Rendezvous
06 December 06 : 05.24 AM
Sometimes I think about my grandmother, the messy old woman with Virginia Slim between her fingers. Tonight, we were at a family chalet (sorta), and she was there. While the others played Mahjong, she sat by the pool, looking afar, smoking Virginia Slim.
Then on the way home, half-asleep on Danii's shoulder, they were talking, my Mom, my grandmother and my grandaunt. I couldn't make out much they were saying, but it was about some other grandaunt who has been having problems sleeping. She sleeps sitting down, but yet when she truly does fall asleep, she jerks up and it happens throughout the night. That grandaunt wonders if she's ill.
My mom says she's had that before. And I remember, seeing her sitting on the bed clutching a pillow.
"It's an illness of the heart. Something must be bothering her," my mother said, knowingly. The conversation goes, but there's an awful lot of repetition because that's just what old people like to do. I find it endearing and their voices lull me to sleep.
My grandmother, who is always fond of singing, started on a song. I'd always remember her with her songs of heartbreak. When she came to that last verse, the heartwrenching verse, "because nobody knows the pain of my heart", she didn't sing it, she said it out loud, like a statement. That was when I started to wonder what was beneath that old woman, the one who goes out for days on end without telling anyone her whereabouts, the one who allowed Andii and I to read her thick children books as kids.
Did her song mean anything? What was she thinking about as she sat by the pool looking afar? The one who smokes Virginia Slim alone.
Danii and I took a walk around the estate, where we settled on a quiet bench away from the chalet so we could talk. There, I remembered the night before, clearing out my inbox, deleting old emails from guys that don't matter. I amaze myself at how much lacking of a human I can be at times, as I read through emails and my replies to them. I could lie without flinching. But I digress.
So there was one, a boy I saw, who was older. In the email, he admitted that I was the kind of girl he never would have dared to talk to if he were my age. Words like that echo the words of others (albeit not a large number of them), who tell me that I'm too good for them. How they based their judgement, I don't know. Be it lip service, or words from sufferers of inferiority complex, and I tacitly agreed, You are not the one for me. You are not enough. In essence, it also meant, yes, I think I am too good for you. Although it must be understood that a lot of these guys didn't know me very well, so their judgment was somehow understood to be incomplete.
But anyhow, it led me to a bit of comparison between Danii and these other guys. Then I think how I've always thought of Danii to be the most perfectest boy in the world that if he ever said that to me, I'd disagree, vehemently at that. In fact, if ever, I'd be the first to admit that it is I who don't deserve a person like him. This is a first coming from someone with such a swollen head, who has never thought this way about guys I've loved or thought to have loved. Even guys who I have always held in high regard, somehow pale in such subjective comparison. I'm lucky to have him.
Firstly, this is not to say that I've never had a guy make me feel shitty and inadequate. The last 3 guys exhausted all my confidence, and always made me feel like I wasn't pretty enough, that I had to be taller, skinnier, wittier, more sporty, more sociable... all so that I could be loved. Secondly, while I am teenagerishly awed by Danii, he doesn't make me feel inferior by comparison. On the other hand, it is his love and affections, and apparent admiration for me that makes me feel all the more confident and sure. What seemingly paradoxical feelings he creates in me, to feel both more confident and vulnerable at the same time. He makes me feel like nothing else matters.
Tonight, away from the others, we talked about what we wanted for each other, emunerated reasons as to why we are in love, past/future. Then there was sitting with my grandmother as she told Danii about how she loves me. The woman sitting alone smoking Virginia Slim. The most perfectest boy in the world.