friendships too late to salvage & fb

one quick look down my friends list on fb, you'd think i'm the queen in the center of it all. sky high wall msgs,tagged photos & boxes full of crap. but nothing could be further from the truth. apart from an overly obsessed guy friend who took it upon him to cyber-stalk me, sure, i was all smiles when i first got caught up in the whole fb thing . but now..well not so much....may be im just getting older or..even wiser.

i lost touch with many of my friends over the years & was thrilled to be caught up all over again. but somehow the valued friendships i once shared, have evolved tremendously. some even beyond repair. my friend L ,who was very close to me in school, has changed into a total snob, literally. sometimes i just have to bite my tongue just to keep it together. then there's some other friends who are just borderline bitchy & arrogant. (im being polite here to cut them slack)
not to forget the guy, an old friend, who turned into a cyber/cell/skype-stalker. his motives are still beyond my comprehension. to be honest, i never saw it coming. im still kicking myself for letting him see my contact info.

..and then there's one way friends who never initiate communication unless you do first. they might respond with a one liner email but never bother to check in first. a classic case of one way friendship -friends who may care on some subtle level to stay in touch with you but just not willing go that extra mile & show some genuine care.
some friends at certain times might have less energy to offer to a friendship. i get that. aren't we all busy, stressed out & committed to the life style built around us..? sure. but most one way friendships are clearly more specific & screams the fact they are just not into you. well..at least mine are. so it turns out im not the queen after all. :) is it really worth my time & energy to hold on to these unbalanced & outgrown friendships? maybe things are too litttle too late to be salvaged. my gut tells me i should just pull the plug and just be done with it. after all, haven't i gotten this far without them anyway?

i'd rather remember (treasure) how much it meant to be their friend way back than just be nasty about it now. i don't even see the point of having them on my friends list anymore. (what are the ethics of removing friends gracefully, i wonder ?) so the lesson i learnt here ..why chase old friends & trying to renew old friendships only to realize they are not the same who you were once friends with..?? wouldn't you rather carry the memories in your heart and move on..?

i think im at a point in my life where i am realizing who my real friends are. i may not have many but i feel blessed i still have a few of them around. so im letting go of enormous friends lists (oh yeah and that creepy guy too!) & other crap that comes with it.. i won't give in for false pretenses anymore.

btw, i found this on my slide funspace the other day..coincidence in timing just blew me away..

There comes a point in life
When you realize
Who matters
Who never did
Who won't anymore
and who always will..
so don't worry about the people from your past
there's a reason why they never made it your future..

the last line is on me..

"just be glad you got to know them when they were your friend ..and just move on.."

how late is it to call it quits..?

..on a random browse, this poem written by some (wise) guy, caught my eye.. the first few lines were pieced together like this....

why should a foolish marriage vow,
which long ago was made,
oblige us to each other now..when passion is decayed?

we loved, and we loved, as long as we could,
till our love was loved out in us both,
but our marriage is dead, when the pleasure is fled.

so ..this got me thinking. well, actually it sort of affirmed what was on my mind for a while. you can probably make a marriage last long, after all the years are just numbers, but how do you make it really work?

the way i see it, a marriage is based on trust & committment between two people. (not necessarily between a man and a woman these days, but rather two people)
but what happens when one person goes astray? well, hypothetically, if you have kids, you will probably give another go at it and see how things are going to play out. so you decide to stick around for the sake of your kids, then you'd probably evaulate the situation & stick around some more for the sake of your grand kids & other family commitments. before you know it, you're in too deep. let's just say you're pushing 60's and still trapped in a lifeless marriage. suddenly you realize you are at your wit's end and enough is enough. but how do you get out especially when a divorce is not an option & more importantly, you have no other means of support ??

can you just walk away when the other person's now sick & almost helpless and needs your care now more than ever but still not appreciative & treats you like a piece of trash?? should you compromise happiness or should you honor the marriage vows, which made you to stay in the first place??

so really..how late is it to call it quits now..?

finding the (ethics) balance..

..80's-90's & beyond

..parents have known to play mind games with kids from time to time. mine were no different. when someone asked to pick your fav parent, as a kid it was a no brainer to me. my little waves of instincts would kick in, i'd always pick my mother. she was the person i adored out of the whole world. she's been through to hell & back to keep our family glued. she gave up her happiness & stood by my unfaithful father...for us. looking back, i know it must have killed her to do that,but she's one strong willed woman. naturally i had in it me to watch over her.

'01 -08.. & counting..

my resentments towards my father softened over the years & eventually i learnt to forgive him. it has not been an easy road. forgiveness came rather easily, i wish forgetting the past was just as easy but it's not. but the effort was worth it because my anger & frustration was just consuming me and i refuse to live like that. now only if i could work on my trust issues. my trust issues,especially with men, stems from my troubled childhood. needless to say, all my relationships, in the past & present included, have suffered immensely. if anyone's been in my shoes, they'd tell you its not easy to crack open the walls you have carefully built around you. but all in all, i'm making progress. letting in my father, was the first bold step.

just as i was getting to know him, he became sick. it was always one after another. what started out as a heart failure has resulted into a massive stroke today. by-pass heart surgery, visits to the hospital, recovery periods seem endless. with oceans apart us, we have long phone conversations now. he would just ramble on & i would listen intently. at times what he says doesn't make much sense, but i'm still holding out to the opportunity of getting to know him, although my chances don't seem all that favorable.

i'm just hoping they (my parents) wouldn't play any mind games with me now.....i don't think i have a clear pick anymore....

yet another phase..

