The end of the road ... nek minnit ...

Pardon the outdated references, both to Boyz II Men and that Nek Minnit phrase.

I just came across this song today, and it will forever remind me of that time. At uni. This song was playing at the student bar. I was in the bathroom bawling my eyes out because I had broken up with my boyfriend again. For the millionth time.

Love hurts, huh. What a little moeps. Lol.

Well, there's no lesson in this post. Just a random moment to share. And I suppose if you're a young'un "in love", when things go pear shaped (notice I said when and not if), just remember they could always be worse. Although at the time it will probably feel like the sky has fallen on your Chicken Little head.

As fate would have it, I am now married to abovementioned on-again off-again ex-boyfriend. Lol. Now I'm thankful that we reached the end of that potholey auala galue, so we could later drive onto a road with stable foundations and a damn destination!

Cupid over and out.

A Thousand Years

Last Tuesday morning, our family lost a child. Not lost as in we went to the mall and got separated and we couldn't find her. As horrifying as that would have been, the loss we experience is more permanent. Lorna-Lauren Faasili passed away at the age of 9 after a fatal asthma attack. She left behind her devoted mother, Tu'i, and beautiful twin sister, Hellena.

I remember getting the text from my sister. "Did you hear? :(". In my mind I guessed that someone had gained weight, or broken up with someone, or something had gotten lost/stolen. Things that at the time I thought were significant and warranted a sad face. Never did I guess what followed. "Lorna's passed away."

Life has since been a surreal experience. It's been a week now but it still feels like it was all a bad dream, and that soon we will wake up to normality, where we still referred to "Hellena and Lorna" as a pair. Where Tu'i had two girls to keep her up at night to scratch their itchy eczema.

What is now deemed "important" has changed so dramatically. I don't watch the news, and have stopped stalking people on Facebook. I feel like screaming, "How can you carry on? What does that matter?". How can such a tiny girl leave such a gaping hole? I don't know. But I am reminded, in a most poignant way, that life is precious and fleeting. We are not long here, our time is but a breath, so we better breathe it. Ironically, Lorna passed away due to asthma, yet in her short time here she sure did breathe. She lived her life completely.

So as we continue to mourn her, and as the wound of her departure continues to heal, I try to remind myself to use every minute I have to live and to love.

"I'll love you for a thousand years. Love you Lorn-baggz" - Hellena

Cheers big ears

Dear guy lying on my living room floor,

Thanks for putting up with my obsessive compulsive habits.
Thanks for understanding my need for a complete and concise explanation to everything.
Thanks for putting up with my terrible passenger seat driving.
Thanks for not saying anything about my shocking driver seat driving.
Thanks for accepting my crazy family as your own.
Thanks for forcing me to go to sleep when I'm about to collapse from exhaustion yet insisting that I must burn the midnight oil for work.
Thanks for knowing exactly when to switch the channel in anticipation of those reptiles-that-shall-not-be-named  appearing on the screen.
Thanks for understanding my gym allergy and my TV baking show obsession.
Thanks for your wit.
Thanks for having your own laptop so that I don't have to share mine.
Thanks for not letting me get away with being a dick.
Thanks for teaching me how to communicate.
Thanks for your money.
Thanks for being the yin to my yang.
Thanks for allowing me to be me and, despite how that may look/feel/act/sound on any given day, loving me regardless.

Happy 6th Anniversary.

You see everything, you see every part
You see all my light and you love my dark
You dig everything of which I'm ashamed
There's not anything to which you can't relate
And you're still here
("Everything" - Alanis Morisette)

Love,
The girl sitting on your couch

Bothering to bother

I used to get so annoyed at people's dramas and issues, that at some point in my life I thought, "Bugger that, I can't be bothered anymore."

In recent times though, I have come to realise how wrong my attitude was.

Don't get me wrong, it still annoys the hell out of me when I think I can clearly read a situation, and someone who is in it can't. What has changed though is that I know that my view is only one view. At times, I still think that my conclusion is best based on all that I know, but I've also come to accept that (shocking as the revelation was) I don't know everything, do I?

These days I am glad that when people that are close to me have issues, it bothers me. Because it still means that I care. And although in a lot of cases I can't change the situation and I can't change how those people will respond to it, what I can definitely change is my response. Making sure that what is bothering me is the situation and not something within myself, and then making sure that if I do need reach out to help, that I do it with love.

Me version 1.1

Those who know me and my wee family know that our nearly-three-year-old daughter looks nothing like me. Well, to be more precise, she looks just like her father but she has her mother's eyes (yes, like Harry).

What I didn't give her in terms of physical attributes, I made up for in the personality area. She is a serious, introverted and slightly OCD-like little girl. At the age of 2, she pays a great deal of attention to detail, is a bit of a perfectionist and (as much as I hate to say this) legalistic.

As excited as I am to see myself in this kid, I also hope she doesn't "inherit" my flaws. So of course, like the paranoid creature I am, I have put a few steps in place to help her not have these "issues"

Reptile phobia
I'm sure there must be some kind of scientific name for this, but I hate reptiles, in particular the type that slither and are represented by Voldemort's second-to-last horcrux. Yes, those things-that-shall-not-be-named on this blog. *Shiver*
I let Lyla watch Diego, the Latino animal rescuer, Dora the Explorer's cousin. His show features a lot of these little buggers *ew ew ew*. So when Lyla is happily following Diego's instructions to slither like one-of-them, I try not to spew or faint or run away or turn off the TV. And when she's in the bath and decides to make one-of-those out of her wash cloths ... I don't panic and run from the bathroom screaming. I just die inside.

