For the Desert Princess

From today onwards, I will be losing yet another fellow single girl. There is need though, to rejoice this fact, for today, my very beautiful and brave friend will be getting married.

Although it kills me that I can't be there in person, I take comfort in the fact that at the very least I can dedicate a post to her.

For her I want to wish all the love and happiness in the world. I can think of no one better to deserve all this.

And I also want to say this to you, whoever or wherever you are, the reader...if you're single and losing hope, then it is very important that you know this...you should never stop believing that you deserve love.

Because here is one of my best friends, who is getting married not the first, but for the second time. If you asked me, it is because she never really stopped believing in the happiness that she deserved. She is not afraid of taking the leap...toward commitment, toward faith and toward love. For this, I stand in full admiration of her.

From her I have learnt that love is something that comes to you, only if you truly believe that you deserve it. From her I have also learnt that Love will come to you if you love yourself. My dear friend, who has seen me through my single years has always been the first person to encourage me toward looking for and accepting love. I am thankful I have, after all these sad attempts, someone who still believes so greatly that I deserve this great love that I don't always believe I will ever find. Through her finding it, perhaps, my faith grows.

So tonight, as this fabulous friend gets married (again!) I want to congratulate her for being so brave and for believing and teaching me to believe too. I wish her happiness, I wish her prosperity, I wish her passion, I wish her contentment and above all, I wish for her all the intense, great, insatiable love that she really, truly deserves.

Michael's Tribute

Yesterday was one of the saddest days. I know this blog is about being single, of relationships, of sex or the lack of, man-rants etc. etc. But tonight, I'd like to give my two cents worth in tribute to two particular men. They are men I have never touched, or seen in real life or ever had the pleasure of having a (spoken) conversation with...but they are men I can safely say I Loved.

I have told very few people this but when I was young, I used to have an imaginary friend (it eventually evolved into an imaginary cult) (I was a lonely child). But it all stemmed from my imaginary friend. I named this friend after someone I wanted to emulate someday. Someone who, at that point, was the most famous person on earth. I named my imaginary friend Michael.

Michael was my buddy. I used to talk to imaginary Michael everyday. He was there alongside me when I fought with my brother (who would slap me for no reason and call me Small Fart). I discussed with him all the reasons I didn't like my parents when they scolded me. I whispered my dreams to him. He travelled with me to imagined worlds where I lived in an oasis andate only junk food. Michael helped me recruit members into our cult (he was the leader...I was God) (Yes, really. Like I said, I was a strange, over-imaginative child) so we could build a playground. In Michael were my dreams, fears, confusions and happiness all rolled into one.

Then there was the real Michael. The superstar. That Michael taught me to see the world in a way nobody else around me wanted to. He gave me music I could escape into. Through him I learnt to always see the good in people. To believe in them. He taught me that the world was fragile and I needed to be strong enough to want to hold it together. He taught me to find the one thing that made me happiest, to do it and do it well. Most importantly, he taught me to dream.

I want to thank both Michaels. Real and imaginary for giving me that. For giving me the power to believe that creativity was a starting point in healing the world. I 'd like to thank them for making my childhood full of hope, imagination and fun. They inspired me. But mostly, I want to thank them both for being such dear friends.

They are both gone now...One slipped away from my imagination when I wasn't looking and the other slipped away from our world yesterday.
But I like to think they are not so far away. They are not so lost just like our childhoods are not so lost to us. They live on as giants in our hearts.