limbo redefined

Landed up in London on Wednesday. It wasn't as bad as I had been preparing myself for. It was a big relief to see her again after such a long time. To hold her again and to look into her eyes.
I came in the nick of time, she said. She still loves me - my being here reminded her of what we had and why she loved me before.
Still, I am not home and dry. She still is not sure she loves me enough. That will come with time. And I am going to give her all the time I can without losing my job.
At the moment, things seem to be going quite well. The toughest part of the ordeal seems to be securely behind me. And I am still alive. The next part would be to get a work posting here so I can start building a future with the woman I love. That is of course as soon as she realizes and confirms that she does have a future together with me.

last post before D-day

Yesterday's beginning of the jitters pales before the feeling today. I am well and truely amazed that I managed to go to sleep without much trouble yesterday. It was an entirely different story today. Since about half past five in the morning. The adrenalin's pumping, the blood's racing. And not in a good way. The stress level is high. The reality's hit home hard, and the day of reckoning is upon me.
Hopefully she'll come to receive me at the airport - I wasn't able to get through to her on the phone yesterday. That's good in a way... she wasn't able to express any displeasure she might have felt at being requested to ditch work and come to Heathrow at noon... that too on her first day back.
I keep telling myself that at this time, in 2 days, she'll be lying asleep in my arms. But it might very well not be as easy or as quick as that.
I am bracing myself for impact... whatever happens, I will survive it and fight for what I love and what I believe in.
Hope my next post contains good news.

last minute jitters

The day of reckoning is almost upon me. It will not be a long time before my future will be decided. Since I don't know what's going on in her mind, the war could be won in a small battle or could need to be waged for the months to come. At the moment, all my instruments are well honed in readiness for a real bad time ahead. Hopefully things will not be nearly as bad as what I'm prepared for.
In my drastically dwindled arsenal, my main weapon will be physical presence. Hopefully she will still not have developed a defence against the sheer chemistry we shared. My ability to make her smile and laugh out loud no matter what her mood should also stand me in good stead.
I have a few trips planned, and a few romantic dinners. I have checked out the films playing at a local multiplex, and a couple of them should also be fun.
A couple of drinks at some good pub will go a long way in loosening any tension which she might be feeling about us.
Then once she feels up to considering as very real, the chance that we'll spend the rest of our life together, I'll tell her about all the changes I am making in my own life for our relationship. Hopefully I'll get a chance to say all that after she's open to the possibility of a future together. I'd hate to waste that on an attempt to make her reconsider even having a future together.
Still in spite of all my preparation - mental and otherwise, I can't help feel really nervous. It's times like these when I really wish I knew everything I need to turn the situation in my favour.
This time in 3 days, I hope to be lying with her in my arms. Those were the days... and I'll be damned if I let it go without giving it all I have.
When I almost broke down on the phone after realizing she's breaking up with me, she told me - "Be a man". She didn't realize that I was only being human. She thinks being a man is dealing with the loss of a love. I believe being a man is fighting for what you believe in, for the person you love. And her whole "Be a man" advice will now put a spanner in her own plans... because this man is not giving up on her or her love.

the instruments of travel accomplished

While I mentioned in my last blog that the flight ticket has been confirmed, I subsequently got my duly stamped visa and my flight ticket as well!
It's final now - I now go to reclaim my woman, my love, my mate. I go to reclaim my life and my happiness. I go to reclaim what is rightfully mine.
The weekend will now be spent in gathering a few sweet nothings with which to melt my lady's heart. I need to hit her with all I got, and turn the ill tide in my favour.