.."i just cant take this anymore..i dont know what else to do.." she sobs into the phone, i go speechless, my mind wandering for an answer. i dont have any. my mother has reached her limit. she cant take my father's insane remarks & insults anymore. he may be sick & blind now, but his temperament never ceases to surface.

i have always wondered how on earth she did it all this time. living with a man who never appreciates you, can be devastating. believe me, i know.

my mother's in her sixties now. she's never really been happy with her marriage to my father. i've always felt it, even as a little kid. but she endured every pain that came her way and protected us. today she's trapped in a place she desperately want to get out of, but in theory, its simply not viable. doesnt she deserve to be happy too?

my father's eyes..

eric clapton's song (below)struck a particular cord in me.. my relationship with my father got tarnished along the way, there were a lot of reasons. although i blamed his erratic behavior for our family's instability, a apart of me secretly kind of adored him too.

he was a sensational writer, he wrote phenomenal poems, short stories, some freelancing here & there. he always encouraged us to read & learn about the world around us. he would quizz our knowledge in world capitals & made sure we knew how to map in other countries. even to this day, i cannot help but think it was him who got me interested in the outside world. we always dared us to think out of the box. he'd say "dont be like frogs living in a well". its a popular sri lankan saying which depicts being conscious of the greater world around you.its funny how much you remember sayings like that now, back then we would just laugh it off. sometimes i'd throw these sayings at my kids when im mad about something, the bewildered looks on their innocent faces crack me up everytime.

there was a period i never even talked to him, i was so ashamed of the things he'd done. i was angry that my childhood memories were always clouded with his infidelity. over the years, i learnt to forgive him & let things fall where they may.

he had his first stroke a couple of years ago which left him about 70% crippled, my strong willed mother helped him get through the difficult times. he was making pretty good recovery when another stroke left him 90% blind, just a couple of months ago. today he's one helpless man. and it just breaks my heart and to see him in this state & my pain is just indescribable.

life flows in some mysterious ways. growing up i spent most of the years, just despising him. sometimes i even wished for a different kind of a father. but little did i know that the joke was on me the whole time.... anger & frustration left me spent. it consumed my energy. today he can't even remember most of the stuff much less his past.

now i spend my days worrying over the same man, whom i despised growing up. asking for his forgiveness is the easy part, forgiving my self is the hardest of all.....

one complicated cordless phone

i desperately want to ship home a cordless phone. sounds simple right..?

my father's recovering from his second stroke and things dont look all that well. he gets his share of good & bad days. today he kept telling me over the phone, that he was thinking about me. he told me this over & over. he easily forgets things now so he doesnt know he's repeating. it broke my heart but i played along. afterwards, i begged my mother to be patient with him because i know how it can drive you nuts & then some. i have a four yr old myself!

i only wanted to buy a cordless phone just to make his life a little easier. that way he doesnt have to get off the bed to answer the phone. i delayed mailing it for a few days , my husband's friend is taking it to sri lanka when he goes on vacation this week. i was happy that would take less days to reach home. our friend is suppose to drop it off at my in laws house, which is much closer to his. my always generous f-i-l promised me he would take care of the rest. i was on cloud nine, until now..

my husband has second thoughts and thinks we cant just send off a package to his house without sending a "gift" for his family too. why? he fears his parents would be offended! now that brings up a whole set of can of worms, but i do not want to go there.

so now i am running off to USPS to mail it off, which is how i wanted it done in the first place..!!!!

why do things always have to be politically correct?

feeling mundane..

...things have been bottling up inside me since i was about 10 years old, i'd explode if i don't do anything about it. i guess i never learnt how to deal with my problems head on. i would just shove them in somewhere behind my walls. kind of like..well..if i dont think about it, it does not exist. but now, so many years later, it's taking a huge toll on just about everything in my life .

well..it all started out when news about my father's infidelity unravelled in our family. although i may have been about 7 or 8 yrs old, i remember the pain & the tears very well. i remember a lot of hushed out conversations between my mother & her family & friends. the alleged woman was an unmarried neighbor from right across the street, literally. as kids, we were fond of her and called her aunty. i knew things were bad when i saw my parents fighting over this and my mother crying most of the time. but my father came back home every night as if nothing had happened, being just a kid then, that was good enough for me. sometimes my young mind would wander trying to find answers that make sense, but it always left me sad.

my escape from all this was, school. i love my school days. i knew i can be a different person in school. none of my friends knew anything. i dared to tell even my closest friend, who im still friends with. if someone found out, i would just die of shame.

looking back i realize, i never really talked about it with anyone. i have an older sister but she & i never really got along. being just 11 months apart, we were constantly fighting over random things. but there were plenty of good times between us too, but somehow we never really overcame our common pain. we were brought up in a typical conservative environment as you would find in just about any city in sri lanka. discussing personal family matters were considered a taboo. so we pretty much kept things to ourselves. back then we didnt know any different.

im sure things have changed now, i see my nieces & nephews are more outspoken & demanding.

..to be continued..