Beginning a-new

Nothing much has happened even though so much has. I'm picking up the pieces after a nasty break up, learning to come to terms with my parents, especially my mother, a religious fanatic, who is thankfully getting "better", and my father, a closeted tyrant who unbeknownst even to himself is skilled in the willy ways of emotional blackmail, learning to leave behind friends i trusted who were always "too busy" to listen or too busy judging, and then learning to deal with, and make something with (what's left) of my-selves.

The thing about break ups is... I don't get over them easily. I get angry and frustrated and sometimes sad; in "despair". The pressure of an impending marriage to a boy who was "too scared" to care, let alone understand why I was utterly terrified of a life-long committed union with him, a man who was so assured that he had found his spot in the world. Even so, time forces us into rituals we felt compelled to perform, and in a pale blue red leaf ink, we committed our joy to inertia and a 5-room apartment.

And when i finally did the courageous thing by leaving him, I had to learn to grapple with the guilt of having 'left' him, of being a loose woman breaking an honest man's heart, an irresponsible Asian-changed-whore who now fucks other men and women, freely. His parting words to me were Jack Neo-esque,  "what happened to the girl i knew?", complete with the wailing.

I wanted to spit in his face because afterwards he made himself out to all who cared to listen as a man deeply scarred, carving his grief for posterity on Facebook, garnering sympathetic likes (from our mutual friends no less). I was all alone.

And then very quickly, he voided the last sinews of our hearts - "You said this was what you wanted" he muttered (so it is my fault), and then searing in the blade, "it isn't reversible you know. Spilt milk is spilt milk, after all you have done to me" (he has suffered and it is my fault).

"For all I've done", the religious fanatic commands that I seek repentance. She doesn't ask why, doesn't want to know the reasons why. She invokes the spiritual forces, oh Word of God. People don't understand that she isn't just nagging, she believes fully and completely in my guilt. Then friends want to know, and colleagues and relatives and all that, I try to explain myself but i can't. All the words sound wrong, they are not quite right, not quite why. And so, I end up sounding like this flighty-thing, who felt "bored", and took an inconsiderate 'flight of fancy'; she will learn and repent. Suddenly, they are all mini Lee Kwan Yew(s) even though no one will admit to it.

I feel vulnerable.