Memories

A single red rose in a crystal vase. Her finger trailed over the intricate pattern embossed on the vase, when it attacked again- the sharp stabbing pain that caused her throat to constricted and tears to fill her eye’s, blinding her momentarily.

Carefully she took a deep breath, allowing the oxygen to flow through her, to re-inspire calm. Before she had completely achieved this, however, another memory assailed her, the remembrance taking her breath away yet again- so that the pain returned, sharper than before. The image in her head was a simple one, yet it had the power to push her from the borders of sanity to the wild depths of insanity. It was a picture of her standing on a beach- everything bathed in the golden light that a perfect sunset brings. But she wasn’t alone- he was there beside her, their hands intertwined and the warmth she felt radiating from him making her feel safer than she ever had in her life- as she stood close to him.

This time the tears overflowed and snaked their way down her cheeks, rivulets of salty water mixed with black mascara, until they fell onto the ground in tiny droplets. Unable to control herself, she collapsed onto the sofa and buried her head in her hands, and sobbed until she could also most physically feel her heart breaking in two.

Memories. That is all she would she would ever have, for the rest of her life it would be nothing but that. She drew in a sharp breath and then sat up, the tears stopping as suddenly as they had begun.

“Stop it” she hissed under her breath. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself and indulging in this self-pity! This marriage may not be the fairytale dream you have spent your life imagining- but it is the best opportunity you will ever get. He doesn’t need you, he barley even wanted you. You were just another girl in a long line of those past and those to some. So get up and start getting on with your life!”

Somehow these words, as cynical and harsh as they were helped her to regain the iron-clad control she kept on her emotions, before she lost complete control. Calmer, a wry smile crossed her lips as a picture of herself about 6 months ago floated into the swirling tho0ughts of her mind. She had been so innocent, so naïve.

Another memory surfaced this one from when her world had been covered in a rosy- if fake- glow. She remembered dangling one arm over the edge of the bed as she watched him dress a fond smile on her face.

“You’re coming tonight?” she asked her eye’s hopeful, this light dimming slightly at the tense expression that closed his face at this point.

“I’m sorry darling but you know how the wife is. She smells a rat that is it for me! I was hard enough getting away now”

She would sigh, disappointment flooding her and leaving her feeling empty and used. It was after almost five months of being with him, five month of stolen hours in expensive hotels, five months of waiting that’s she finally worked up the courage to ask him about the future.

“When are you going to tell your wife? About us I mean?” she had asked, and being the child she had been mollified with the reply of “soon sweetheart, soon”. Looking back she realized he would have never done it, the whole situation was too comfortable for him to even consider rocking the boat.

His famous tag-line was, “We must make as many memories together as we can today, for who knows what tomorrow may has in store”. She almost felt like laughing bitterly as she remembered how romantic and impulsive she has felt- whenever he has said that. Like the world was open to them for anything.

At this point she rose from the sofa and moved to the large mirror hung on the opposite side of the room. Slowly she began to repair the damage done to her mascara her mind still tracing the torturous journey of six months pat. It had taken her almost a year to realize the hopelessness of her situation. Sure, they had their memories- sunsets on the beach; trips to Paris, Rome, Tokyo for whatever time he could pass of as a ‘business trip’ to his wife; wandering into art galleries and attempting to re-create the work of famous artists…

She also remembered the night she left him, the angry words that were flung back and forth, the hurtful comments and barbed insults. Finally in desperation he had grabbed her by the shoulders, gazed into her eyes and asked, his voice almost sincere,

“But what about all the memories we have together? Huh? You can’t just forget about all of that!”

For an instant her resolve faltered but then she drew on her inner reserve if strength and gently freed herself.

“Yes we do have some wonderful memories. But that is all we will ever have, memories. You can keep the memories darling- I want something more out of my life!” and she had walked out, not even looking over her shoulder.

Now she gazed at her reflection and then looked away. It was futile trying to make sense of it. There was no point. Slowly she adjusted the veil, smoothed out her while dress and gathered up the bouquet of flowers. Time to get married.

writers block....pls help!!

this ones for tavish especially! :)

I'm working on a short story called "paper roses" and i have run into a massive writers block. so I'm hoping i can get some help...any ideas, comments or criticisms is welcome. although remember this is still a draft...:) so go ahead!

{It’s been years since I even thought about my past. I suppose I have become so good at blocking it out that it has now become a second nature to me. There was a time when every time I saw a newspaper ad about auditions for some commercial or noticed a crowd of young girls gazing enviously at a picture of latest actress their hushed hopes clear, my heart would jump to my throat and I would be assailed by a flood of memories that would threaten to unhinge me. But now these things affect me no less than someone without all my baggage. Someone without all this shit to carry around.
My mother. Man did she come with her share of hang ups and baggage. As a young girl growing up your mother is in any case an alien from god-knows-where and then you add all the crap that comes with this mother of mine...yeah it’s not good. But maybe I should start at the beginning.