Fear of bodies of water
Yes, I did grow up on an island. In fact, I lived about 100 metres from the beach. And the drive to school and back every day was along the coast. But I don't like bodies of water, from about the size of a filled laundry basin (getting goosebumps).
So we give Lyla baths at night, and let her spend time alone in there. So far she loves it. She tells herself stories and plays with her bath toys and if I let her have a wash cloth she would sometimes even start scrubbing the bath (oops...not that it's grimey or anything).

Unsportiness
I suck so much at sports I can't even play the video game versions. So every time Lyla brings a ball to me and says she wants to play basketball or soccer or whatever the Bubble Guppies are playing, I happily join in. Never mind that I lack basic knowledge and basic skills, she could be the next best [insert sport with heaps of money to be made] player. I will not be the one who stood in her way.

Fear of heights
Ok, I know what you're thinking, I have a lot of issues and may need professional help. That's not the point, but thanks for your concern (email me any recommendations..ahem).
Lyla loves climbing. At her previous daycare, they identified this very early on, from when she just started learning to walk, and they really encouraged her to climb unaided (koikiki pe lo'u faku the first time I saw her on the jungle gym!). I myself prefer to stand on solid ground (i.e. am scared of heights). Taking her to the playground is such a struggle because it takes everything in me to not hold her completely while she's climbing these ridiculously high and tricky bars / ropes. When she's old enough I'll take her to one of those indoor rock climbing things. She'll love it. Me...not so much.

The list could go on forever, but pretty much the gist of it is that I would like to break the cycle with me. I want her to be like me, but be an even better version of me. With known bugs resolved and some flashy enhancements added - Me v1.1

Vicious love

This evening something happened that made the day/week for a lot crazed female Manu Samoa fans. Wait for it...Ezra Taylor joined the Go the Manu Facebook page.

In case you don't know, it's this guy

I am sure the minute the hard-working and devoted page administrator* posted this detail, there was a collective sigh and hearts stopping momentarily as the 600 or so female members of the page swooned. (Just speculating though, will need to check with one of these members to verify *cough*)

Then almost immediately the stampede of gushing comments began, including invitations for Ezra into fans' houses, lives and ... well you get the point. I hadn't seen the page members so welcoming before :)

And then I saw another comment. Saying how beautiful and athletic Ezra's wife is. Ooooookaaaay. *crickets* And ... ? I have to say I literally laughed out loud. Ia ua lelei defender of the universe of Ezra's wife. Now, I have no idea who this person is and if they were related to this wife or if they were offended by the comments/suggestions/invitations. But I found it hilarious. Like the fanatics give a care about wives, I mean, come on. I'm sure he (Ezra, not the friend) was flattered by all the attention and love he was getting, as vicious as some of it might have been. Lol! And it's all just silly and fun and nobody is really gonna hunt him down ... right ...?

Anyway, that's my story. I didn't want to stir the pot on the page by adding my half a cent, especially after the admin diplomatically smoothed things over. I gotta say though, some people are just tuned to a completely different station.

Go the Manu! I still love you lots. In a purely platonic way. Ua ma laia, go back to your wives.

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* I don't know what the administrator is like, but I have credited her with some of my attributes :P

Balls

I need to grow a pair. Not literally, of course. But too often I have seen family members and friends heading down a path to despair, destruction, discouragement etc...and I haven't had the gall to say or do anything about it.

Excuses
Who am I to say something to them? What if they get offended? What if they never talk to me again? What if I've got it all wrong? What if this and what if that?

But what about these ones - What if I'm the last one that can help them? What if they need to hear this from someone who cares? What if the one thing that I can bring actually helps them?

What I need to do is:
- get over myself
- be bold
- act out my love

Before it's too late...again.

This Is Love

This morning was full of gloom - a knockout combo of stress and disappointment. And rain. Ugh. Rain on the grass and the trees, the farms, the rivers, etc - good. Rain in my shoes and hair, and on the road - not good.

But little things count, and random things my family do have already made my day better and better. Just being their random but awesome selves, each family member that I've "seen" today (in person or online) has helped cheer me up without even knowing.

So this is a special dedication to all my familydom :)




By the way, while looking for this video I found out that this guy is Samoan. I know I'm probably the last to know, but wow, I mean, he sounds good. Lol! No offence to other Samoan singers...

The Hangover

Just to clear things up, this is not in reference to the movie about the guys that go to Vegas for a bachelor party and wake up hung over with no recollection of the previous nights activities.

I am hung over. From the Bon Jovi concert we went to on Sunday. Maybe this is not quite the right word, but let me explain. I haven't been to many concerts, due mainly to financial constraints. The few that I have been to, I have thoroughly enjoyed and got that post-concert buzz, including the literal buzzing in the ears for a day or so. But I have to say the Bon Jovi concert was way more amazing than I had anticipated. And I had high expectations - relative to the cost of the tickets.

They didn't have crazy lighting or special effects or any of that jazz. Just the band, playing non stop for 20 songs, before taking a short break and returning for an epic encore - 'Always', 'Wanted Dead or Alive' and 'Livin on a Prayer'. So what made it so good? Just...them. They sounded awesome, and created a really good atmosphere even during the calmer moments of the gig. "Seasoned performers" someone said. I sang 'til I was hoarse and clapped 'til my hands started to swell.

It usually takes me a day or two to get over the buzz of a concert, then I can look fondly back on the memories of the night. Not this one. Thanks to YouTube, each time I watch a video from that night, I fan the dying embers and then it's the return of the buzz all over again. Epic.