P.S.

3 weeks ago, after I was officially announced to be cleared from dengue fever, my uncle and his wife asked me to go out with their young kids. They were taking the kids to play at an indoor theme park in a mall. They thought they were giving me some kind of recreation, but seriously, I can no longer be hysteric over trampoline after what I had gone through. I thought I had suffered enough that I can no longer feel my trying-to-please button. I had been playing with 7, 5 and 2 year old kids during the day and cried to yearn for sleep in the night as the memories of throwing away my beloved kitchen tools in the eviction came upon my mind. I had one of the kids sat on my lap as I played 'Oggy and Cockroaches' cartoons for them- I wonder if their mum would still let me do that had she known how I almost killed myself two months ago.  I felt that I was deserving to be pampered after my closest experience to unintentional death.

 I felt like a limp inside an armor that kept me on the pose other people ever knew I had been; an innocent girl-next-door on a break from her study. I needed to hide for a while so I could just give in to the gravity. The nearest place I got was studio 1 at the cinema in the mall. They turned off the light and people were seated facing the screen so nobody could watch you. Even just for 120 minutes, I shall have my darkness.

So, I watched 'The Great Gatsby'. The movie was full of visual effects, that I felt my senses were kept being fed with something so grand. It didn't feel right, but alright it did looked aesthetic. However, to me it was not Gatsby's superb house, neither his awesome parties that made him great; it was the opposite. I was expecting more well-timed silences and blandness which I could afford when I read the novel by myself. It was a good movie, only not good enough to be 'The Great Gatsby' movie. I still prefer the BBC old movie version.

'Are you sure? It was ME who played Mr. Gatsby.'

I fell in love with the novel as soon as I read it. It really took a talent to be able to present triviality and superficiality in a most poetic manner, almost as if they were a virtue. Even though it was written by someone who lived very far away from where I was in a completely different time, there were so many things resonating along with the situation I was facing then. I could relate with Nick's exasperation growing just by standing by the side of the arena where the careless people frivolously smacked everything on their way.

“I was within and without. Simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.” 

I adored Gatsby's determination to become a self-made man, his ability in keeping finding himself amidst all the things he was not, and I shared his blindness upon being crazy about someone who was not crazy about him.

“Reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope.” 

But there is this one thing. One thing that I think I can never relate with is Daisy's beauty.

"she blossomed like a flower and the incarnation was complete.”

The movie played Lana del Rey's single, 'Young and Beautiful' during a montage where Gatsby and Daisy romanced their reunion, which I found to be so fitting with Daisy's character and her level of understanding of everything around her. It has been on my playlist for weeks until now, and I think there is no better version than her studio recording version. She can't sing live yet , and nobody can do the haunting audio effect of sound engineering.



"When a man fell in love with a woman, he would do anything for her.", my uncle told me during the (long) montage, and I sensed his nudging me for what he thought to be my delusion of actually being loved by someone I had just lost.

But who am I, what am I to be so demanding of someone's love. Then, St. Francis came to my mind reciting his famous selfless prayer: "O divine master grant that I may not so much seek to be loved as to love."

Perhaps that's how a divine love saved a soul; how it drove one crazy to desire a love. Stop there and quit seeking to be loved. But seriously, can you just stop there and accept it fully without any resistance? Why was I not wanted enough? What's not in me that keep people from wanting 'to do anything for' me? There was an ocean in front of my eyes and if only I could cover its depth...

Disclaimer: the following is endlessly trivial.

I think I am not beautiful enough to be loved as such. And by that I am stripped of any privileges to be average, mediocre and sometimes, miserable; which ironically is what I am. Shit.

Who doesn't like a beautiful woman? Who could ever say it truly, free of any denial whatsoever, that deep inside his/her heart he/she does not like a beautiful woman? What is more true than liking what our senses have been made drawn into? Everything else is denial, moral flipping or a consolation, you name it.

What could be the worst of being a beautiful woman? She could be a foolish and superficial person. But isn't that the most wonderful thing to be in this miserable world? To be intelligible is to be found out anyway. And if that's not the case, what would be more perfect than a beautiful woman who desire something more than what can be seen and touched?

What about someone who does not like what she is and wants to be beautiful? She got accused of being shallow despite of her condemnation of such impulse in her  mind. I thought that it is such a shame for those who fought for feminism, for us, who demanded women emancipation; the ladies want to be treated equally with their brothers the way they are seen as a man within and without, and not ultimately based on what is pleasing to be seen. But there the ladies are, worrying about how plump and short they are without the high heels shoes.

They say God thinks everyone is beautiful the way He created people be. Alright, He is God so He has the very right to impose His idea on what's beautiful- for a good reason, I wish. But I cannot lie to myself. I wish I were taller, slimmer, edgier; I wish I were something else. This is not about someone sanctioning something based on popular culture, that fat is bad, flabby is ugly; I just wish I had something better to cover my incompetence and my shortcomings. I felt that one need to be good looking enough to have an excuse to pass people's merciless carelessness. On the other hand, one could matter nothing at all and still have people's sympathy when she is pleasing enough to look at. I am feeling so bland, halting, and without any conspicuous talent. There I typed those out. Never uglier than ever.
And perhaps the moral story of John Merrick's biography 'The Elephant Man' was on the existence of mysterious social element in looks. We hate to admit it, but we cannot deny it. What drew me into the story of his life was not because he could embrace his distasteful look- he never wanted to be ugly. He once said that his plan was to live in a house for the blind so maybe someone could love him without having to see him. Now, you don't listen to what beautiful people say about being not beautiful.

Oh, just shut up, Emma. Look at yourself.

I have everything bad for a girl that my mother said I have inherited from my father (good job building my self-esteem, mum).

So, the answer to Lana's question: will somebody still love me when I no longer young and beautiful?
Nobody will. Nobody ever did, cos I never were.

Enough enough.