a sign of the times

I turned 40 on the 27th of December. 3 days ago.

When I was a kid I thought turning 40 meant using a walking stick, wrinkled as a raisin. Thank God I'm far from being that! I look pretty decent for a 40-year old with 3 kids and nursing a broken heart. At least that's what people have been telling me. Or were they just being polite?

Age was the thing that freaked me out when The Diver was having the affair. The girl was 27, he was 48. Ten million people told me to take a chill pill and that this "fling" will pass. But I know my husband too well. Age is nothing to him. I think age is nothing to most men.

It is nothing, and it is everything too. The younger the catch is, the bigger the trophy. Everyone wants to be Michael Douglas and Catherine.

What broke my heart was that during our marriage he kept on saying that I was already young enough for him, and that he could not connect to anyone over 10 years younger. That there won't be a connection. He will never go out with anyone over 10 years his junior.

Never say never.

When he did, I noticed a change in him. He stopped blogging, saying that there were "no issues" to blog about. This coming from a prolific blogger was rather odd. His Tweets seem lacklustre, mundane, directionless. He used words like "adoiyai". Secretly, I wished to see him graduate to saying things like "geli, dowh." It never got to that, fortunately.

When we patched things up, he realized that "rejuvenation" wasn't what he was after. The whole thing was like a "knock in the head" - to use his own term. I hope it was a hard enough knock. Enough to knock him back to reality.

What I did not understand is how could a girl that age be crazy enough to be going out with someone old enough to be your father? When I found out that she once dated a 60-something, I know that age meant nothing to her as well.

But isn't it wasted youth? Financial stability and Freudian father complex aside, to me it is wasted youth.

Who I am to judge? She and I are different people. In my 20's the idea of going out with an older married man was scorned upon by society and laughed at by peers. The latter being a scarier punishment - where to put my face if bawak pakcik masuk Modesto's?

I guess times have changed.

begin again

The Diver calls this a period of "rediscovering each other". Of which I totally agree. Everything seems to be better between us, the conversations, the quiet times, the laughs, and the things that can't be mentioned here.

But having said all that, I wish I can forget and ignore, but what happened was so bad that it leaves a permanent scar. The extent of the damage is irreversible - friendships lost, family ties severed, trusts breached in the worst manner.

It's still December. It's still two-thousand-fucking-fourteen. I give myself till end January to be less bitter and sceptical. And then what happens? And then I don't fucking know.

In spite of the expletives above, things have been going great between The Diver and I. We know why we can't leave each other, we know why we still need each other and most importantly he knew where he went wrong.

We sleep holding hands.

We are more in love now that we were ever before.

But I am prepared for anything. Anything can happen and if it happens again I will not be very forgiving.

My life now is a roller coaster of emotions. Days and days of highs and lows. I try not to write or even think about the future because the future to me is just too unimaginable. I know she's lurking there, somewhere in the shadows, just waiting.

Now is truly the best of times, and the worst of times.

law and order

Do you know that a third party can be charged if she/he was the direct cause of your divorce?

KNOW IT.

I didn't know this until I went to take my marriage certificate at JAWI. And by chance, I was seated near an Ustaz who was also a marriage counselor. To cut a long story short, he was the one who told me that a third party can be charged for wrecking a marriage.

So I went home and Googled and found out more.

And to cut a longer story short, I found a lawyer who has experience doing it. She's not the syariah lawyer that I used for my divorce proceeding but another one recommended by a friend. I liked her instantly, she's practical, modern and most of all, ruthless.

So the complaint went to JAIS and a police report was made too. The latter is just a "procedure". Whatever that means.

Now that The Diver and I had reconciled, my lawyer was wondering if I wanted to withdraw the complaint. I told her that after my reconciliation, the third party was still trying to wreck our marriage, and unrelenting in her pursuit.

But now, now I do not know. At this moment, I don't care to know, because if I did, I would have asked JAIS to proceed with the next step.

So in the end I told my lawyer I needed time, and I said a few things that I should not be disclosing here. Take all the time you need, she said. My emotional perseverance is that of a marathon runner, so don't underestimate me.

Whatever it is, this case is till open until I tell her to close it. It's open, just like my bleeding heart.

This blogpost was done on the 1st Anniversary of my brother in law's passing, and I dedicate it to him because if he was around, he will be encouraging me to do what's right and to exercise my rights. Always.

strangers with memories

"How did you bounce back?"

"How did you heal yourself so quickly?"

"For someone who's gone through shit, you look quite composed."

Truth is, I haven't bounced back and I am far from being completely healed.

I still wake up in the middle of the night gasping for air, as if I was mid-sentence in a heated conversation.

I still have dreams of falling off a cliff or a high building. Only to wake up in cold sweat.

Although much lesser now, I still have one-of-those-nights. Because to me, it wasn't a heartbreak, it wasn't a break-up, it wasn't just a divorce. It was trauma.

