Connections ...

 Last Sunday, I went to meet up with former colleague C ... I got to know him while I was at that business news monitoring company I worked at for at least a couple of years sometime between late 2011 to early 2014 ... After I left the company, I had only met up with C a couple of times between 2014 and 2026 ... I consider him a friend coz whenever we talked while I was at that business news monitoring company, we shared some things in common: books, movies, pop culture and stuff ... I remember we used to get hooked on Daiso items ... This was when Daiso was all the rage with most items going for RM5 a pop ... I'm still kinda hooked on Daiso while C has moved on to something else ... He told me what it was at our last meet but I've forgotten what it is ... Anyways, C has lost some weight whereas I have gained some pounds ... But when we saw each other in front of Cold Storage at KLCC, I was so elated that I wanted to hug him but couldn't of course as it was inappropriate in rather stuffy Malaysia, me being a Muslim woman and he a non-Muslim man ... But I would have hugged the shit out of him if we were elsewhere where there are no such restrictions ... It is this realization that made me think that I am dying for some connection to something outside of my dead-end job and dead-end life ... I needed an outlet to express my frustrations, my deepest feelings, my thoughts and C gave me that ... We talked over lunch on almost everything: my job, his job, my family, his family and whatnot ... I mentioned my mental health issue and C didn't seem to flinch ... Maybe he has no idea what schizophrenia is or he does and doesn't care ... Whatever it is, I made a connection and it is the most fulfilling feeling ever ... I plan to meet up with him again and just shoot the breeze ...

And then there is my mother ... I think I've ranted about her quite a lot on this blog ... Like I wish she was dead and so on ... I just don't feel a connection with her despite the fact that she carried me in her womb for nine months and raised me as a single mother ... Life hasn't been easy for her as a divorcee but she never let on on how she felt to me ... Maybe she wanted to spare me the pain she was going though ... However I remember feeling resentment towards he when I was a teenager ... I remember crying at nights in bed thinking I wanted to run away ... But as I grow older, I gradually feel a distance between me and my mother despite the fact that we have lived together for nearly four decades ... I don't know if I loved my mother ... Sure, I'm caring for her now but I do it out of duty as a person who doesn't want to see another person suffer ... But I am impatient and every time she tests my patience, I hit her in the head with my hand ... I just can't control that ... And I raise my voice every time I speak to her, partly because she's becoming hard on hearing in her right ear but most of the time, it's because I hate her? ... I don't know ... All I know is that I don't feel anything for her ... I really don't understand why I'm feeling this way towards my mother ... Like I said, I don't feel a connection with her ... Maybe this is one of those things I should talk about with C during our next meet ... He'd probably have some ideas since he cared for his father before his passing last year ... But imo, I don't think C ever hit his dad or raised his voice when he talked to his dad ... Not all children who have to care for their elderly parents are cruel ... I'm just not one of them ...