the calm before the storm

An uneasy calm prevails over the situation. The air is still and heavy, the birds are silent. There is a palpable feel of impending doom in the atmosphere.
The spreadsheet tells me there are still 5.37 days, 128.8 hours, 7728.49 minutes and 463709 seconds to impact.
The fear is back. The full horror of the precursors slowly slithered back into my consciousness. The plan is still the same. The urgency is still the same. The quest is still the same. The circumstances appear to not be as bad as my worst fears had painted. But there is every chance of there being things I never even anticipated. And I might very well be on a dragon slaying mission equipped with a pitiful club and battered shield.
Still - things have started to happen. The flight ticket, I had been assured would be a piece of cake. Yesterday there was a big doubt cast over getting the waitlisted ticket confirmed - it seems British Airways are facing problems with their weekend flights. Almost certain suddenly changed to almost impossible. Help came unlooked for from another carrier - the waitlisted ticket there is now confirmed. I shall reach 4-5 hours later than I imagined, but it'll still be better than reaching 4-5 days later.
The visa is still a niggling worry at the moment. I should have had it on Wednesday. I am expecting it definitely in hand today. Otherwise it makes nonsense of everything else.
Even once all these prerequisites are fulfilled, the heart's still weighed down by the approaching storm. There's hope, there's courage, there's unending determination. But there's still the chance of total decimation. Will it be thrust upon my shield? Will it pierce my armour? Time will tell. About 5.35 days worth of time.

what do you see when you close your eyes?

That has the potential to be such a powerful question. It has all sorts of meanings as regards your imagination, innovativeness, creativity, spirituality etc.
But as profound as all those things are, what I have to say here does not centre around them. Perhaps, in some ways, it is linked to most of them. But I have a different spin on it.
Literally - what do you see when you close your eyes? I am not talking about your mind's eye here. I am not talking imagination. I am talking about your eyes. What do your eyes say they're looking at when you close your eyelids? Darkness? Probably.
What about if you look at something rather bright and then close your eyes? You will probably see a residual negative of what you just saw before your eyes closed. If you try to focus on it, chances are, you'll manage to see the details of what you saw. Your memory will fill in the gaps.
This image will start to fade soon, as your retinal cells get back to normal and stop sending the old message to the brain. The image will be replaced by darkness.
Sometimes when you rub your eyes and open them suddenly, it causes you to see phosphenes or little fireflies flitting about and at the periphery of your vision. Sometimes when you give your eyes a good rub with your palms or your bunched knuckles, you might see swirls of strange patterns. These swirl for some time before vanishing as well. After they vanish, if you persist in keeping your eyes lightly pressed with your palms, you might be able to discern some shape. What exactly is that shape? Try to focus your eyes on it while keeping them shut. The shape might fade and be replaced by another, or might vanish altogether. But if you are able to focus on it and make out what it is, the question is... where did it come from? Probably it is not something you saw before rubbing your eyes, because rubbing them pretty much wiped the slate clean.
What does this image signify? How are you seeing what you are seeing? Is it your brain trying to tell you something? Are your eyes trying to tell you something? Is it like gazing into a crystal ball and at things veiled in mystery? I don't know the answer. It's probably none of the things. But it's worth worth trying out and worth having a think about as well... and your eyes will thank you for the massage :)

a wave of positivity

Yesterday brought with it a wave of positivity about my situation. Mostly it was the couple of emails she sent, which went miles in lightening the gloom on my heart. "I still have a chance - I'm not delusional" my mind and my heart sang together.
For a long time, even though I was telling myself I'll get her back, that it couldn't be over this quickly, I had a foreboding that things would perhaps not go the way I wanted. That feeling seemed really distant and faraway yesterday. I even enjoyed an evening without my recently acquired constant companion - anxiety. Had the luxury of falling asleep within 10 minutes of hitting the bed. Had the added luxury of being able to go back to sleep after waking up in the middle of the night.
I realized that this could be the beginning of the selfsame complacency which almost killed my relationship in the first place. I'm not falling into that trap again. I don't want to lose the edge lent by fear or the focus lent by constantly staring truth in the face. I will nevermore lose sight of the truth - even if it's not being shoved in my face by some cruel twist of fate.
So for the moment, I want to be scared - at the moment, I am scared once more. I've been badly burnt this once, and I am going to spend every blessed moment I get to spend with her ensuring that there's never a chance of it repeating. Every moment will be remind her of the miracle we both have in each other. Every moment will be spent discovering new meanings of joy and happiness together.

