BFF smacked me right across the ego and said that my leaving should be a happy and exciting thing. Considering how I made a pact with life not too long ago to "get me to London or else"... my leaving should at the very least, be a satisfying outcome. So I was forced, rather painfully, to reflect on my perpetual expression of doom.
I think it is the weight of unfinished business that I find difficult to bear. An absence counted in years doesn't make the heart grow fonder, I'm sure, and the taut strings of threadbare relations threaten now more than ever.
Packing brings the uneasy decision of defining this trip as a "stay" or "live" in London. The only certain detail of this trip is that I will be at least 22 when I return. It is a large chasm, widened further by the vast potential promised by these prime years of my life. And all the things I've wanted to do here, with the people here, are starting to call out to me. It kills me that the other thing that grows more certain is that I'm running out of time. And opportunities.
I looked at my dad this morning and realised he was old. I've walked alongside him for the last 19 years, but I don't know how he got to this greying stage, with a crook in his back and an ache in his leg. Over the next three years, I wonder how much I'll notice with my occassional appearances in the form of video calls and bills.
Perhaps now I am atoning for the largely selfish reason of broadening the mind I used to apply overseas - or maybe this is the exact lesson I was craving for: a good jolt to broaden my mind.
But I am not all sad. This leaving is the price for the reality of my romantic dream. I have paid my dues, and now, I'll keep my eyes on the prize.
Sunday 31 August 2008
Wednesday 27 August 2008
Perhaps my heart really is a red red rose.
If a broken heart is entirely metaphorical, why does the chest actually clench inside? Why does it actually hurt?
I googled a heartbreak, like all self-respecting curious persons would. No doctor explains the physical manifestation of this emotion, and no poet prescribes a remedy.
I googled a heartbreak, like all self-respecting curious persons would. No doctor explains the physical manifestation of this emotion, and no poet prescribes a remedy.
Tuesday 26 August 2008
Even between haphazard packing and shuttling between meetings like getai singers, life managed to squeeze in one big lesson anyway. It was a spectacular lesson - one spanning across the entire syllabus, covering Fragility, Carpe Diem and Friendship all at once, and in the signature style of life, one big rude surprise.
In what was supposed to be a farewell dinner of sorts among Jervis, Hong Zheng, Colin, Adele and me, Grace ended up in the Accident & Emergency unit with a fractured skull and a bruised frontal lobe. My mind is still twisting around the details, but to the best of my ability: the dinner somehow turned into a cycling expedition at Pulau Ubin, Adele couldn't make it, Jervis fell sick and Grace was invited in stead. And Grace - sports junkie, cycling pro Grace was thrown into the air like a rag doll 10 metres in front of me and landed head-first, face-down into the shrubbery and didn't move.
It took nearly ten minutes for the boys to realise we didn't catch up, and when they did, Grace had lost some 10 minutes of her memory and the sky turned into a sea. Between rousing Grace, washing her wounds, and trekking around to pick up her strewn belongings and getting help, I didn't have time to freak out, but now, I think I am thankful that the boys arrived at that point. We took her to a shelter and because we had the good sense to pick an offshore, rural island with no phone reception, the boys pedalled through the storm to get a ride.
At the A&E, we laughed the day off as we huddled outside the observation unit, shaking off the beads of rain. Then the next day, she was back in - with a crack that ran through the base of her skull to her forehead and sensory malfunction.
I am afraid now. I am afraid of how danger lurks behind sunny island-mornings and youthful laughter. And how even as her insides are broken, the eye cannot detect a difference in Grace. I've learnt now not to trust the lithe nymph of normalcy, but I know we cannot live in fear and trembling.. perhaps I will have mastered this lesson when I know how to draw up this fine balance.
In what was supposed to be a farewell dinner of sorts among Jervis, Hong Zheng, Colin, Adele and me, Grace ended up in the Accident & Emergency unit with a fractured skull and a bruised frontal lobe. My mind is still twisting around the details, but to the best of my ability: the dinner somehow turned into a cycling expedition at Pulau Ubin, Adele couldn't make it, Jervis fell sick and Grace was invited in stead. And Grace - sports junkie, cycling pro Grace was thrown into the air like a rag doll 10 metres in front of me and landed head-first, face-down into the shrubbery and didn't move.
