Singapore has been crazy hot this May, sucking the life out of people like a great…vacuum-dryer. A cold shower and tussle with two stubborn pimples later, I emerged clean and covered with the bare minimum: underwear, singlet, shorts.
The joys of reading on a lazy afternoon; a crisply made bed and a plump pillow hugging the small of my back, sheets of golden sunlight enveloping me in perfect stillness. I feel like a prehistoric insect trapped in amber, frozen in time and totally transfixed by the pages of Haruki Murakami. Indeed, the more the memories of him inside me fade, the more deeply I am able to understand him. Take away the messy hormones that churn up emotion whenever I see his picture, and I begin to feel more acutely that this decision to separate is the right one.
Naoko: Don’t you see? It’s just not possible for one person to watch over another person forever and ever … Can I be glued to you every minute of our lives? What kind of equality would there be in that? What kind of relationship would that be? Sooner or later you’d get sick of me. You’d wonder what you were doing with your life, why you were spending all your life babysitting this woman. I couldn’t stand that. It wouldn’t solve any of my problems.
The above presents my perennial problem of giving too much it’s draining. No wonder I was depressed; depression saves energy. Save your energy girl, and fight your OWN battles, first.
Toru: But your problems are not going to continue for the rest of your life. They’ll end eventually. And when they do, we’ll stop and think about how to go on from there. Maybe you will have to help me. We’re not running our lives according to some account book.
Well, that really depends, doesn’t it? Takes two hands to clap. It’s time to get on with my life. Life goes on as usual for him. If it hurts too much, then care a little less (insight courtesy of Jess). But always, 三思而行, the impulse to sever ties is just as bad as the impulse to jump into the thick of things.
I’ll end with the closing sentences of the first chapter.
I know, too, why she asked me not to forget her, to remember that she had existed.
The thought fills me with an almost unbearable sorrow. Because Naoko never loved me.
Where is my Midori?!