I grew up in a grimy 2 bed roomed apartment with 2 younger siblings and a mother who struggled to make ends meet. My mother was a woman with a belly-full of anger at the world. She had left home at the age of 17 to try and become a model. Her parents refused to support her and she spent the first four years listing to numerous people tell her that her look was too similar to what everybody else had, it wasn’t edgy enough, that she wasn’t special enough. Then she tried sleeping her way through to the top like so many other girls before her and this left her with nothing more than 3 illegitimate children and a reputation that left much to be desired. And all this before 25.

She never loved me. Even now as I look back on my turbulent childhood I remember things that I don’t think I will ever forget. How she would leave me with a long list of chores before she went out and my sister and brother were told nothing. How she bought them little gifts constantly and tells me that we couldn’t afford it whenever I asked for something. All these little things, the harsh looks, her lack of love that she displayed towards me, kept gnawing away at me until I was forced to develop a sharp exterior in order to survive. Until I discovered my way out of that toxic household when I was 17.

I knew I was an attractive girl. I had my fair share of whistles follow me as I walked down a road when I reached adolescence. My mother once in her rare fits of telling me about her past told me that all my looks had come from my father. Who he was and where I could find him was information that was bluntly denied to me. I used to spend hours in front of the mirror searching for him in the arch of my eye or the dimple’s of my smile. Anyway back to that crisp summer day that changed my life forever. It was at the local mall when I went to attend one of those competitions for models that a popular local magazine was holding. After much cajoling and pushing I agreed and joined the line of other young hopeful girls who would step into a room, be asked a few questions, had a picture taken and then go back home to wait for the phone call which could make or break them.

It was a long wait and it was almost two hours later when I finally was called in by a glamorous looking brunette with long red-lacquered nails, in a form-fitting suit that simply screamed designer label. I stepped into the brightly lit room and faced the three people who smiled at me with practiced smiles. One was the brunette who had ushered me in, the second was a scruffily dressed man- obviously the photographer but it was the third man who caught my eye. He was extremely good-looking, with a well-polished business man’s air about him even in his relatively casual outfit of blue jeans and white shirt. But that wasn’t what caught my eye. There was something intensely familiar about him. Like I knew his face, as well as I knew my own.

After a moment of silence the brunette spoke in a clear self-assured voice.

“Hi there. What’s your name?”

I smiled cheekily,

“Jasmine,” I replied “what’s yours?”

This earned me some laughter which I took as a good sign. The brunette then introduced herself and the two men to me. Her name was Rose and she held some important sounding post in a publishing company which was sponsoring the competition. The scruffily dressed man was a photographer named Joe and the third guy was named Jeff, and he was the president of the top model agency in the city. Ice. This new information about him intrigued me further and the jagged pieces of the part of me that seemed to be missing began to creep slowly towards each other.

To cut a long story short I won the competition. What I had won was to be the cover girl of two of the magazines owned by the sponsoring publishing company; a two year contract with the Ice model agency and was now the new “face” of some cosmetics brand. My mother was less-than-thrilled about the win and had in fact called up the agency to inform them that I would not accept the victory. But after a long conversation in her room she consented with a resigned air as though she had no choice but to do so. She flatly refused to tell what, or who, had changed her mind.

Almost two weeks after “the” phone call I woke up early on a Saturday to attend my first photo shoot. I entered the studio 10 minutes before my scheduled time and was greeted by Rose. She let me to a spacious lounge-like room and told me to wait there for a few minutes. Now I have never really been one to listen so almost instantly after she left I exited the room and went down the corridor.

“I really don’t understand, shouldn’t you just tell her?”

The voices came from behind a slightly ajar door. I slunk closer to peer and listen. What I saw was an office-like room and Rose and Jeff stood facing each other. My heart jumped and I lent in to hear better.

“Rose you don’t understand” Jeff was now saying. “It’s not that easy it’s really complicated”

“You’re the girl’s father Jeff! Don’t you think she has a right to know?” (I need hardly add that my throat constricted at this point) “You’ve always told me how much you regret respecting her mother’s wishes? Or was that all just talk?’

“No of course not!” he answered, “It’s just do you think she’ll understand? Most likely she’ll hate me for abandoning her!”

“I think you’ve misjudged her, I think she deserves to know”

At this point}

*BANG* I'm stuck! non idea what should happen next, what she should do. although just keep in mind that i want Jasmine to be self-willed and stubborn but with a clear sense of direction and purpose. thanks a bunch guys! :)

of cricket matches and fun...

Yeah so I know I know I haven’t updated the blog in while pretty much coz my life has been fairly crazy for a while now with one thing or another coming up!

