Chu yi

This year was a little different from the past.

I paid a home-call to JM's grams' abode and met most of his extended family. His well & upper class uncles and aunts, his pretty cousins and adorable nephews.

And I realised...(not without consternation)...

How perhaps due to lack of regular practice, that I can't seem to do the family thing at all.

I fumble internally at every casual comment on my dress, I stutter on replying at curiosites expressed about me and JM's love relationship and my grace fails me at the tiniest indication of hostility (purposefully directed or otherwise). It's been a long time since I experienced scrutiny of this level that despite myself; assigns all my cognitive instincts to high-strung defense mode.

Being among his family folks was like being part of a pompous parade where I laud the beautiful despite my having alternative definitions, where I lend esteem to whom my heart doesn't rest with; where I dish affectational greetings that scantly meets a disapproval.

I tripped over my own leg looking for a miniscule inference of a possible love that can reveal itself amidst the festive hubub among mundanities of events and found scarcely none.

The buzz and fuss over ordinary pineapple tarts makes me feel emptier than the occasion deserves.

I miss Mum a lot suddenly.