reversals and small smiles

The past few days have seen a lot of reversals being suffered in my quest for the triumph of love.
Notably support for this wasted heart's longing has not been easily forthcoming from all quarters. Will not go into details, but in this moment of emotional wreckage, all things positive need to impinge on this fragile state of mind. Any and all negative thoughts and opinions come at the cost of serious detriment to my psyche.
Still I manage to remain positive - keep the negative thoughts at bay - perhaps oft times only just.
The initial days of anxiety have largely been replaced by a gnawing impatience. My spreadsheet says that I have to wait for 712750 seconds, 11879 minutes, 197.99 hours and 8.25 days before I can meet my soulmate once more.
Couldn't sleep yesterday until late, even though I tried to doze off at 10:45 p.m. I reckon I must have been awake until past 2:00 a.m.
But my mind was filled with all positive outcomes of the quest. The sleep wouldn't come for excitement and impatience. I wanted her with me there right then! I wanted to hold her firmly yet gently and love her forever. I wanted to kiss her gently and lie awake all night looking at her and marvelling at the amazing person with who's love I was blessed. I had to settle for some pacing about and strumming some songs on the guitar. It's the same guitar I wanted to trade in for a "better" (more expensive) one, some time back. She stopped me then - "It's your first guitar! Don't give it up!" she implored. I'm glad I didn't - no guitar could have sounded more mellifluous yesterday - in the faint light filtering through the thick curtains of my room.
Don't know exactly when I dozed off after that, but the sleep was peaceful, and on waking up, it was a bit like old times, when I used to want to go back to sleep really bad. I haven't had that in a long time now. Didn't last though, I was back awake and ready for my shower before the alarm struck again.
Drove to work again a first in a couple of weeks. Disaster struck when a stray dog rushed in front of my car at point blank range (10 meters or so) from the bushes in the side of the highway. I wasn't doing more than 60 KpH and hit him at 20 or so after slamming on the brakes. He whimpered and ran away. Just hope he's ok - I'm sure he was injured. Just hope it's nothing serious.
Arrived at work a good 45 minutes before my usual time. My heart almost stopped to see my inbox having 2 emails from her. She's not frequently able to access the internet, so I wasn't counting on her reading my emails for a while longer. Any communication from her now makes me extremely apprehensive - what bad news awaits me next?
Thankfully the emails didn't bring my worst fears to life - there were no words indicating she didn't want me to come. In fact because in my mind I was working with the worst situation I could imagine, her words actually served to somehow lessen the fire that's buring me alive right now.
Just 8 days from now - all this will just be a bad memory I'll never have to think of again. I'll be complete once more, and everything in life will start making sense once more.
Keep the faith...

a beginning of the end of my blogging days?

I certainly hope so.
It's been really fun blogging and sharing my thoughts on this wonderful platform with friends and random strangers.
I hope to be able to continue with it once in a while. But what I sincerely hope is that my days of blogging will now either be numbered or destined for a drastic reduction. That's because once things work out with my lady, there'll be too many other things in life than blogging. Of course, that's not to say that there won't be the occasional blog now and then, but nothing to match the heydays.
On the front of the quest, I now count the seconds until I get to see her again. Each second brings me closer to her, so I do not begrudge time. Time does drag on very slowly, but to its credit, it does pass.
I try to spend as much time as possible keeping myself occupied - sleep is the most effective means, but also one of the most rare commodities at the moment. I tried to occupy myself with the comics, which used to be so much fun. But now the best I can do is skim through 100 odd pages in 5 minutes.
Television has suffered a major reversal in fortunes - a means of keeping my mind occupied for endless hours is now suddenly scraping the bottom of the barrel to merely retain my attention. Mindlessness of comedies grates on my patience, sentimentality of romances churns my composure, action thrillers seem pointless, horror holds no charm. It's only the occasional wildlife program or the occasional intelligent comedy which still manages to afford me a scant few moments of diversion.
In order to give a more concrete face to the passage of time, which quells my growing impatience, I made this simple spreadsheet, which tells me how many more seconds, minutes and hours I need to wait for the moment to arrive. The last time I made such a spreadsheet was under a much happier circumstance. It was the first time she had been home since we were together - the wait was agonizing then. But the end result was assured.
Now I just count the seconds which will take me to my chance at happiness. And hopefully, an end to my days of frequent blogging.