OH! I went for my very first cricket match on Tuesday! Yes and I had a brilliant time. Well it was quite an experience I must say, in more ways than one. Well so I pulled out my team t-shirt which I haven’t worn since the world cup last year and set off for the Premadasa Stadium. And for those who know me yes I was so excited than I was acting like an electrocuted cat the whole way there. Sorry Viran I know having me in the car and trying to find your way to the stadium at the same time was quite a task. Well anyway we got there without much of an incident and then the task of getting in EW EW EW EW!!! There were like a billion people mashed up against us and it was SO gross AND the fact that i have NEVER been groped so much ever! sick! Yes I am well aware I sound like a spoilt brat but still! *shudder*.

Yep so after we finally got in and the match started wow! The atmosphere was amazing! There were people all over and you could almost taste the excitement in the air. Yeah and we did lose but the match was so close that it got all the more exciting towards the end. I had a blast with my friends…we were screaming and jumping and I seriously hadn’t had that much fun in a long time. It was fabulous. I now have the Sri Lankan flag I bought there hung in my room. Yeah it was brilliant although I was really upset that Sanga didn’t play, but then Dhoni more than made up for that. *sigh* oh yeah I also had to go scream “GO DHONI” at the top of m lungs earning me a few glares from the Sri Lankan supporters near us. Oops :)

Well I must update this more often. I actually wanted to leave a rant about Valentine’s Day but decide not too. So if you are celebrating it whether it’s with your friends or significant other have fun. I’m just going to chill and send texts to my friends, the people I really do love through thick and thin. See y’all in the next post which won’t be so delayed. Ciao!

25 things most people dont know about me

1. I HATE orchids. i know they are exotic and expensive and all that shot but fir some reason they seriously freak me out!

2. I love 'Hannah Montana'...yes the lame disney show!

3. I find jealousy in a guy rather sweet. the kind where if you talk to someone else for too long he comes over to hold your hand or something just to make a point.

4. i have this dream of saving a life someday.

5. I never ever wore braces. nor will i ever need to. my dead-straight pearly whites are 100% natural!

6. My biggest fear is losing my friends...this also kinda corresponds to number 12.

7. I never say I love you unless i really mean it. to my friends, boyfriend watever

8. I fully believe in destiny and karma.

9. Cats creep me out....big time!

10. in my book...it is possible to be too perfect

11. I text people just bcoz....all the time...its my way of saying i love you.

12. I'm a very insecure person. I constantly worry that im not pretty/smart/funny enough, that no-one cares about me and that no-one really wants me around and i'm just a tag-along. It's stupid but i do it.

13. The minute i turn 18 i'm getting my nose pierced

14. I eat french-fries and ice-cream...together.

15. The nickname "cupcake" freaks me out

16. Another of my dreams is to direct and earth-moving life-changing documentary.

17. I'm a city girl. Suburbia bores me...cities thrill me!

18. I believe in soul mates. there is one perfect person out there for everyone. you just gotta have faith.

19. I want to get married by the ocean...at sunset.

20. Marriage scares me....being married that it.

21. I can never forgive a cheater.

22. I always wish i was born in the '50's or '60's

23. I take time to love and more to recover

24. I'm deathly afraid of death by suffocation

25. This took less time than I thought it would. there's a lot that people don't know about me.

changed? who me?

I met an old friend of mine last week, someone whom i hadn't seen for about five years. her parents and mine were very close friends and we had essentially grown up together. then the year we both turned eleven, her family migrated to Australia and has come back until now. Apart from a few emails a year and the birthday phone call, we hadn't spoken since she left and before I met her I almost anticipated meeting a whole new girl. After spending a week with her I decided that she hadn't changed all that much. well she had acquired an Aussie accent, a few blond streaks in her hair and the natural change in interests that comes when you get older. According to her on the other hand i had changed a great deal and this got me thinking :) had i really?

The answer? yes.

At eleven my world was heck of a lot different than it is now and well is been a crazy ride from that point to this. The famous question springs to mind. "you can go back and relive your life. what would you change?"

Gawd. There a few things i would change. Starting with risk-taking. When I was younger, I always played it safe. I never let go and took a risk and i never dared to dream too big because i was afraid. I remember being too afraid to audition for my drama school's production and that i something I'll always regret. and what I've definitely learnt is to live life without regrets!

Another thing i would change is i wish i had stopped worrying about what people think much earlier. i was always worried about what people would think of me if i did something or said something. now i realize how stupid that is because it only matter what you think.

The last thing i would change i not standing up for myself. As a younger kid i was often pushed around and for some reason i never spoke up and let people know that it was not OK to treat me this way. It would have saved me a lot of hurt from some of my so-called friends who's idea of friendship was to always make me feel like i wasn't good enough and never would be.

