you're the sorrow behind my door.

Behind every closed magnificent door, you might find a child who eats his dinner alone. A kettle left unattended. An ant lost from its colony. A girl with diamonds around her neck and yet she's crying. They are all the same. They are all broken.

I remembered a little girl with a sweet smile. She let me sleep in her bed. A book was under her pillow. Few seconds after reading it, I realized what it was. A diary. This girl whose dad owns a sumptuous amount of money, who has piano and horseback riding lessons every week, who receives presents from abroad relatives. This girl actually wrote a diary.

l never looked at her the same anymore. All I see is a broken child. A sister waiting for her runaway brother to come home. A girl who reheats her food because that's what the note on the fridge read. A daughter who hasn't seen her father for months. And I thought her life was heaven.

I have lost things too. And with everything I've lost, I've also found something else. Most of the times, they are intangible. Strength, wisdom, and also - faith. But these intangible things are confusing because they cannot be seen, only felt. Therefore, often I thought I haven't gained anything when really I've gained more. Allah knows better, really He does.

I guess to those who much is given, much is lost too. Probably when you met someone who seems to have it all - beauty, wealth, success, love etc - know that they too, could have lost just as much before. People rarely admit it, but all of us carry our own emotional baggage with us everywhere. Failed marriages, death of loved ones, incurable drug addiction. It could be anything. Everything.

Put effort into your life, don't envy what others have. Probably their lives are sadder than yours. They just don't show it the way you won't show yours. We are born actors. We built our own stage and live someone else's life. Most people get sad very young, don't you think?

Be thankful. Be very thankful.

why do people forget?

Sometimes I wish I don't have to learn the hard way. Which is absurd because everyone knows that the best lessons in life are the ones you learnt from your worst mistakes. Just that sometimes, in those brief moments before I sleep, where my eyes are halfway close, I would hit the rewind button. And the images would only stop at the same time frame, where I once made my worst mistake. Every single bloody time.

That's probably why people chose to forget. Forgetfulness is an asset. It erases the dark days of your past like they'd never happened. You'll be able to start again. Create new memories. Invent a story that was never there. Be someone else.

But by choosing to forget, you really haven't learned anything. Which means you are bound to repeat that same bloody mistake.

So yeah, that's why I'm still awake at two in the morning. Remembering, tasting the pain of my mistake. It reminds me that I'm human. And being human, we simply make mistakes because we attach ourselves to what the world has to offer - money, status, love, relationship etc. As of now, I'm detaching myself from these things so that they won't hurt me.

But probably the best lesson I've learnt is not to follow my heart. It once led me to you.

this is how i love you.

When I first posted my pictures onto the website, I didn't know how many lives would be changed. I really didn't. I guess for me, it was simply to suit the weekend amusement mode. There were only two pictures. My athletic lopsided smile when I was in college, and the other one with the bowling-sized belly - taken only last week, fours years after marrying Emma.

The comments were mostly hinted at how round my body proportion in the second picture, as compared from the one in my college days. From my bulging belly all the way to my puffy cheeks. As I was skimming those comments, I stopped myself. And no, not because my television screen just showed Messi made yet another legendary winning goal, though that would have stopped me before. I stopped because I simply understand that none of them gets it. And it's not even their fault.

It's not their fault that they think my sudden body expansion was due to my happiness of having a wife. It's not their fault that they think I gained weight because I am a married man. That a man with a wife is entitled to being happy, hence the bulging belly. Before going further, let me first tell you about Emma.

I met Emma in high school, back when my heart kept urging me that she was the one. And being Emma, she typically kept running away from me. But also being me, I never stopped chasing her. And boy, what a sprinter she was. Somewhere towards the crossing line, I managed to somehow run with her side by side. And to my amazement, she slowed down and let me take over. A woman can't run too fast without getting tired, that's what she said. I took that as a yes. Five years later, she did say yes to my marriage proposal.

Now Emma the sprinter, and Emma the wife are two different people, I tell you. There must be some misprinted manual of Emma somewhere, with several chapters missing when I married her. She wasn't the best cook. But she certainly is the worst. She couldn't fathom why salt cannot and will never be able to replace sugar. That's the only thing I can think of while eating salty dinner. And lunch. And sometimes even tea. Emma would spend hours in the kitchen preparing them. And afterwards, she'll come up to me and said, "Let's eat outside today." And that either means she burnt her food or burnt her fingers.

Emma can't, for the life of god - drive a car. She gets freaked out and started talking about evil driving instructor who failed her thrice. She has irrational fears over animals and insects, except for ants, mosquitoes and flies. She loves literature but studied linguistics instead. She would purposely change sides in an argument just so she could start a bantering session with me. Emma even though she never admits it, suffers from an obsessive compulsive disorder, I must say. I tried to prove my point by purposely facing a photo frame slightly to the left. In the evening, she reminded me that the frame must be positioned in a way that it directly faces the stairs approximately 270 degrees to the left. I don't think a normal husband would want to carry a protractor in his own house.

