F.A.R.K.

Fark. Fiak. Fwuk. Fuck.

It's been a long time since any variation of this foul word appeared in my spoken or written vocabulary.

I haven't uttered a word of it, except secretly under my own breath, in my thoughts, in my mind, in my heart, when I drop a carton of samples on my foot, or bump my knee against the drawer, or when my side mirror gets busted.

I just want to let loose now.


Someone whose words matter to me a lot once commented I was getting too foul-mouthed. Well, maybe more than once. It was put across to me light-heartedly, almost jokingly but definitely not harshly. For instance, we would, as a favorite pastime, look at vehicle license plates and think of the first three alphabets as acronyms for some phrase. When it came to "SFU", I naturally said, "So Fark U".

"See, you're very dirty one leh these days."

I laughed it off, "Yah, as if you wouldn't think of the same."


But, underneath all the jibing and joking, I could sense that there was also some disapproving in those words. Just like I know the "3 Big No-No Rules for Girls" - girls shouldn't fart; girls shouldn't burp; girls shouldn't dig their noses - are really simply just jokes, I know too that the fourth one, "Girls shouldn't swear", wasn't really a joke.

So I stopped. If the word wasn't nice coming out of my pretty little girly-mouth, then maybe I should stop it coming out of my girly-mouth.


Some time later, the comment became: I don't like you trying to be bad. What's this whole thing about trying to be a bad girl?

I thought about it for a while.

I am not trying to be bad. I'm just a bad girl, trying to be good my whole life. Just ask my mom. I'm the kind of baby who bawled and wailed endlessly at the top of my fragile lungs in the delivery room the minute I popped out of my mother's womb, and had to be labelled a 'shrew' by the missies themselves. How good is that?

It can get a little stifling at times, stupid even, especially when you try so hard to be good, and no one appreciates it.


Why change me, when you cannot change for me? When I cannot make you change, and I don't even try to at all?

Why stifle me, when you can be who you really are, who you want to be, and not give a damn about it? If you don't even know you, do you think you know me? I thought I knew you, maybe I still do, maybe not anymore, maybe I thought wrongly. But I definitely think I lost myself.

One is loved because one is loved.

There are no reasons to give, but for one, you have truly been loved for being able to be yourself. Regardless of anything else, anyone else. Maybe that was our bane.


The recent episodes have got me thinking about things larger than the issue per se. I have finally begun to think about myself, for myself.

Does unconditional loving inevitably entail self-sacrifice?

Piper loves me unconditionally. She will come running to me anytime, no hesitation, at my beck and call. But in the hot nights when I bid her to come to bed with me, she climbs dutifully next to me, lies down with deceitful half-asleep eyes, and then jumps down to sleep in her own cooler spot on the ceramic floor the minute I shut off myself. Yes, she loves me but she is not going to sacrifice the comfort of her own furry skin just to be with me when I sleep.

Do I doubt her love? No.

Being able to sacrifice yourself is a gift. Being on the receiving end of someone else's sacrifice is an even greater gift - that, most often than not, goes unappreciated to the extent of being ridiculed at times.

"Why sacrifice yourself when you get no returns? Why be so stupid?"

When self-sacrifice brings about the happiness of someone who matters to you, it truly is a gift to both ends.

Self-sacrifice is not like exchanging gifts at Christmas parties. You don't expect anything in return. That is not self-sacrifice; that is simply sacrifice.

I have been proud of myself, for having understood the gift of being self-sacrificial.

It is just time to see for myself if it has been worth its while.


It is not a matter of change on my part. It is not a matter of whether I am willing to change for someone. It is simply a matter of worthiness: are you worth changing for?

One day, when you prove your worth to me, or when I repulse myself extensively, then perhaps I would change.


But in the meantime, here I am. Cussing and swearing my way back to life.

Fuck. Fwuck. Fiak. Fark.