le témoin
Each time I look into my past, I learn something new about myself.
Of all of my guy friends, I had one best friend. Shukor. He knows my past, my present. He knows my deep, dark secrets. He can sabotage me anytime if he wants to.
Now that I have a ring on my finger, my ultimate best friend is without a doubt, my husband, while Shukor’s best friend is most definitely his wife, Ain. Both of us have got married to our other halves, and I’m grateful to say that we’re still very good friends. :)
I often feel like I grew up mentally and emotionally with Shukor. We became friends right after primary school. That’s like fifteen years ago. We befriended, we fought, we befriended.
Many times, Shukor witnessed me going through shit. Other times, he witnessed me being the shit. Another time, he witnessed me making him feel like shit.
The best thing about having a best guy friend is that; he’d tell you that you look or act like shit if you look or act like shit. Unlike girlfriends who would tell us things we want to hear (which we ladies do need once in a while), guy friends would simply be frank.
Shukor was always frank. Back then, in the middle of my shattered heart and swollen eyes, Shukor said that all these had to stop. He said I was being too dependent on men. I was also manipulative to keep being dependent on men. I fell in love too easily. I couldn’t live on my own. I never listened to advice. I was being egoistic.
Of course, I denied everything. Deep inside me I knew he was right, but I was too proud to admit it because I hated the truth. I kept on playing victim. I kept on being an immature bitch who purposely overgave and foolishly expected men would do and feel the same for me. I became the narcissistic lover, one after another.
This cycle went on and on. It always started with me eagerly introducing my boyfriend to Shukor and ended with Shukor witnessing my stupidity in hoping too high and ruining my life. Always the same. Today I find it strange how I never got tired of introducing them to my best friend, of falling in love unwisely, of desperately wanting to be wanted.
I remember lying in between Shukor and Ain, bawling and weeping and crying my eyes out, while both of them just listened, comforted me with a few honest words once in a while, and just listened, like parents. The three of us, staring at the ceiling. That’s how messy it was.
Then depression went through me, suicide attempts went through me, sickness went through me, and the realization of Allah and iman went through me.
It took me so long to gather up the courage to admit that I was wrong. I was a coward and I was wrong. Only now that I’m almost 28 I am strong enough to say that yes, they were my fault. Those relationships that didn’t work and ended hideously; they were my fault. I forced them to happen. I forced them to want to spend the rest of their lives with me. I forced them to believe that they loved me as much as I loved them. I didn’t pay as much attention to what they had to say, what they truly needed, how they felt about the whole situation. I was horribly and awfully self-centered.
You’d think now that I’m married everything is okay. Yes, alhamdulillah, sure everything is okay, but my imbecility in the past keeps haunting me. Yet I’d say alhamdulillah to that too, because for a hardheaded person like me, perhaps that was the only effective way to teach me. And I, Wani Ardy, need to be taught hard lessons even if it means that at times, I have to crash and burn.
Photo by Zunaira Zulkifli