Despite all these, I've never seen Emma cry. Except the one time when I was outside the labour room, when her cry was a mashed-up of hers and our baby. Other than that, never. When I came home carrying the office problems into the house, she never force me to open up. Not because she was oblivious, but because she knows me well enough to know that I need the time to allow myself to discard my ego before breaking down in front of her. And she won't try to pretend that she gets it, because she doesn't. Banking isn't really her strongest point, you see. She won't try to solve problems that she knew she couldn't, but instead she makes me laugh. She always had this eccentric way that can conjure up my sanity, up to the point that I don't even mind the problems anymore, as long as I have her. And that is enough to remind me that problems would eventually leave, but she will stay with me, by me, for me. Forever and eternal.

And that's why those pictures I posted would never be understood. Even if you sent them all over the world, and they came right back to you, still the whole world doesn't get it. I did gain (some) weight. And I am happy with my life. But it's not because I am a married man. Not because I have a wife.

It's because I am married to Emma. Because my wife is Emma. You see, if it's not Emma, it cannot be. It has to be Emma. Marriage alone does not have the key to make me happy. Any other wives would not get me the way Emma does. It has to come with a package of Emma - with her misprinted missing chapters manual and all. Anybody can learn to cook, drive a car or be insanely filial. But nobody can learn to be Emma.

This is how I love you.


0213 hours.
22.12.2011.
University of Malaya.

this is enough.

This is enough for us. More than enough.

how long will you.

Can you reach that one point where you can love someone forever?

I think it is difficult to love someone forever. It always is. Because being in love and love are two very different feelings. Anybody can be in love but to love someone needs much commitment, without conditions, and much loyalty, with only a bit of love itself.

The first phase is always being in love. And this phase usually lasts about a year or two years at the most. During this time, everything is beautiful. He is beautiful, she is beautiful. Whatever you shared is beautiful. This is when love is blind, you only see what you wanted to see. There's this connection that only the two of you can feel that makes you want to start a new life together as soon as you can because it is such a beautiful feeling and you afraid that it'll pass you by and you'll lose it.

After a year passes, the being in love phase is over. And then comes love. Love is what is left when being in love is over. When the rainbows and candies and the missing part is over, you have to come face to face with the reality of love, how it bites. You have done all those sweet messages, late night phone calls, weekend dates. Now that the beautiful part is over, the selfish part will take over. And this is the ugliest part. You'll begin to want more, and end up losing the ability to love unconditionally. You will compare your partner with others' partners and see only the weakness that you didn't see before. Guys would wish their partner is prettier, and girls want their partner to have a promising career ahead. Next, all the compliments would slowly change to complaints, and this is done in the most subtle way possible so as to protect our image as the good partner. As subtle as it is, it hurts. Though most of us didn't admit the pain. And when the pain starts to spread, you'll begin to lose hope of ever saving the remainders of the love. You want to end it as soon as possible, afraid that it'll turn uglier, afraid to wait any longer in case your partner will realize that you are not as  special as they thought you were, and that you disappoint them by not meeting their expectation. You'll get farther apart from one another and finally decide to let go.

So when we keep asking our partners of whether they love us or not, I think we should stop, just stop asking. Because most of the times when your partners tell you they love you, they really do. All those crazy things they did to get you, they mean every single one of them. They do love you, at that time. But the thing is, love can fade, so both of you have to learn to push away that selfishness, that insecurity. And accept, to accept each other unconditionally, the same way you accepted each other while you were in love the year before. So the question is not so much as 'Does he/she love you?' but more of 'How long will he/she love you?'

fear of being replaced.

Athazagoraphobia: An exaggerated or intense fear of being forgotten, ignored, or replaced. The person having this phobia may experience depression, anger, and deliberate isolation even with a small thought of being forgotten or ignored.

Source: Here

It's a scary feeling, being an athazagoraphobic. You would constantly wonder and endlessly doubt everything, and worse - everyone. Messages not being replied, calls unanswered, facebook comments unattended to, small friends gathering only known after it was over.

You would find yourself worrying over small things, racking that already chaotic brain to explain itself. And you would keep convincing yourself that you are not being forgotten, that you are not being ignored, and you are definitely not being replaced. That you are irreplaceable. That's what you want to believe.

Then you would start off your day with these coherent thoughts, happily doing your everyday routines. The thoughts that their phone was probably out of battery, or that their mobile was in a silent mode. Or they must have logged out of facebook and just that the gathering was really unplanned. You would believe these more than anyone, not because they are believable, but because you have to. Or else you break.

And right after you turned off the light and close your eyes to sleep, thinking that, yes they didn't do it on purpose, you would find there's a tiny teeny voice with heart as cold as ice which said,

"You are replaceable."

And the last sound you heard before you went to sleep would be your own heart shattering. And then it went completely silent.

It's almost as if someone is telling you,

"You've been replaced, thank you for your service."

It's a scary feeling, being an athazagoraphobic

tentang mereka.

