i love. i hate

i love celebrations. i love feasts. and i love great company.

thus, i love birthdays and the exclusive times i get to be with my very cherished friends and loved ones. and with a belief that i must have earned some sufficiently good karma (or at least not enough evil doings to be condemned) in the year that passed, birthday gatherings would often turn into an extensive and extravagant birthday gala made possible by dor dor and company for the whole of July (and thanks so much sweeties, i totally appreciate it!).

however, since god-knows-when, i am plagued by a very strange illness whenever my birthday near - with symptons approximate (but never really are) "helplessness", "sadness", "emptiness", "alone-ness" etc. and often, these prelude the cold spell, cough attack, throat rebel and fever heat. birthdays to me no longer excite, no longer fulfilling. was it age thats catching up, as laziness or retardness eat away my life's energy? was it karma thats turning its back on me, depriving me of worldly pleasures, now empty and devoid of feelings? who the hell knows.

birthdays now dawn on me one simple fact - i am pretty much at where i was a year ago or perhaps two years ago (or was it three years ago?). no big leap nor major change to exclaim. no scars of victory nor burns from lost battle to glorify. most people would say life has been kind to me with little hiccups and flux but people who step out to create or stand out to fight would seriously think otherwise. i believe im secretly mocked by them as a parasite of this world, a hermit crab in its shell and a nobody who can never be somebody. no valuation could be any simpler.

just as i love the feel of birthdays, i dread it and the revelation it brings...