A manual to ... love!

This is what I stumbled on the other day while searching for the lyrics to a song...

A wiki page on how to love: http://www.wikihow.com/Love 

In summary, the 7 steps are:
1. Know that your love for the other person is real.
2. Say it.
3. Empathize.
4. Love unconditionally.
5. Expect nothing in return.
6. Realize it can be lost.
7. Never stop loving.

Let's see if I know how to love.
Hmm...Most people KNOW when #1 is true.
Some people, however, can convince themselves that they love, or that they don't love someone. I have been guilty of doing both. I have found that the control I have over my own mind is quite strong. But when I know, I know. I might convince myself that the love is not real for other reasons, but deep down I know.

#2 is harder. I have written about it before in this blog (These 3 words entry). I have found myself in situations where I was suppressing the urge to say it too. Mostly because it kinda goes against how I was raised, or maybe by saying it, it makes me more vulnerable. Ok, so #2 needs work.

I know how to empathize. I actually do it so often that I sometimes look back and think how stupid I am. The other party would never empathize with me the same way I did and I don't even need to 'love' them to be able to empathize with them. #3 checked.

#4 and #5 go hand in hand I think. If you love unconditionally, you do not expect anything in return.  Sometimes I see how some couples work on the principle that one will love the other only if the other fits into the description of the perfect partner. Modify the behaviour a bit, or one of them being slightly moody for a few days, and you can feel the love tangibly diminishing. The 'expect nothing in return' is actually quite hard to do. Even in our most basic relationships, you expect something in return. You give affection and you expect affection in return. Sure, you can take rejection every now and then, but repeatedly giving without getting anything back in return could destroy someone to the core. Even if you don't expect love in return, you expect your love to be respected if not reciprocated.
I truly believe I can love unconditionally. I am not so sure if I can love without expecting anything in return. Maybe I should suggest a correction to the wiki, that if #4 stays, then #5 should be 'Try not to expect anything in return, have low expectations and you shall be surprised when you get something in return. That in turn will make you love the person more'. Ironic, isn't it? If you love more, and expect less, you will be loved more.

The realization that love can be lost dawns on everybody every now and then, I believe. Only people who are over-confident, conceited and/or arrogant would claim not to ever fear the loss of love. Like I have mentioned in a few of my posts, you never know the extent to which others love you. That is and will remain a mystery. Unless someone invents a machine one day that allows you to read someone else's feelings and actually convert it to your own frequency, there is no way for someone to understand the depth of someone else's feelings. That is why I live in the fear of losing someone's love. As a kid, I listened to my parents because I feared the only people in the world hard-wired to love me will stop loving me. Hell, I still hide some things from my parents in the fear of disappointing and eventually losing their love! #6, definitely checked.

#7: Never stop loving.
Hmm...Whatever happened to 'never say never'? (Known expression, from way before Bieber was born!).
This is probably the one which challenges me the most. Every time I get hurt in friendship or love, I will myself not to care anymore, harden my little heart up, and trudge forward until some kind of balance is regained. Then something infallibly happens. My memory fails me and I open up again and before I know it, I'm friends with the person again. Logically, this is a vicious circle that I can only stop by stopping to love. Emotionally and instinctively though, that goes against my nature. Even though I can control my mind, I cannot control my heart. Damn you, little heart.
#7 checked, unfortunately.


Score: 5 out of 7.
I think I'm doing okay. Maybe I'll modify #2 and #5 so I can check all of them!

Bieber love!

I walked into my cubicle on V day to find Bieber posters and cards all over wishing me a good Valentine's day.

I have been Bieber-pranked. 

My neighbour at work wanted to make my day special. Good ol' Mark. 

V day was never celebrated in Mauritius. We never made cards for our teachers or our classmates. It's only in the last few years that the commercialism has reached the tiny island. Yet, I'm fairly sure kindergartens and schools haven't caught up with the way V day is celebrated in North America. This is borderline insane.

I must admit that I wanted to stay home yesterday but the water was being shut off in the building, so I had to go into work. Mark thought and proved that I stayed and worked from home last V day. Okay fine, I do try to hide on that day, only because I did not want people to ask me if I have a date.

Yesterday was good though. Nobody asked about dates or boyfriends or anything, friends wished me a happy v day and told me I looked hot, I brought in red velvet cupcakes to give away to people who have sent me candy grams and nothing dramatic happened. Just a routine day with some extra candy. Now why can't every day be V day??!?!?!

To be or not to be...

Hello, world.

I have not been myself these last few days. I would think it is PMS, but I have been more depressed than I have ever been for a while. It feels like I am at a crossroads in my life.

