| Blast From The Past |
May 3, 2008 6:41 am
Mood: Knackered, 589 Views | The world is a very small place.
I had barely arrived in Malaysia and was at a pharmacy when I thought I spotted a familiar face.
It could not be.
She was much bigger and looked a bit like a hausfrau. But the face was definitely familiar. For a split second I debated whether I should call out her name into the busy street.
A flashback of a bunch of very pissed women and the smallest of them lifting a full-grown man in the air broke my usual reticence.
"C! C! Is that you?"
The woman turned around, walked a few steps closer, squinted myopically at me and then lifted her middle finger at me before she called me a bloody biatch.
It was her alright.
It had been years. More than a decade. We used to hang out together as a cohort of young, rather unrestrained females who could out drink, out dance and out party most men.
As a group, we were a holy terror that struck fear into most sane men and in her case, just struck some men.
She was a munchkin. Yes, even smaller than MM. But muscularly compact and with the strength of five men packed into one tiny firecracker of a woman. Her mouth was so foul that sailors have been known to flee her presence in mortified embarrassment. Some called her vulgar and uncouth but there was a realness and flaming vibrancy to this diminutive live-wire. Nothing was sacred to her and she was so down to earth, she was living magma.
I liked her immensely and we used to have tremendous fun that would have turned my poor grandmother's hair white all over again.
But what on earth was she doing in Malaysia? The last I saw of her, we were in Germany and she had just met the love of her life. Yet again.
Catching up was a little awkward at first and there was some wariness on her side. I noticed her eyes kept tracing my silhouette and wondered at that.
Then as we spoke, I realised why. She had quit drinking and laughingly blamed her weight gain on that.
Ah, I see.
She had gained the weight of a middle-aged woman and looked like the hausfrau she was. While I had pretty much remained the same as when we used to fly the skies and terrorise the ground.
I refuse to apologise but the cognition of her issue with the disparity did make me more careful in my speech.
Her wariness faded somewhat and we made plans to catch up over lunch while I was there. But only after she gained some satisfaction from learning that I was not attached and had continued dancing all these years.
In her mind, she felt that we were now equal since she had one-upped me somehow. Her weight gain and physical appearance were not as glaringly disadvantageous now that she could feel superior in the fact that she was married with children.
In her mind, I was now lesser because I only managed to maintain my shape and appearance at the cost of these.
How do I know this? Because I am a freaking mind reader. No, actually because this happens a lot to me. I meet old classmates, friends, etc and they are usually rather unpleasantly surprised that I seem pretty much the same sans some wrinkles.
The wariness kicks in. They do not want to speak with me due to their own embarrassment at the comparison. So I hand them a bone. I tell them I have had to pay the price by not getting or remaining married and never having children.
Suddenly I am acceptable again.
Of course I do not tell them I have no interest in relationships and am not fond of kids and cannot imagine a worse fate than being married with kids for me.
I let them find out after they have opened up their minds and cleared their own sense of insecurity.
Lunch will be very interesting indeed.
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