But now I've grown up and changed. I take risks, i get up there and and give everything a shot. i dream big because who knows? I might get there someday! I've stopped worrying about what people think of me and go for what i want. I don't care if they think I'm too loud, not smart enough, too annoying or not pretty enough. I'm me and you can take it or leave it.

And my friends. The last word i would use to describe them is so-called. These guys are my backbone, my bitches, my bombshells. They make my laugh when i wanna cry, give it to me straight and love me for who i am. And i love these guy to death! You make me who i am my accepting me. I love y'all :)

Have i changed? Heck yes. and for the better I think. That girl i see in the mirror i in so many ways not the one who looked back five years ago. She worries less, takes more risks and puts herself out there no matter what may happen. And she smiles, big and wide, while accepting what life throws at her with open arms.

The begining of the end.....

OK in two weeks I will be attending my LAST “first day of school” EVER!! :( Now I am all depressed!

It’s almost my last year of school. Wow….my last year of “he/she switched to this/that clique conversations”, my last year of “why they should totally go out” theories, my last year of salivating over the donuts in the canteen, my last year of childhood. Its time for us to leave the nest and grow up…and you know what? I don’t think many of us want to. I certainly don’t. I don’t want to face a life where I have to make decisions and where I have to worry about whether my life is going somewhere. I don’t want to face a life where I have to take responsibility for my own actions and where relationships become truly serious.

I have met, left, loved, cried over, bitched about and hugged a gazillion people in the hallowed halls of my school. And I want to do it all over again!! I want to have long gossip sessions with my best gal-pals about how the world can be represented by the TV Sitcom “Friends”. I want to watch one of my best friends run all over the place with a million things on her mind and meet my amused gaze with a sheepish smile. I want to watch “a high-school musical” and be teased about how sad I am for loving it. I even want to get my heart broken

When I think of what we have all gone through in our lives I smile and cry and the same time. No matter what people say, life is TOUGH as a teen. Screw jobs and tax payments and interest rates. They have nothing to do with the person you are and the person you become. As a teen we have to discover who we are, what we believe in, and why we want things. We have to learn to love and loose, we have to learn to cry inside and laugh outside and we have to learn to deal with everything life chucks at us.

I remember one day when we watched the batch preceding us spend their last “official” day in school. They were signing shirts, singing songs and having a water fight. Having several good friends in the batch two of my best friends and I stood around watching them and telling them how much we would miss them. Then it hit us like a bolt form the blue. This was it. That would be us next year saying our goodbyes. That would be us crying and throwing water around and swearing bonds of eternal friendship. The three of us looked at each other and it took me a great effort not to let my emotions over flow. I have never been the smartest, or prettiest or most popular kid in the grade. In face I was invisible for much of my younger years. But I was almost always happy. And that is what i am going to remember for the rest of my life. The giggles shared with my friends, the smiled flashed over private jokes, the bubbly feeling when everything seemed to go right in the world. Not the feeling of she’s better than me and I will never be loved, not the feeling of despair, because you know what? They hardly made an impression on my life; they were merely passing clouds that blocked the sunshine momentarily.

This is the beginning of the end…..

Written on a monday morning

So again I felt that the blog was sorely in need of updating and wrote this. Please don't get to the end of this post and then leave a comment telling me how random I am. I am very aware of that thank you very much....there was a reason after all that I named this blog "RANDOM musing i share".

So good morning world! althugh it is anything BUT a good morning at this point. Before i stat my whinging let me just quote another blogger I admire: "I'm usually a ray of sunshine...really" :). Ok now on to why this moring sucks. To begin with its monday. I hate Monday's and what makes this Monday worse is that thanks to SAARC i haven't been at work since Thursday....and to get back to waking up in the *gasp* morning and WORKING after four days of sheer, lazy, bliss....well that sucks.

Secondly i miss my friends. No...i really do though why can't imagine!! :P I havent seen them in quite a while now...and this sudden reason for missing them i belive also stems from the fact that im facing my last year of school, leaving me less time with them and even less time with some others who head off to uni before I even graduate. Excuse me I think I need a tissue now.

Thirdly I have two jobs now, a MUN program next week, A/L classes are starting and plus the dreaded RESULTS anytime this and next week. I think the stress is seriously begining to get to me BIG TIME. I feel life there's a laundromat in my tummy and my head is spining constantly. In fact I welcome work all the more because it gets my mind off all this. Well except work of course. Seriously why me?

Wow it felt good to get all that off my chest. I also remeber again why I love writting so much, it really helps me put things back into perspective and help me chill!! Which I needed to rather badly today. For most of the morning the rainbow that has been floating around for a few weeks was obscured by theses damn gray clouds. But the clouds are slowly parting and I think I see glimpses of the colours again. yay! :) I think I'll be ok by the end of lunch :)
I warned y'all...I AM random! Thanx for reading....CAIO!