I have been questioning the purpose of my life and the purpose of life in general. I hit such a low point that I even thought to myself, this journey is not enjoyable at all and we are all heading in the same direction and that's  the final destination. Depressing, I know!! Did I have suicidal thoughts? Not the least. Why? Probably my Catholic upbringing. Which brings me to a series of conversations I have had with my coworkers this week.

I asked my coworker what he thought was the purpose of life and he told me that life is meant to be lived with all your heart and the purpose of one's life is to love as much as you can, the people around you. He is not a particularly religious person, he believes that people can be good even if they do not follow some religion and that consequently, if one lives one's life without hurting another being, and do not sweat the small stuff, then one's purpose in life has been fulfilled. I asked him, what does he think MY purpose in life is and he said, candidly, 'to make the people around you happy'.

It may be true, I try as much as I can to make the people around me happy. However I do not feel that it is enough. I can make a handful of people happy on a daily basis, but is it all I've been designed to do in my life? How about what would make me happy? How about what would get me out of this misery I've been feeling lately? I have often thought about becoming a nun, partly because I feel like renouncing all my worldly possessions and committing to a life of giving would somehow fulfill me. People always laugh it off though, partly because I am not an angel by any definition of the word and a life of celibacy is unimaginable to most people. 

This brought on a full on discussion on religion and what the Bible says with some other coworkers. The Christians are always the most passionate. I am a very laid back Catholic, I might have a shaky faith, but I am definitely a theist. I have not believed everything written in the Bible since I read 'The DaVinci Code'. Not that I have verified any of the facts in the book, it just got me thinking and I have come out of it, with some reserve on the source of the Holy Book and on religion, but it has in no way convinced me of the inexistence of a deity.

My coworker then asked a Christian coworker what he thinks of polygamy then?
Most of the Bible condones it. Should he be polygamous now, does that condemn him to hell? Is what the Bible says dictate the basis of whether he has lived a good life or not? Whether he is a good person or not? Or do the rules of modern society determine his 'goodness' as a person. 

I guess it comes down to what you think the definition of marriage is. Could you love more than 1 person at the same time and treat them all equally? Could you manage more than 1 set of expectations? Another coworker said that a marriage contract should have an expiry date, so when the expiry date is approaching, you can renew the contract, or decide to go your separate ways. But such a definition of marriage should also come with a bunch of rules and laws about what to do for the kids of these expired marriage contracts.That would make divorce the norm, and assure the success of marriage contracts for their duration! What kind of impact would that have on our society as we know it? Would there be more separated parents? Would the possibility of a marriage contract not being renewed at the next decision point make people more attentive to their partners? More likely to keep the romance alive?

In any case, a large percentage of our society follow some kind of religion. A lot of non-religious people actually prefer religious teachings even if they don't believe in God. They find merit in having had a religious education. A nun with a shaky belief in the Bible would probably not do for the church, but I believe I could fit into the mold for anything else that a nun stands for. Sister Carine. That has a nice ring to it.

I vow...

...not to vow about things I do not know.

 I just watched The Vow. (Watch the trailer below and stop reading! Spoiler alert!)

 

One vow. To one person. Forever.
The thought is scary (for the commitment-phobic). The idea, romantic. The reality quite different.
Nobody knows how another person feels. Words are just that, words. Actions done today to convey a feeling may not reflect our feelings the next day. What then is true and real? Other than the feeling we have at a particular moment in time, when we have the conviction of our feeling?


The movie talks about how we are the sum of all the moments in our lives. That I agree on.
This moment that I am sharing with you, that's a moment in my life that I am choosing to share with you. Lots of editing because I am particular about what I want to share with the world. Our lives though, do not allow for editing. The moments fall upon us, sometimes through the opportunities we give ourselves, sometimes imposed upon us by events, a lot of times through no fault or reason within our control.


I have often wondered how, when two people are in love with each other, do we discern which one has the greater love for the other?
In the movie, it would seem that the guy's love is infallible. Yet, he had to give up on her, let her go. Nothing he could control. No matter how much he loved her, he could not force her to love him back. What do you do when the one you love forgets that they love you? I can imagine it would be terrible. I can imagine how you would try to grasp at the cherished memories you once shared. But what do you do when those memories are lost?  This is not such an extraordinary story after all. People break up all the time because they fall out of love. Why did they fall out of love? One or both of them has forgotten about their common shared moments. Or the cherished moments have been outnumbered by sadder or unhappy ones. Or they are not sharing any 'moments' anymore.