It took nearly ten minutes for the boys to realise we didn't catch up, and when they did, Grace had lost some 10 minutes of her memory and the sky turned into a sea. Between rousing Grace, washing her wounds, and trekking around to pick up her strewn belongings and getting help, I didn't have time to freak out, but now, I think I am thankful that the boys arrived at that point. We took her to a shelter and because we had the good sense to pick an offshore, rural island with no phone reception, the boys pedalled through the storm to get a ride.
At the A&E, we laughed the day off as we huddled outside the observation unit, shaking off the beads of rain. Then the next day, she was back in - with a crack that ran through the base of her skull to her forehead and sensory malfunction.
I am afraid now. I am afraid of how danger lurks behind sunny island-mornings and youthful laughter. And how even as her insides are broken, the eye cannot detect a difference in Grace. I've learnt now not to trust the lithe nymph of normalcy, but I know we cannot live in fear and trembling.. perhaps I will have mastered this lesson when I know how to draw up this fine balance.
Sunday 17 August 2008
Late Night Coffee with Jack
13 Aug 2008
It was the blueprint of meeting between two people in a feel-good movie: the kind that happens just before one of the two people dies. In the movie of my life, Jack would be the one to perish, of course, for the availability of a convenient C.O.D. (conscripted life in the depths of the Bruneian Jungles) if nothing else. And I would sit in an obscure corner at his funeral, watching the dearly beloved wail his virtues and touch his cold cheek. I would sit silently, numb with the secret of our perfect rendevous, almost doubting if it ever was.
He walked me back as we tried not to talk about us. Bye, he said carelessly, but with that look in his eye that pierced souls. Bye, I said with all the gravity I could muster, but leaving the only way I knew how: a receeding silhouette of indifference.
It was the blueprint of meeting between two people in a feel-good movie: the kind that happens just before one of the two people dies. In the movie of my life, Jack would be the one to perish, of course, for the availability of a convenient C.O.D. (conscripted life in the depths of the Bruneian Jungles) if nothing else. And I would sit in an obscure corner at his funeral, watching the dearly beloved wail his virtues and touch his cold cheek. I would sit silently, numb with the secret of our perfect rendevous, almost doubting if it ever was.
He walked me back as we tried not to talk about us. Bye, he said carelessly, but with that look in his eye that pierced souls. Bye, I said with all the gravity I could muster, but leaving the only way I knew how: a receeding silhouette of indifference.
Wednesday 13 August 2008
Tuesday 12 August 2008
Somebody's Always Saying Goodbye
Anne Murray
Railroad station, midnight trains
Lonely airports in the rain
And somebody stands there with tears in their eyes
It's the same old scene, time after time
That's the trouble with all mankind
somebody's always sayin goodbye
Taxi cabs leave in the night
Greyhound buses with red tail lights
Someone's leavin and someone's left behind
Well i dont know how things got that way
But every place you look these days
Somebody's always sayin goodbye
Anne Murray
Railroad station, midnight trains
Lonely airports in the rain
And somebody stands there with tears in their eyes
It's the same old scene, time after time
That's the trouble with all mankind
somebody's always sayin goodbye
Taxi cabs leave in the night
Greyhound buses with red tail lights
Someone's leavin and someone's left behind
Well i dont know how things got that way
But every place you look these days
Somebody's always sayin goodbye
Sunday 3 August 2008
1. I went cycling at East Coast Park on Sunday night with the family. Butt hurts, but never had more fun. Sea breeze, (relative) speed, family, and great food.
2. Dinner at Seng Kee's tonight with Grandma and family. Fantastic. My Grandma kicks ass. Durians later at Four Seasons Durian Cafe - snobby name for a roadside display of tables with the most heavenly durians. I think I'm in heaven.
(:
2. Dinner at Seng Kee's tonight with Grandma and family. Fantastic. My Grandma kicks ass. Durians later at Four Seasons Durian Cafe - snobby name for a roadside display of tables with the most heavenly durians. I think I'm in heaven.
(:
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