Ehem ehem. Musim itu telah tiba lagi. Musim 'menambahkan-berat-badan-tanpa-mengeluarkan-sesen-pun-duit-mak-ayah-anda-dengan-hanya-menghadiri-kenduri-kahwin.' Oh menulis pun dah cukup teruja macam saya pula nak kawin. Eh? Masa ini lah kau nak mengaku kawan segera biarpun masa sekolah kau ingat dia anak makcik kantin sedangkan dia budak kelas sebelah saja. Heh biasalah orang melayu, kalau nama makan percuma, mengaku sedara pun sanggup. Hehe. Tapi saya tak. Saya baik.

Tapi dalam gembira itu, ada lah sebak juga. Sedih nombor satu: Iyalah dulu nak lepak dengan kawan, minta izin mak ayah dia saja. Dan bak kata kawan saya, muka saya ini ibarat dilindungi malaikat, kalau buat jahat confirm orang tak percaya. Heh maka setakat minta keluar itu, lampu hijau saja memanjang. Tapi sekarang saya dah kena confront laki dia. Choi! Bukanlah saya takut dengan laki mereka. Tak. Saya cuma takut laki mereka suka kat saya pula. Hahah. Ok tak kelakar. Nanti tak ada siapa nak jemput saya pergi kenduri takut laki kena kebas.

Sedih nombor dua pula ialah bila saya tengok pelamin, saya pun rasa nak bersanding juga. Tengok hantaran Cerruti, Guess, dan LV! Ya, saya pun dengan tak malunya nak juga. Mahu rasa kalau iman tak cukup, saya culik satu hantaran. Yang mana pun saya tak kisah, asal bukan sirih junjung. Tapi apakan daya, belajar pun tak habis lagi. Dan paling penting, calon pun tak sampai-sampai lagi. Jauh betul nak sampai rumah saya, guna jalan air ke bang? Eh cakap macam dah ada saja. Haha. Dapat pula adik jenis kurang beradap sopan macam kakak dia yang baik ini. Kena sebiji adik saya tanya, 'Eh kau dah 23 kan? Gila tuaa...' Inikah balasan yang dia berikan setelah saya penat lelah mengajar dia erti sabar semasa kecil dengan menolaknya jatuh sebab dia dapat coklat lagi mahal dari saya. Tsk tsk.

Sedih nombor tiga ialah berita yang tak berapa indah saya dengar. Seorang kawan saya putus tunang sudah. Sedih bangat dong. Saya yang tak ada kena mengena ini pun rasa macam nak menangis masa dia buat luahan perasaan. Kau bayang (saya serius, sila bayang bebetul), mereka bercinta dari sekolah rendah. Sekolah RENDAH. SEKOLAH RENDAH. Apakah? Saya sekolah rendah cuma tahu main batu seremban pastu pakai tudung letak plastik dekat depan konon nak bagi nampak bulat. Sekarang saya tengok balik gambar sekolah rendah dah macam doraemon pun ada. Nak bercinta time itu? Tak payahhh. Perfume pun tak kenal. Tapi mereka advance. Sudah bercinta. Pfft. Err maksud saya, saya yang lambat matured heh. Maka dengan itu, saya terkejut dengan berita ini. Kecewa kan puluh tahun bercinta. Saya yang bercinta tak lama macam itu pun tersembam tertikam tersedu nak bangun balik. Eceh suka exaggerate.

Masalahnya, saya rasa benda ini jadi susah sebab kita tak tahu siapa sebenarnya yang Tuhan tuliskan sebagai jodoh kita masa kita dah duduk enam bulan dalam perut dulu. Dan sebab kita takkan tahulah kita selalu salah. Saya doakan rakan saya ini dapat bangun kembali. Susah nak bangun, betul saya tak tipu. Tapi ia jua bukanlah suatu yang mustahil. Mari nyanyi sedikit lagu Kotak mari '...bila berat melupakan aku, pelan-pelan saja...' Yes, take it slow. Nak laju-laju pun tak guna juga. Kalau paksa tak baik juga hati itu. Ingatlah, Tuhan turunkan ujian pada manusia dalam pelbagai bentuk. Musibah mahupun nikmat, dua-dua adalah ujian. Ujian kesabaran dan kesyukuran. Dan sebab manusia ini cenderung mencintai duniawi, maka ujian cinta itu datangnya dalam bentuk cinta kebendaan, cinta pada kuasa, mahupun cinta manusia. Oh tak sia-sia tengok TV Al-Hijrah. Ngehngeh.

Akhir kata (eceh nak jugak akhir kata, bajet rancangan 'Selami Jiwa'.), cinta itu adalah ibadah yang akan membawa syurga bagi yang benar-benar beriman. Saya juga pernah diuji cinta manusia ini, jadi tak adalah nak kata saya lulus dengan jayanya sampai dapat sepuluh bintang. Tapi Alhamdulillah, it's getting much better. Kau tak boleh lari dari rasa nak menyesal pada mulanya. But lama-lama kau kena hadirkan kekuatan untuk tukarkan penyesalan itu menjadi hikmah. Janji Tuhan itu pasti, InsyaAllah.

"...Ya Allah, jika aku rindu, jagalah rinduku padanya agar tidak lalai aku merindukan syurgaMu..." - Rnysa