Makan Tak Kenyang, Tidur Tak Lena, Mandi Tak Basah

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Anyone who has fallen in love should understand what that expression means. It happens to me each time. Strange though, how the excitement of falling in love and the despair of falling out of love can manifest in the same manner.

The fell out with second love was a long drawn process. Through those years, I was hardly eating. During the first months, my colleague in the next cubicle would drag me to lunch with her on most days, so I had at least some intake of food. That was until she took some time off work. With no one to force-feed me, I was left to my own devices. Makan Tak Kenyang - Eating was a means of energy intake; all foods tasted bland when my heart was bitter. As time wore on, my weight continued to plunge to nothing and my face gaunt. I became a walking skeleton.

Sleep came intermittently. When I was lucky, its 4 hours. Some nights, just 2 hours of broken sleep, interspersed with bad dreams. Tidur Tak Lena - These would go on for days until exhaustion set in and I would get a good night sleep. Then the pattern repeated itself.

Mandi Tak Basah – This part is more of a metaphor. I lived my days like a zombie; going through routines mindlessly, operating on autopilot. With that, I was never really where I was physically. Mandi was a necessary routine. The normally fresh feeling that comes with having water run down my skin simply didn’t happen, almost as if…Mandi Tak Basah.

While friends and family tried to convince me that there was light at the end of the tunnel, that pinhole of a glow remained obscure for a long time. I had no reasonable way to estimate the distance to the light and how long it would take to get there. It was even difficult to tell if it was a real light or only a glow-in-the-dark sticker. I groped in darkness with my brain working on overdrive trying to process the multitude of information, misinformation and the plethora of emotion that came with them.

This time around, I can easily see that light. I know that it will take at worst another couple of months to return to normal again, not 3 years like before. With just the two of us in the picture, much less is at stake. At the very least I’m sure that I wouldn’t lose more weight than I can afford.

While in this throes of despair, it might seem as if I have lost perspective of what’s important. To be sure, I do know that there is much too much to be grateful for. I still have plenty of love around me.

At the same time, my loss is real and I shall not deny it. No one can tell me how to feel or not to feel because my feelings are mine alone. This is what my current writings are about. With a few more days to the end of my official mourning, I am homing in on an end to this chapter.

There will be some loose ends for sure, but those would be the loose ends which I choose to carry. They would be the memories to cherish, the harvest from friendships cultivated, the lessons learned and the wealth of experience which I have mined from the relationship.

Bear with me for now; once the chapter is closed, I shall Kenyang Makan, Lena Tidur, and Basah Mandi…InsyaaAllah…and my writings then shall reflect that.
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