I have been moved by this movie, I must admit.
Partly because I realize that if I lose part of my memory tomorrow, some of the moments in my life would remain secret forever. And partly because at the end of the movie, it says that she never regained her memory. That is 5 years of her life she never regained, erased forever, as if they never happened. If I erased 5 yrs of my life today, where would I be? Who would I be? Would I be a better person then? Would I have turned out worse have I chosen a different path? So many questions that nobody can answer, not even I. How then, could people make vows for the rest of their lives, when they don't even know how they will feel tomorrow?

I shall vow to try my best to be happy tomorrow. But that's up to the weather I guess.

P.S: Friends and family, I have a journal, please make sure to make me read it if I lose my memory.

With a side of hair, please!

At lunch the other day, my coworkers were talking about how their wives' hair was all over the place at home.

Now if there is carpet in your home, the hair gets stuck wherever it falls and if you walk around with double-sided tape on your socks, you could get a nice impromptu stuffed animal made of hair! Gross...I know. Plus, the vacuum cleaner gets all stuffed with it too.

On the other hand, if you have hardwood floors, or tiles or whatever that is not fluffy and catch hair, then the fallen hair kinda bundles together and you get these balls of hair in every other corner of your house.

I've always had long hair. I only consciously cut my hair shorter than shoulder length twice in my adult life, both times to donate. That being said, I've been well trained to pick up my hair. Early in my teenage years, my mom threatened to have my hair cut because the long strands of black hair on every surface, in the drains, and sometimes in food, were testing her patience daily. So I picked up the habit of...well, picking up my hair when it falls on the floor when drying it and not letting it get to the drain when washing it. I figured it's better to stick them to the wall until after my shower and then get rid of them, than fishing them from the drain after!

So, I did not feel at all concerned about the lunch topic. Future husband, if you are out there and scared of hair, don't worry, you will not be b*tching about MY hair with your buddies!

Where I come from...

I was watching TV the other day and the commercial for Ancestry.com came up and I thought to myself  'There's no way I could find my ancestors on there!'.

I know that my grandmother on my mother's side is Mauritian. Her mom comes from China. I know nothing about her husband, he died young and we barely talk about him. I do not know anything about my dad's parents. They both passed away before I was born. My dad's father only lived long enough to make sure that the family name will survive (my brother being that dream fulfilled). My dad's mother died young, reason unknown to me.

So, I cannot even fill out the 3rd row from the bottom of the tree below. How could a website like ancestry.com help me?

Most Mauritians of chinese descent in my generation are 2nd or 3rd generation Mauritians. Maybe it's just me, but all I know is that sometime, somewhere, my ancestors decided that they should take a risk and cross the Indian Ocean on a boat for what they hoped was a brighter future. My dad still has some family in China, I don't know where exactly. I don't even know my grandparents' names. I could probably find out by looking at my parents' birth certificates. That I guess could be a starting point. It is unlikely that much more could be found though.Not by me anyways. Not knowing the language written or spoken is a major disadvantage here. They definitely didn't have computers back then to know who left the country and when (they probably do not track the 1.3 billion of people there now, so why would they do it 70-80 years ago? And how would they have done it? With scrolls? So I almost want to challenge Ancestry.com here, but they probably require more than a name and a date of birth to do so.

My sister-in-law is expecting. I was overjoyed when I learned about the pregnancy. This baby will be the first baby of the next generation for my family. Although she is not born yet, I already love her. I cannot wait to see her face and figure out what she gets from our side of the family and what she gets from her mom's side.

What would my brother tell her about where she comes from though? Great-grandparents are from China, grandparents are from Mauritius, dad is from Mauritius, mom is from Singapore and.....aunt is in Canada. Such a long story already, yet only the tip of the iceberg!! What about our forefathers who made the life-changing decision to leave their hometown, braved the months at sea and started a new life in a strange country, ruled by a different ethnic group. I can only imagine what it was like. None of my ancestors was famous, or particularly gifted, or particularly rich, yet they have undeniably paved the way for us. Without them, I probably wouldn't be here in Canada, doing what they did some 70 years ago, establishing roots in a new country, away from the rest of the family.

For that, I am grateful.

Girl power

One week ago, I was in the midst of moving frenzy.
The day started quietly, packing the last few items, cleaning up what I could.
Then I went to pick up the truck.
Yes. I drove a 16 footer, all by myself. That, in itself, is a feat.

First order of the day was to pick up brand new furniture from The Brick's distribution centre. Of course, I was told to park the truck into loading area #20, the first one on the left, into a corner. My back parking skills are way better than my parallel parking skills, so maneuvering into that loading dock was tricky, but I managed to do it without crashing the truck into the concrete wall! Yay me! I had no idea how much room was left when I was backing straight into the dock though, so I had to step out, scope the distance left and get back into the driver's seat. Fortunately there was a kind soul there who saw me get out and back in, and he positioned himself at the back to indicate how much further I could go. *sigh*...that's what happens when you do things alone, you rely on the kindness of strangers and you hope there will be someone there who would offer help in times of need.

