bus home. Right in front of Platinum Mall is a rather narrow walkway, so we had to walk single file. I went first, my man brought up the rear. Walking towards us from the opposite direction were 3 Thai men. I didn’t think much of it.

When I was level with the first guy, he sort of leered at me, but I ignored him. I’m used to dirty leers and jeers from men, and I’ve found that it’s way better to simply ignore them and not give them the satisfaction of my attention. From what I gathered later, he made a gesture which led the boyfriend to think that he grabbed me. Naturally, my man reacted and gave him a nasty look. The next thing I knew, all 3 men have jumped him from behind, so he didn’t really get a chance to defend himself. They were all fists and elbows and knees, muay thai style, while my man fought to stay on his feet as he tried to get them off him.

At this point, I was screaming for help at the top of my lungs. It was surreal, like something out of a movie. I wasn’t really thinking at all at that point, so I acted on instinct. I hit and poked the men randomly with my trusty umbrella (one of those pointy-tip ones). I must have hurt one of them because he moved as if to strike me across the face. I sort of cowered and waited for the blow to come, but it didn’t. I think he still had some decency left not to strike a woman.

At this point, my man already managed to break free from their clutches, so I took his arm and dragged him away towards the crowd gathering. The men started walking away in the opposite direction. My man tried to tell a security guard who was in the crowd to call the cops. The man just sort of gaped at us with his mouth open like an idiot. Upon hearing the word ‘police’, one of the 3 men came back (the guy who was walking first) and threatened my man with something from his pocket. I imagine he had a knife in there or something.

There was a cab parked at the curb and the driver was gesturing at us frantically to get in, so I dragged the boyfriend into the cab. At this point, the adreline had worn out. I was shaking like a leaf and quite hysterical. My man had about 5 nasty bumps on his head. I wanted to go to the hospital, but he and the cab driver had other plans.

We drove around for about 5 minutes looking for a police outpost. We found one just past a BTS station (I think it was Ratchethewi). There were about 5 policemen milling around at the sidewalk. The cab stopped, and the boyfriend told me to stay inside while he and the driver dealt with them. The moment they saw the driver and my boyfriend with his torn shirt and head bumps, they literally scattered and disappeared faster than non-existent electronic cigarette ashes.

There were 2 policemen left who didn’t want to help at all. They kept shaking their heads and putting up their hands. But the cab driver was adamant that they help us and my boyfriend told them he was working in Bangkok as a teacher, so after about 5 minutes of talking, they finally decided to do something about it. We gave the cab driver some money for his trouble and got into the back of the police cruiser. We then drove back towards the scene of the crime.

Of course, our attackers were nowhere to be found by then. My man, heroic as he is, jumped out of the cruiser and ran out towards the direction they were headed. The cops didn’t move at all. I had all sorts of scenarios in my head, that the men were lying in wait to stab him and stuff like that (shoot me, I’m female), so I started to get hysterical again. I practically screamed at one of the cops to go with him, so he did, probably to get away from the shrieking banshee that I was turning into.

Needless to say, they didn’t find those men, just as I expected. The police dropped us off and waited for us to get into a cab safely – probably the only thing that they actually did right that night. I’m just thankful that we got out of the harrowing situation with nothing more than a few bumps, one missing umbrella (my boyfriend’s), and a bent one.

That was by far the scariest thing that has ever happened to me, including getting mugged at knife point back in university. Almost a week after the incident, I still find myself shuddering at the memory of those men pummeling my boyfriend’s head. It hurt me so much that they hurt him for almost no reason at all.

A friend asked me how I could’ve had the presence of mind to hit them with my umbrella (Mary Poppins style, as it had come to be known). She said she would’ve either run away, or fainted. I personally don’t think so. When someone you love is under attack like that, you just can’t run away. Instead, you’ll do everything you can to stop it, as futile as it may seem, regardless if you’ll end up putting your own life in jeopardy in the process.

Some people would probably call that stupid. I call it love.