Amazing what numbing your senses can do for an aching heart.
Coffee, Red Bull, music loud enough that you can’t hear anything else. That is like a hang-over cure for the broken heart. My story is sad. But not like in cry-a-tear-for-me sad. More like, dude-have-some-self-respect sad.
I have once again participated in the rapid ascent of falling in love, and once again I am the victim of the rapid decent. No parachute. Hard tarmac. You know what follows: SPLAT!
The weekend appears to have been the catalyst of the demise of K & I. Not directly, but it’s a marker on the time line of our relationship. Last night she AWOL’ed to a coffee shop at an undisclosed location and we exchanged a few SMS’s. She wasn’t very forth coming, so I don’t know what she was thinking.
This morning, after our colleagues deserted the office, she stepped towards me and showed me a rather long list. “Look”, she said, “my parents left this on my dresser last night”. I inspected the slip of paper, perhaps as long as I am tall. It was my phone number accompanied by entries such as time and cost.
It indicated all the messages that she had sent me since our mountain adventure up until the 4th of April. There were 610 of them. I laughed. “Funny?”, she enquired. I couldn’t tell if she was amused or annoyed. “Not funny HAHA”, I said, “more like intriguing”. “Yah”, she replied, “my parents didn’t laugh either”.
I fished for more info, but again she was silent. I asked her “so, what about us?”. “What about us?” she echoed. “Is there still an us?”. I didn’t get a reply.
I tried to ask if she had a late class tonight. She said that she did, which means I couldn’t ask her for a coffee. “Tomorrow night?”, I said toeing the water, “I’m free. No evening classes.”. “Coffee?”, I asked wearily, afraid of the negative answer. “Sure”, she said.
I asked if her parents had said she is not allowed to be seen with me. Because you know how Shiyan is like the Borg. Somebody sees us, everybody knows it. “Don’t worry about their words”, she said, not really doing anything to belay my fears.
“Can I still send you messages?” I finally asked. “Yes. I will pay for them”, she said, exposing what might have transpired with her parents the night before. I suspect they are footing her mobile phone bill, had that particular detail printed out, consequently freaking of the Freakster Scale, and said they wouldn’t pay for it. Fair enough. Of course, she hasn’t said anything, so like half of my life, this is a mere figment of my imagination.
And that was it. We haven’t really communicated in any other way. No more SMS’s. She doesn’t, like she hasn’t since Monday, glance my way anymore, so it’s difficult to say where we are.
My heart is torn in two, and so are my emotions. On the one hand, I want to go to Malaysia to be with my son. I look forward to it and I want to do it. But the response of the Ex pissed me off so much that the stubbornness has now highlighted the benefits of staying in China so much more.
And that’s on the other hand. I want to stay here, parts of the bigger picture are to improve my Chinese, continue the work here that I feel are paying off dividends now and explore China. Of course, and perhaps unduly influencing my heart, my desire to stay near to K and see where ‘we’ could go.
I can literally experience any emotion and have a reason for it, but how do you cry and laugh, scream and smile, go crazy and stay sane all at the same time?
The only real solution for such a situation, is to numb your senses. I have to give class, so alcohol is not an option and contraband drugs are not available and, besides, dangerous. So what do we have? Caffeine and loud music.
A little earlier I had frequented the Wonderful Supermarket (that’s the name, no kidding), and bought myself a can of coffee (what? you don’t have them?) and a Red Bull. The coffee went down well, and I prepared my lessons listening to some seriously loud, 5000 bps Japanese Techno. I drew a few very funky pictures for my grade one class.
To top it off, I downed the Red Bull and am now listening to my latest downloads: Enigma Remixes and Bodyrocker songs, together with some heavy guitar and drum combos. I feel like chewing my chair, but that’s ok.
I can do a quick analysis, seeing as how this is the fizzled attempt-at-a relationship no.3. The previous two were also bamboozled by either friends or family or friends of family, and this one is no different.
Beauty abounds, and eagerness along with it, but woe is you who engage the local of a town.
Not sure if it’s the community spirit, boredom or just shear canivingness, but if you as a local are spotted with a foreigner, you’re the topic of discussion. And if your parents aren’t a liberal, mixed couple themselves and they happen to find out (which is inevitable), you’re toast.
Toast. Does it contain caffeine? No? Then I don’t want it.