Next thing on the agenda was to drive back home. Cousins and friends were there already, moving stuff into the moving room so that by the time I got there with the truck, they only took 45 minutes to load it and we were on our way to my new home! Pizzas arrived like by magic (not quite, unless you count bribing a cousin as magic) and after some food and jokes, the truck was unloaded and all the boxes moved in. I would not dismiss the crew before my bed was assembled (that's foresight, right there, I was not going to deal with that big-ass bed frame by myself later!), so there I was in my new home, with 4 engineers re-assembling my bed!!!

That was not the end of the day. I had to go back to the old place, return the truck and trek back downtown. The schedule for the day was hectic, only because I had to do it all. I am grateful for the family and friends who came to help, but I would have certainly enjoyed it if some of that load was taken off me.

It is in situations like these, in life-changing events, or less dramatically, routine-changing events, that I wish I was not single. It would have been nice to have shared the planning details, the worrying and the tasks. It would have been nice, if there was someone I could count on for emotional support. Not that my friends are not here for that, but I can imagine that it is a different feeling when two people can share the same burden together. I guess that is why you need two to raise a kid, it would be overwhelming to assume the responsibility of another life all by oneself. Not that it is impossible, it is just harder on the body and on the mind.

Having said that, I was torn with other feelings as well that day. Feelings of incredible pride in the fact that I could endeavour to rent a truck and drive it and return it without a scratch. Feeling of accomplishment for such an undertaking as to decide to move and to see it to completion. And the immense satisfaction that comes from knowing I did what I had to do without breaking down physically or emotionally. I am an independent woman and just the realization of that, makes me feel the full potential of my inner strength.

Sometimes I wonder, if I can feel this powerful by myself, how invincible would I be if I was part of a team? My independence, as much as it is working for me (as the young, modern, successful professional living in the big city that I am) is probably the one major impediment to finding myself a partner in crime. How to find someone "strong" enough to be part of that team, that has been the challenge so far!
The feeling of needing someone else does not linger for very long with me. I stand by what I believe in, and that is (among other things) (1) what does not kill you makes you stronger and (2) I would not abandon a winning team unless it is for a better team. Thousands, if not millions, of women go through what I go through, it is not an extraordinary situation or an extraordinary life. But what I am going through is my life and my one shot at it and I am glad to be proud of what my accomplishments are up to date. Goooo girl power!

As the door closes, a window opens...

As 2011 comes to an end, it is time to do a retrospective of the year, or at least of the main events.
My cousin sends out an annual 'newsletter' with pictures and comments, regarding how her family spent the year. I could do that too, however a single person's life does not have a lot of pictures, or rather, the pictures only have 1 subject, so it gets boring.

Nonetheless, when I look back on 2011 what will I remember?
It is the year my dad turned 60 and when I went back home to celebrate with him. 
We went to South Africa for a little less than 2 weeks and I sat on an ostrich.

It is the year I got promoted to band level 8 at work. 
That certainly does not say anything to you, unless you work for a bank and you know what band levels are. But that's not sufficient, you also need to know how many band levels there are and do they increase in number as you get promoted or do they decrease? I still do not know that one, because the previous bank I worked for has it the opposite way from the current bank I work for, so it's confusing. What can I do, I'm getting older, my memory is just not the same anymore. :)

It is the year I turned 30.
It's quite humbling to realize that time passes without you realizing it. I have just been invited to an 18-year-old's birthday party and I can still remember when he was a baby with chubby cheeks and I wanted to hold him and play with him in the sand. Now, what? What happens when you are old enough to remember 18 year old's when they were babies? Argh, you keep going of course, nothing you can do to stop time. You just hope it takes longer for them to turn 30!

It is the year I finally went to Vegas. 
This has been on my travel bucket list for a while and man, did it hold its end of the bargain. Glad I went with a group of friends that was fun and I had the opportunity to make a couple of new friends as well.

Those are the main events of 2011...oh wait, there is another one worth mentioning!

It is the year I decided to move downtown. 
So here's the window of 2012 opening. I want to say 'Oops, I'm moving again!'. This would be the third place where I'd be living by myself and it's as exciting as the first time I moved.
My resolutions for 2012 are mostly based on the fact that I will be moving to this new place, such as going to the gym every day, swimming at least twice a week, walking everywhere downtown, taking my bike during the summer, and the list goes on and on about how living downtown will make me lead a healthier lifestyle and how I'll make good use of the time saved through less commuting. Who's with me here? How many of you are actually betting against the odds? How many are betting that just as resolutions go, these are not going to hold in the long haul?
We shall see, 2012, we shall see.

