another astrud moment

there is this one song of astrud i simply love with these lyrics:

who can i turn to when nobody needs me?
my heart wants to know
and so i must go where destiny leads me
with no star to guide me
and no one beside me
i'll go on my own and after the day
the darkness will hide me
and maybe tomorrow
i'll find what i'm after
i'll throw off my sorrow
beg, steal and borrow
my share of laughter
with you i could learn to begin on a new day
but who can i turn to if you turn away?

i used to sing this when i was single and S had not yet come into my life and transformed it into this colourful and meaningful tapestry of what true joy is. in so many ways, S has stilled my heart from so many traumas of the past but some things never go away, either.

here's one for the books: who can you turn to when your own flesh and blood spurn you? perhaps it is folly on my part to believe that i can let my hair loose in the presence of people i grew up with, with whom my DNA pattern is practically similar, hoping that since we're all past the age of 30, some unpredictable factors can come into play and hopefully, be forgiven?

in the tv series LOST, locke has resigned himself to a life on the island, isolated, apart from the life he knew, while other people like michael want nothing more than to get back the life they used to have so that they can forge a new tomorrow, their hearts always filled with hope.

in many ways, i am trapped between the wishes of michael and locke, and after a very revealing exchange with people i love over cyberspace, i realised that maybe, just maybe, the time has come for me to cross over to locke's philosophy and forget that i did have a past, that i did have a dream of some day belonging, of some day no longer having to be KSP with my own family, of some day no longer having to bear yet another moment the debilitating stereotypes of my childhood.

it is one thing to idealise relationships, and another to come face to face with certain truths, such as: no matter how much you change, no matter how far you've come, no matter how much you have gained in years and wisdom, the very people you love and wish to share all your life's discoveries, your own family, can be the ones who will not see your gains, who will choose to see only what they want to see, and forever box you into their impressions and opinions of you from time long gone.

if there is one thing my being in belgium has taught me, it is this: that family is important, even if it hurts to reach out to people who will not reach back to you across the miles, not even the cyber miles. i refuse to believe that this is payback time for sins of the past because if there's one thing i want to break in my family history, it's all the shit of previous generations being handed down to us, draped over us like a default hole-ridden ozone layer about which we can do nothing. right now i'm licking my wounds from the rejection dealt me by my own brothers and sister, but i know that this, too, will pass.

i'm in an island, cast out at sea, true, but i'm not Lost, not like locke and the other passengers on that ill-fated oceanic flight from sydney to los angeles. i know from where i have come, i know where i am right now, and i do NOT know where i will eventually end up, but i am not afraid of the journey before me.

there is a weight in my chest right now, because i would like to share my pain with others, and my first choice is to share it with my siblings, but if they will not be there for me, then as the cliché goes, if a door closes somewhere, god opens a window elsewhere. and in just a matter of hours, little peepholes have opened not just a crack but wide open, casting warm sunlight on my wet cheeks and teasing me with a view of beautiful blue skies.

the path before me lies half in mist, half in sunshine. each unturned stone shivers with promise and the chill snaking its way beneath my scarf promises pockets of joy yet to discover, even if it means being on my own. sometimes, all you need is the rest of the world to realise that family can be just a construct we can tie around an oak tree for posterity.

so who can i turn to if you turn away? the answer is not clear-cut but i can see it basking in the soft winter glow: there is someone out there who loves you, and that's all that matters. i can feel his hand massaging my heart gently and already my life is settling nicely into a new groove. for yet another adventure.