Often, it’s that one small thing that turns your life upside
down. You live life. Go through the stream thinking there will always be
tomorrow. You’ve seen your fair share of struggles and you’ve made sacrifices
you know you didn’t want to. You’ve witnessed the growth of your moral
character and you have allowed your moral compass to be blinded. You’ve been
brave and you’ve lied. That has made you who you are today. And you’ve realized
that you might never find peace. Maybe that’s something for the next life.
Maybe this life was only meant to go with the flow, not be in control, go where
life directed you to.
But sometimes, one little thing can change all that. Like I
found out the other day that my wife is cheating on me. For the last 20 years
or so, we’ve had a good life. Sure we’ve had our fights but who doesn’t. I’ve
tried to fulfil all her needs and am proud of having been able to do so. We have
2 children. Both on their own paths in their lives. Old enough to know what’s
good or bad for them and still young enough to rely too much on their own
wisdom. I always thought I’d grow old with my wife watching them grow up. Until
last week when I found out I wasn’t the only man she was growing old with. I
could confront her. That’d bring some excitement in life. Probably it’d be
traumatic for the kids. Or maybe they’ve grown up enough to not care. It does
hurt me. Probably less than it would have had I been younger. Like then it
would have made me break off my relationship with her or file for a divorce.
Right now, I’m writing. Contemplating on what should I do. Thinking of all the
other times I’ve been cheated.
Come to think of it, the one person who has cheated me most
in my life has been the one person I relied on the most. Myself. I think this ought to be said. I gave up my dreams pretty
young for a stable 9-5 job 5-and-a-half days a week. Sometimes I did want to
take a big risk with my life. Do something adventurous. Or at least take 2
months off from work and travel the world. Or finish that novel the first few
chapters of which I’d saved on my computer for since college. Or at least make
a donation to my alma mater.
As you can probably guess, I never did. I did make plans.
Elaborate ones sometimes created out of sheer boredom at work and in life. I
always did try to keep “work” and “life” as separate entities. But maybe I lost
track of what “life” really is. Maybe what I kept calling “life” was “work 2.0”
for me. I actually forgot about the things I wanted to do in my so called “life”.
I wore a mask to work every day. At some point I must've
forgotten to take it off. I don't remember when the mask became so permanent
that I forgot the man beneath it. Now taking off the mask even on rare
occasions feels like an extra weight I'm not used to. Ironic isn’t it? The face
smiles but the eyes have lost their laughter.
I waited for the time when I’d be able to walk my own path
in life. When that time came, I lost my way. I didn’t know what it was that I
wanted to do. I guess being lost is not just not knowing where you are, but
also not knowing where you’re headed.
I often look at my children and wonder if they love me as
much as I love them. Of course they do, an inner voice scolds me. I have to
believe that. That’s my only inspiration to live. My children love me. They
need me. But do they really? I never loved my parents as much as I love my
children. Parental love flows downwards, I realized. I never saw tears on my
father’s eyes and my son has never seen on mine. But what was it all for? I yearn
for my child to tell me once that he loves me and needs me. Like I yearned for
my father to appreciate me. But none of us would do so.
I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to provide for my
family. I tried to ensure my wife would be happy and my children wouldn’t fail
in their lives. I tried to protect my children from the mistakes I made. Just
like my father had tried to protect me from his. We sacrificed selflessly and
endlessly. But did we make a new mistake while trying to prevent an old one? I
always felt that my father was disappointed in me. Does my son feel the same
way about me? We’ve never really talked about it. My son is my pride. Was I the
same for my father? I wouldn’t know if I was. I tried to prove myself to him.
But I think he never got the message. Every word he spoke pointed at yet
another way I’d been a disappointment. He actually seemed to be in constant
agony because of me. At one point, I stopped making an effort.
But was he genuinely disappointed? Was he playing a game to
push me to my limits so that I make a greater effort? Was he making ground for
emotional blackmailing he’d later subject me to? “Won’t you even listen to this
one little request I make?” was easily translated to “you have never done
anything for my sake.” I went through it. Being constantly compared to my peers
– to the extent that I stopped introducing my parents to anyone new in my life.
Being forced to marry young when I wasn’t ready. Being constantly reminded of
the comforts I grew up in which didn’t exist for my parents. They never thought
that I also grew up with the problems that didn’t exist for them. I constantly
wondered why they did this to me. Come to think of it, isn’t this exactly what
I’m doing to my children?
This makes me feel like a loser in life. If my 18 year old
self, the fearless boy raring to go have a go at the world, would have seen me
today, he’d be deeply disappointed. I owed a great life to him in return of all
the fun he’d let me had. I let him down.
So come to think of it, why wouldn’t my wife cheat on me? I’m
pathetic. I thought we have great sex but I really couldn’t remember the last
time I’d made love to her. The way I
did when we were young. At some point in our lives, we lost the connection.
With each other, with love, and with ourselves. Life was mechanical and so was
sex. Maybe that’s why her cheating on me doesn’t hurt as bad as it should. It’s
like it doesn’t even matter. Like the part of me that would’ve felt cheated on
is already dead. I once dreamt of sky-diving. I kept telling myself that I
wasn’t doing it because I feared the crash could kill me. But I was wrong. I
never sky-dived because I was already dead. I don’t remember the last time I
laughed or cried in earnest. Like I stopped feeling anything at all. Heck I don’t
even feel excited seeing boobs any more. I tell myself it’s because I’ve “been
there done that.” But I lie. The truth is a man who has lost meaning in life
simply cannot be enticed.
I guess it started happening
around the time I was 25. I started accepting ideas which confirmed my existing
beliefs and refuting ones which disagreed with me. I even saw the media as
flawed. Well, I still do. I’ve reached the age where I can be wise enough to
point out my flaws yet complacent enough to not do anything about it. I wish I
was dead before I reached this age.
Now I look upon the next phase of
my life. Kind of a second adolescence really. I’m not young enough to work nor
old enough to retire. Suddenly, I see the world around me becoming hostile
again. It’s a familiar feeling. I don’t understand everything that is going on
with my life right now, though I’ve acquired the patience to see it through. I
call it patience, you may call it despondency. I don’t want to accept the rules
of social behavior anymore. Anyway, these are not the rules I grew up with.
Mine was a very different time. But is this not my time too? I’m seen as a
rebel by my family these days, funnily though. I’ve seen all of them through
their own rebel phases. I hate being proved wrong, as if I have acquired all
the wisdom in the world. But no one corrects me anymore. They just don’t. They
however, do keep telling me to take care of my health. Just like old times,
when I had no problems with my health and my scars were more… internal. But no
one cared about those. Maybe because no one knows how to. We all keep nursing
our own internal scars trying to help other with their external ones. We
neither know how to bring others to light nor do we know how to bring ourselves
to it.
I’ve started believing in destiny
again. Maybe my wife cheating on me was what I needed to sit down and think
about life again. I haven’t done that in a very long time. Perhaps it was my
destiny. Something I had to learn before I’m put into the cradle for the very
last time.
Soon, I’ll meet my salvation.
Maybe that was what it was all about. The journey. Maybe there were no goals
that I needed to accomplish. Just lessons that needed to be learnt. Money is
important, but it is only a means of getting though life. It’s not the end game.
So what if I didn’t get to fulfil all my dreams? I’ll pass on the lessons I’ve
learned to my children. I’ll tell them the goals I pursued were futile. They
don’t need to make the same mistakes I did. I’ll ensure that they don’t. After
all, that’s the least a father can do.