I'm starting the year in good faith, hoping for many good things (and perfect babies for all my friends expecting) to come, many places to travel to, more time to spend with loved ones and renewed faith in humanity.
Don't disappoint 2012! We've been told it is the year the world comes to an end, but I don't believe in that BS.
2012 is going to be awesome...because I say so!

The knot was tied!

At the beginning of this December, one of my best friends got married.
This was a big affair, mostly because it was the first time I was going to be in the wedding party. It is an honour of course, because the other 2 bridesmaids were her sisters.

If you haven't had someone close to you get married lately, you wouldn't know, but this whole wedding business is not quite a walk in the park! My friend had a wedding planner (services she won in a contest) and yet she was freaking out on the big day; thinking how long the hairdresser needs to do her hair, what happened to the photo booth, the guests not on the wedding favors' list, where is everybody, etc. It is a stressful day for any bride, I'm sure. Even more so when you cannot trust people to do what they are supposed to do because some of them are flaky! Despite all the rehearsals and lists, you still cannot predict everything that could go wrong.

All in all though, the day went on smoothly. Months of preparation for that one perfect day.
While I was standing there watching my friend making her vows to her soon-to-be husband, I couldn't help but think about the meaning of those decisive words. How many people take this literally and how many people take it as 'till divorce do us part?'. How many people can truthfully say that they know, without any doubt, that they will not fall in love with someone else, or at least, if they do, that they will not leave their spouse for that person?

That very same friend's parents argue a lot on a daily basis and she has often wondered if they have stayed together over the years for her sake and that of her sisters. No doubt that she is grateful that her parents are still together, I don't see her saying that she would have loved to have divorced parents. But she has often wondered aloud whether her parents might not be in love with each other anymore and that they are staying together because of the kids or because they don't know anything else other than being married to each other.
How sad is that? Are kids happier when their parents are still together, even begrudgingly so? Or are kids happier when their parents are happy, even if not together? Who knows really. Nobody could do research on the same subjects for both test cases and people are intrinsically different, what would make someone happy (like seeing your parents happy - separated) could make someone else resentful (why couldn't you sacrifice yourself for your kids?).

There is no right or wrong answer here. People's actions follow what they can live with. (That's the proverbial phrase of the week!). Just like people who get divorced may say that on their wedding day, at that point in their life, they were 110% sure of their love for each other and that it will last forever, but years later when it wasn't working for them, they couldn't live with the burden of being unhappy even for their kids or for anybody else. The statement goes the other way too though. For the couple who stays together for the sake of their kids, they do so because they couldn't live with the alternative, be it living without their kids or seeing their kids being raised by the other parent. People will do things they can live with in that moment in time even if that means wondering what could have been for the rest of their lives.

I do not condemn or judge any which way. I have experienced it, when I thought without any doubt that I love someone, only to find a few weeks/months later that the love was fickle, that I can live without that person and that he has not made that deep an impression or that the feelings so overwhelming once, do fade with time. Yet, nobody else knows better than myself how I feel. If I cannot say how long my feelings will last, who else can predict it? Wouldn't it be great if at the end of one's life, one could look back and make a list of all regrets and mistakes and go back in time and fix them so that one's life is as perfect as it could be?  Unfortunately, we do not have such a mechanism or process. We make do with what we have, we make compromises, we decide what we could live with and trudge forward, making sure as we go along that we are making the best decision we could make at this point of time, with the facts that we know or the feelings that we have.

So then, the philosophical conclusion of all this analysis would be: to tie the knot with someone, nobody can say with certainty that it will last till the end of time, but it is commonly acknowledged that you are perfectly sure, at this point in your life, that you are in love with that person and that you will do what you can to make this marriage work, or you are 'settling down' with that person because you can live with it, with no regrets you cannot overcome later on. I agree that the first option is more romantic (because it provides the possibility that some people never fall out of love or that they will not know a greater love) however both options imply that there are quite some unhappy people out there and that's sad because we only have one shot at this life.

There is no hiding that making decisions is hard on me, I weigh out my options for everything, even the pettiest of things. But the upside of all this is that I lead a life with little regret. Every action, every decision has been weighed beforehand, and the one that made more sense, that represented less suffering, that had less likelihood of regret later on, was chosen. That mental list is revisited every time regret start bubbling up. This is what works for me, this is what I can live with and that at least, I know.