it's time to grow up, sweet baby

it's time to grow up, isn't it.

22. time to take responsibility. heck, even before you're 22 you have to, as i found out. the world doesn't just consist of me, aye?


there's the loveliest man i know, the most wonderful friends i have, the acquaintances i barely know, the family i hardly see -- and the past that just won't stay dead.

have i told you i'm a sailor's daughter? yes, that's me. the kind of pirate that travels the seven seas with a wife in every port. aye, that's my father. and why'm i a girl, he asked. i don't know. i seem to have his traits in me. that's why i've hairy legs, i think.

i even have the 'someone after my blood' kinda scenario. threats and bloody insults. petty by a pirate's standards but i'm no pirate.

my dad is. the romantic kind.


...saying goodbye isn't all that easy sometimes, when you've spotted a gem. maybe that gem's predeterminedly 'not yours'. maybe even when you hadn't held it that long you had coveted that gem.

no, goodbye isn't easy.


without siblings, i am. elder sister's very nearly a stillborn, younger brother was miscarried. what do i know about loneliness? if someone left i'd simply wave goodbye and continue having a good time by myself. i hardly understood companionship, until a couple of years back. i knew it in the form of friendship, then.

i believe that was when i met a certain missy heng. :)


then i began to discover other people about me who are also companions. those who didn't and don't mind my being 'too weak to cry and too strong to suicide', those who loved and still love my daring to be me and then running away crying when i hit a wall, only to come back two minutes later yelling the same warcry i had yelled some ten minutes before.

'but what about love?' some voice asks.

'are you to be a sailor's wife, too?'


mm. no. i'm never going to get married. i'd be firstmate. not pregnant.

the sky will be my man, the land will be my child. if i ever find it in myself to become a real sailor i'll make sure i start sprouting a beard and own two shotguns. then the sea will be ma bitch.

but for all of my late understanding of what loneliness and loss is, goodbyes aren't easy, not when you're the gem that i begin to covet. and i thought i'd been hardened since childhood.

ha.



i'd savoured that last wait for the taxicab along the tree-lined street you live at. the comical slapping away of insects around that time of day, still looking out for the cab for me, looking like a little boy for all your life's experiences and years you'd lived and the places you'd been to and the people you'd met; looking like a little boy who fits so very well in my arms.

i guess in the short time we had, i'd loved you.

there's a song that goes - 'loving you, is easy 'cause you're beautiful'. you're like that, you know?


...you helped me get over someone, now i've to get over you. and i'll do it myself this time.




i have to grow up, haven't i?




----------

i'm a big big girl in a big big world
it's not a big big thing if you leave me

but i do feel i will
miss you much