Visiting An Old Habit.

I have had quite the week that at some point I thought it would end as poorly as it begun. I started it off with a fall which left my tibia in serious pain, it still aches to date although the pain is a little bearable at the moment. Someone at work told me how I shouldn't be bothered by a fall since I am already physically disabled. I do get his point but, I would rather the unaffected bones remain intact than injured. I am a 20- something with the bones of an 80 year old. I can’t go around falling irresponsibly.

Just when I thought it couldn't get better; I got the opportunity to treat myself to lunch at a restaurant all by my lonesome. It was wonderful! As I sat there waiting for my food and drink to arrive, I couldn't let go of the happiness I felt and the pleasure I derived from it. I’d definitely missed it.

Way back when, I used to do this sort of thing every other month. I’d ask my mother to drop me at a mall where I would spend the entire day. The mall I frequented  on those solitary weekends happened to have a bookshop. I would go to the bookshop, pick a book from the shelf and sit in the comfy couch they had available for us browsers and proceed to read the book halfway. I’d then go out to eat in a restaurant of my choice and later browse through shops that piqued my interest or people watch.

Having my solitary lunch reminded me of all those weekends and how I miss them. This habit of spending lazy weekends at home catching up on telenovelas omnibuses is the reason why I no longer have solitary lunches at restaurants. I need to cultivate this habit. I know a few people who wouldn't be caught dead eating by themselves in public restaurants but not me. This shameless hussy is beyond that.

Credits: Photo credits go to my sister though I had a burger and not an ice cream sundae.

The Fault In Our Stars.

Once in awhile, I adhere to the dictates of pop culture and read some of it’s over-hyped books especially those that turn into movies. In this case; the fault in our stars. After a few abortive efforts, I finally got round to reading the book to its end.
Reading the book in entirety has taken me close to a year because of John Green’s First-person narrative when it comes to the narrative mode. Literally placing oneself in someone’s shoes is more taxing than you can imagine. The story never flows as well as I would like and it is unsettling. These are the things one has to put up with when adhering to pop culture dictates.

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves.” - Shakespeare

The book was an OK read. I expected it to have a sad ending but John Green spared us from that by making it as ambiguous as the ending in the mentioned An Imperial Affliction. Did she or didn't she die? No one knows since it ends on a love scene. If most of us readers were as obsessive as Hazel Grace was with the ending of An Imperial Affliction, we’d all be camped at John Green’s door asking for answers regarding the state of her life.

These were some of my favorite quotes/passage from the book.

“I enjoy looking at beautiful people, and I decided a while ago not to deny myself the simpler pleasures of existence.” – Augustus Waters

“I’m in love with you, and I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labour has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you.” – Augustus Waters

However sad Hazel Grace’s story is, I am glad she gave herself the chance to love and be loved. Now that I have finally done away with the book, watching the movie is not on my agenda. In most cases, movies have the bad luck to not live up to par with the books they originate from.

Like Being By Yourself.

“You have to be ready to be by yourself and like being by yourself.”~ Susan Sarandon

On one of my off days; I caught the ad for a forthcoming session of Oprah's Master Class with Susan Sarandon. In the ad, Susan Sarandon said the aforementioned words and they resonated with me. I am the girl who is used to keeping her own company and being by herself that it has become second nature to me. I don’t see anything wrong but my family and workmates seem to take issue with it.
My work mates think me quiet and reserved – traits I would like to agree with but I know a few people who would refute that with a lot of conviction. On several occasions, both my mother and brother have felt soundly ignored while in my presence. My mother recently claimed that I am so used to keeping my own company that even when she is around I act like she isn't. So, she has resorted to seeking me out and asking me to keep her company whenever she is around. Her reason; I spend a lot of time being on my own.

“The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.” ~ Mark Twain

There was a time when this wasn't so. A time when I absolutely could not handle being by myself. I would ask my closest cousins and friends to come spend weekends with me. To my way of thinking, their presence would make for shorter weekends and then I’d go back to the school routine. I hated weekends where I’d have to be alone, they used to make me fall into an abyss of loneliness and I found them so stifling.
Looking back on those days, my feelings and attitude makes me acknowledge how much I have changed. I used to be terrified by the thought of being alone, without company and also keeping house by myself but not anymore. Now, I am no longer that person who needs the company of others to define herself. More than ever I find myself accommodating the friends who invite themselves over to my home. This is how it is now, someone just tells me, ‘I’ll come see you’, and I am OK with it. Turning up or not is their choice.
At this point in time, I am proud of being comfortable in keeping my own company and be neither terrified nor depressed. The fact that I much prefer it to being somewhere I am not interested in surprises me. However infrequent it might be, I am more appreciative of the time I spend in the company of my choice for it is time well spent. I think moments of solitude are truly the most defining moments of our lives. It’s in them when we realize what is truly important and also come into the people we are and sometimes want to become.

The Male Habit!

I’ve been through a few extremely annoying situations with people of the opposite sex recently and I have had it! It’s reached that point where I either talk about it or let it fester.
Let a man know it is a female waiting for him and he’ll be as late as he can possibly be! Poor time management/time keeping is one of my biggest pet peeves and people who don’t value others time piss me off. My time is just as important as yours. Not so long ago I had to wait for some chap for two hours and when deigned to grace me with his presence, he was not only ill prepared but unrepentant! I was full to bursting with anger! I usually tell people off but held back for this person, it was a wonder how I managed to rein in the tyrant in me.
Pay him a compliment and he thinks you want him sexually. Really? Self help books have it as a good idea to pay people compliments because it buoys someone’s confidence. Well, most boys I have come across automatically think you have designs of a sexual nature toward them all because of appreciating the colour of their tie, the fit of their pants and general appearance. Can I not appreciate something I like about you without the sexual connotations? We girls get complimented by every random Tom, Dick and Harry but we never think it as a come on.
The ‘buddy’ business. How I have come to loathe the word. One thing I have been noticing when chatting with boys is their never ending use of the word! The word is literary dropped after every other sentence. It would be so amusing if it weren't pretty annoying. Excuse me, I know we are friends. How? Because I let you talk to me about your girlfriend and relationship issues! If I were not a ‘buddy’ you would have no excuse to burden me with that baggage! The only person you’re trying to convince that we are friends and nothing else is yourself otherwise why the need to pepper the chats with the word/
And then you wonder why I take breaks from Whatsapp.

The Kiss.

One never knows what they are going to come across once they go through old stuff. Like this poem from a Danielle Steel novel of the same title I read a couple of years ago. The unofficial book club I belong to hates Danielle Steel but I love her. I think that her novels make one aware of the tragedies of life and that it isn't a bed of roses.

A single moment,
etched in time,
shining brightly,
like a star in a midnight sky,
an eon, an instant,
a million years pressed into one,
when all stands still
and life explodes into infinite dreams,
and all is changed forever more,
in the blink of an eye.
                    -Danielle Steel

For someone who had an untroubled childhood (I read a bit of her memoirs) she is such a sad soul. I cannot honestly say that I have read a book of hers where I came away with the feeling of warmth and fuzziness in my heart, though the endings are usually as good as expected. My knowledge of literary works may not be so vast for me to say this but, it is rare to find an author of general fiction with most of her work steeped in sadness and sorrow.
I have had the pleasure of reading most of her work and going through the poem from ‘The Kiss’ reminded me of how long it has been since I read anything from her. The last books I remember reading were HRH (Her Royal Highness) and Bachelors. I should pluck up the courage and delve into some of her latest offerings and share poems I come across. I love that sort of thing.