To Love and be Loved

January 6, 2009

by Suzan Abrams

I think of how it may have been not to have been loved. Then I would be surely free. I could live as I please and die as I please. To be loved and to fall in love is to involve the self with a series of melodramatic overturns, from where there is never the consolation of an onward return journey.

I seem to be turning more unconventional by the day. Someday, I shall be the true artist, poring over my favourite literature and art oblivious to all else; to bedtime and to meals. I am getting there. I think of many other peoples' lives especially those I know in Malaysia. Events are mostly routine, predictable and conventional. During holidays, people take trains, buses, cars and domestic airplanes to return home for the long weekends. During weekdays, from 9 to 5, they work.

I think of how my mother was almost always serving and submissive towards my father. Sometimes she would put her foot down but rarely. I never wanted to be like that.

Someone, larger than life that dons on a constellation of stars and that swings his magic wand has granted me my wish.

Today, my holidays are my own. I take planes sometimes to the unknown. I rest or dine when I like. I can read or write as much as I please. I can go downtown if I wish or curl up on the sofa with the telly if I don't. If you ask me how I got my destiny into this hedonistic state, I am unable to say. Happenings around me are always ethereal. I bask in its magic.

I think of my partner, Des, and how good his love is for me. He is so pure in thought, so good and kind, I fear I will do something wrong in retrospect. He does the extraordinary. He brings me my coffee. He buys me my favourite wines. Because I don't always care for cooking, he makes me dinner. He is after all, a super chef. If I'm grumpy, he'll surprise me with one of my favourite tiny things., although he's never been one for flowers. Being an excellent mimic if I become visibly sulky over an issue, he will gladly mimic me much to my further annoyance and his ready amusement. He reads my writing and helps me grow as an expressive artist. He built my library for me. He understands me better than most. He lets me fly when the wanderlust bug calls, yes, he lets me fly.

This makes me afraid. This makes me sometimes sad. When life is rosy, you don't want anything to dampen its spell of allure. I am undeserving of him. I am not half as good. In sleep, he looks the angel. In contrast, I don't wear any haloes.

I can't understand what I did to deserve this bliss. Being the practical woman I am, I know only too well that everything is transitory, fragmentary. Something fragile and beautiful now may be lost momentarily tomorrow.

Everything feels so perfect, I am afraid the bubble will burst. Vulnerable to the lingering passions of humanity and my hopes spinning on its axis of bewilderment, I pray for the bubble to dance.