Coming in terms

What do you do when you have to make big decision and you do not know what exactly to do?  I like to drive around. Like I did today.

I have lived many houses  mostly within the vicinity of Bangsar, Petaling Jaya and Shah Alam and Klang. The Klang Valley.

For a while I wanted to forget my past and blocked them out.  It feels like running while being tide up by this unlimited unbreakable string.  The faster you ran, the further you go, but cannot break away. You end up feeling there is something amiss. You reluctantly let the memories in. You feel more whole. We should not leave our issues unresolved.  Or you will be driving around like me.

Today I left the house early and drove around the Klang Valley.  At every corner I would let the memory come back.  Where I sat under the rambutan tree.  Where I went for my first Abim meeting to see Anwar Ibrahim, before all this befallen upon him.  Where all the winding flyover never existed, and the LRT was unthought of. Where the mosque then was smaller and simpler. When most girls wore skirts.

Drove to Klang to see it all changed and unrecognized. The kindergarten belonging to Mariam's family at Jalan Telok Gadong is no longer there.  But my brother's La Salle School still stands tall and forbidding. Dewan Hamzah still a distinguished landmark, where my classmates went to perform the school's recorder recitation. No more the ones upon a time famous colourful fountain roundabout that was a big attraction, where our cars would stop around it to see the colours in the waters change. People then were easy to entertain.  Klang was one place where things were without much upheavals. Good feelings in Klang.

Stopped at my old school in PJ and immediately felt youthful again, as though something got restored.   I could see me, Azam and Azlina at the bus stop. Them,  for transport,  I walk home.  Taking my usual short cuts, criss crossing peoples' back lanes, avoiding the boys' school.

We lived so privately in an area where everyone was behind locked gates.  All you say is Hello here, Hello there and that's as far as it goes. Unlock your gate, go in, lock up and dissapear indoors.

Then the life changing experiences took place, shook everything up, topsy turvy, and like Tsunami, destroying whatever it could,  living me with little hope, dignity and resources.

Now I drove back onto those past lanes, on my terms.

It never leaves you. When too much had happen, it never leaves you.

Memories can shatter you, but it can also put you back together again.