Do you know that it is easier to re-ignite the sparks than to un-love someone? How do you un-love? I tried doing that in October. It was hard, but day after day, I managed to un-love.

But only in tiny little particles. Flecks. Specks of dust.  Too minuscule too measure, but given time, I might be able to un-love.

It was virtually impossible to un-love in a month, I realized. You can only try to hate his guts, but you can't undo love, especially when there was nothing wrong in our marriage in the first place.

And then he came back, somewhat. I said somewhat because he came back, but there were no promises. There were no guarantees. There was a bit of remorse, there was talk of hopes, the future, and not ever letting me go.  That was the promise he made. He'd never let me go.

We reconciled.

There was talk of giving him time to battle his demons. But there was no deadline. And I felt that it was too early to impose one on him now anyway.

There was talk of maybe we should have a baby together. But this requires a lot of time and thought (which neither one of us have).

Sometimes I wish we can go back to being strangers. But then I can't remember a time when we ever were.

Circa 2008.

that month of the year again

It is December.

I have written this before, how December used to be my favorite month but for the past few years it has been a luckless, tragic, heart-wrenching closing of every year.

My late brother-in-law passed away on the 10th of December 2013. As if the years before were not bad enough, it just went straight downhill from there.

This year, it is the month I will turn 40. 2 days after Christmas.

I want to write something about last night, but I fear of the happiness being shortlived. But as the wise (in my case, Baz Luhrmann) often say, "Do one thing every day that scares you". So I will write about it.

It was late. We were lying in bed watching TV and then The Last Stand came on. You know, one of those brainless Arnie movies. At times it was hilarious, other times downright silly but what we did was we laughed together.

At that moment I was happy, that hour and a half of entertainment and us ridiculously laughing and him trying to gauge my sleepiness (it was way past my weekday bedtime).

It was as if the affair never happened. It was as if the marriage belonged to only the two of us.

underneath it all

Is a relationship healthy when your partner does not divulge necessary information to the other?

I can hear a resounding NO in my head and it echoes through the lobes of my brains and rings out of my ears like the screams of a woman in labour.

I would not say my relationship with The Diver was based on lies. That is not entirely true. I know for a fact he loved me, and still loves me a lot. We crave each other's attention when we're apart, we stalk each other's Twitter accounts. The world shuts down when we are alone, together and we are set adrift on this ocean filled with memories, emotions, things we love and share. Sometimes, in the car, we silently sing the same melodies in our heads.

Us, being alone. Just us two. There is magic in us no one could every understand.

Yet there is a thorn in all that. A pesky, poking thorn that prods and jolts every now and then. A merciless thorn borne out of malicious intent.

So he chose not to disclose. To keep me happy, to keep us together, to keep the love alive.

At times he lies, and I let him. I could have asked him to prove things, but I know he couldn't. For instance I could have asked him: "Send me a picture of where you are." But what good would it do if he had lied? I hear the unsettled whispers of people out there... but dear readers please, do not judge me.

Is this transient? Will the lying stop when you weed out the thorn and throw it away forever? Will this be a fleeting moment? This is certainly not healthy, but does this work? WILL it work?

Only time will tell.

the month it crumbled

Most times, the worst happens when you least expect it. And by a horrific twist of fate, it happened to me in October.

The Diver had an affair. It wasn't a fling, but a full-fledged affair. Although it started only mid of August, it probably was a relationship that started afire. Suffice to say that in October we were apart, and he went on to discover this new person, new blood that he wanted to make part of his life.

Initially I blamed myself for letting this happen. Later on, I was smart enough not to do that. It was not my fault. She preyed, he strayed. And that was that.

I was broken. I lost 5kgs in a month, I started shedding hair like a dying cat and The Diver continued his unabashed coming-out with his new lover.

I also learned that for the other woman, this was not her first time wrecking people's marriages. She has done this way too many times. Maybe she thinks it's her birthright to screw people's husbands and put down their wives. She even lambasted me for being a housewife who married The Diver for financial security.

Well I prove her wrong. Two weeks after the incident blew up, I got myself a new job. She forgot that before being a housewife for two years, I have been working for the past 13 years of my life ever since I graduated. But what do you expect from a 27-year old, full of cockiness and misplaced confidence.

What made matters worse was, a person whom I regarded as a friend backstabbed me big time. During turbulent times when I engaged in a Twitter war with The Diver, she joined the bandwagon, only later to accuse me of orchestrating the war and being "the invisible hand". And when things went out control, pitted me against my friends to show them how evil I was. She even wanted to apologise to The Diver and told him that this was all my doing, and not her doing.

I want her to remember WHY she went on a Twitter war with the Diver. It had nothing to do with me, it was all because of her unhappiness with what supposedly The Diver said about her.

Quite honestly, I have bigger things to think about.

It's November now. I don't know how things will pan out. Whatever it is, this has got me back to writing again.