What I learnt in 2011

When it comes to relationships, you will never understand what she is thinking. But if both are willing to spend the rest of your lives figuring it out? You have found her.

There are times when people do not try, yet exist perfectly in unison. Then there is the complete opposite. I can try the hardest to be a part of your life but I know my place now.

Guys and girls can be just friends (on the surface).

Unexpected disappointments slowly become expected reality.

(Merry) Christmas

It is Christmas once again. Last Christmas, my heart belonged to someone who broke it this year.

Amid the festivities, parties and merriment, I feel alone. Accustomed to the excruciating reality that no one will love me for who I am, this loneliness feels bittersweet.

I am sick of who I have become. Weak, defenseless, fragile to a fault; how can I continue to pretend to be fine? There are days when I feel like hiding somewhere, blocking out everything that would bring tears to my eyes.

Waking up to every morn that breaks me down a little more takes its toil. Some nights I try to sleep and hope I feel nothing. Not anymore.

Thank you

Thanks for your laughter;
Your smiles, your words made my day,
With you beside me.

Do I dare?

It is 13 days to the end of this year. It will then be 488 days to my ORD. By 2nd January next year, I will be left with 1 year 4 months. That is a long time away.

The future excites me. So much unknown and so many knowns to decide on.

But the now scares me. I am afraid a wrong move will destroy everything I hold dear.

Question is then, do I dare? To risk it all on a game of chance and to possibly lose it all, never earning it back.

"And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;"

I don't think I can...

It's not just words

In the                      left

Right where you told me 

you needed 

to

go

stay

please.

510

It's a quarter after one, I'm all alone and I'm happy now.

Delusion

I am delusional. There are no other words to describe myself. There is no other way to explain the insane hope that fills my every fibre.

No, nothing changes just because I dream.

I need something good right now.

1

1 means so much more. It is novelty. The iconic symbol of firsts. A single index finger triumphant.

It stands, straight steadfast staring. Perfectly lonely.

We are One. But within the One lie ones, a sea of binary that seemingly lacks nothing.

Familiarity Hurts

Today was an important date to me. Important enough for me to justify staying up till the first moment of today, just because.

Today my parents decided to walk along the coastal path along Changi. It was at this very boardwalk that I had my last private and intimate moment with her.

The sea, lined with trees, so ubiquitous yet such a familiar sight.

I can't stop thinking about her.

Nvm

Today just proved how much I only wish and never achieve.

What is this feeling?

I have forgotten how it feels like to look forward to seeing a single person. I have forgotten how it feels like to read messages from that same person. I have forgotten how it feels to be the first and last person that person talks to everyday.

I am trying to find it again. I want to experience what I once did. I want to feel again.

But yet with this yearning comes this doubt, a doubt about whether what I felt was true. Was I right to term it love? Or was I completely wrong? Do I want to go through the whole cycle, culminating in a bitter breakup and losing a friend?

It is not easy being someone average. To try so hard just to fall so much harder? Sometimes I wonder "what's the point?" Today, even as I went about my daily duties, I thought about a girl. A beautiful, wonderful, kind and nice girl. I could never lose her as my friend.

I will not try, because I am afraid of losing her the way I lost the other. I will not attempt, because I know it will not be fair to her even if it works out.

I will suffer, struggle and survive alone. I do not need someone to be beside me all the time, just someone to be there for me whenever I need him/her.

This is my vow, my prayer, my plea. Give me the strength to do what I need to do and the courage to let go the things I must.

I love you, as a friend. I will never know if I can love you as anything more.

Dancing Through Life

Dancing through life 
Skimming the surface 
Gliding where turf is smooth. 
Life's more painless 
For the brainless 

Why think too hard?

Is this me?

You're perfect,
You're perfect,
So we're perfect together.

I have come to terms with what I am going through. I will never try to find someone to be perfect with. With each passing day, I become weaker and less able. I don't want to be a burden to anyone.

It is a happy song, no doubt. But there is a sad feeling of regret, loss and resignation when I listen to it.

Going

After today's test, it would seem that my chances of getting the university I really want are extremely slim. Hoping that what a senior said is completely true - that all the people that get into the university do not think that they deserve to. A veritable disease, as they term it.

Yet, the possibility of me leaving this place might be closer and larger than I had imagined. If what my dad said today comes to fruition, I could definitely be bound for another land.

It would be painful to leave this much past behind and to leave the familiar landscapes, buildings, people. Truly, it is impossible for me to imagine a new life somewhere else, to forge new relationships and let old ones fade. No way can the Internet replace face-to-face conversation or replicate the intrinsic feeling of the physical presence of someone that you love and care for.

But if I do leave, I would want to start anew. To start fresh and forget all the possibilities, those seized and those lost.

Do I want to go? I once mentioned that my head said no, and my heart said yes (to something else of course). Today I know, my heart says yes.

It says no too.

Forward

To keep looking back and wishing for times past would just make me extremely hypocritical. My words lose their credibility and that, being one of the reasons I am reminiscing now, is not what I want my promises to be.

I promised to move on, to forget her and to go our separate ways. I think I will do that from right now. I have so much more to look forward to, a new life elsewhere and new people to meet. I will find someone else to give my heart to, knowing full well she could break my heart as completely as this one did.

But hey, what good is life if you don't take chances? I'm jumping off the edge, taking the plunge, taking life as it comes. Whatever you want to call it, it is simply, a new beginning.

Distance

I was the one to tell her to forget me. I was the one to tell her that I hated her when all I really meant was that I loved her so much that she hurt me so much that I could not bear to tell her I loved her anymore. I was the one to give up on everything.

But giving up isn't letting go, is it?

I cannot let her go. She distances herself from me. Such cold, unfeeling politeness that is the same for a stranger and a lover cuts and seals, leaving a frostbitten scar as the only mark. Does she know that I still, in all sense of the word, love her?

She doesn't care I guess. Too far away to hear my cries, too long gone to see me stuck in a rut, looking at the little sparkles of light refracting through the crystals of ice she left behind.

Good bye, she says, and she means it.

At Peace (Finally)

I had remarked that there were two emotions that would implore me to blog twice in a day: happiness and sadness. Today I have to add another: peacefulness.

Ever since my sudden revelation about my faithlessness earlier today and my resolve to put my all in my Lord and Saviour, I am at peace with myself, with her and with everything that goes on around me. I guess the burden that I have been trying to bear on my own has been lifted by God and my life seems so much lighter, brighter and more beautiful than it ever was before.

No, it doesn't mean that I am no longer hurting because I lost someone I loved. It hurts as badly as it did before. I will cry when I think of her, when I remember everything I had and lost. But now I am no longer angered, embittered or devastated by the reality of the situation because I know this hurt is in God's plan for me and it will pass with the passage of time.

No, I will not forget her completely or even just a little bit. She was placed in my life by God to show me the errors of my ways, and she brought me back to God in different ways. When we were together, her faith and zeal for God breathed life back into my Christian life. I could not ask for anything more than the fellowship and support we had. We made mistakes and when we broke up, I hated God for doing that to me and I idiotically resolved to never look to Him for His plan anymore. Now I know that even this tiny monumental step in time was ordained by Him and His plan is slowly being revealed to me. God shall be the centre of my life from now on and everything I do will be for his glory.

I have been a blessing in her life, by her admission and not mine. As I continue on with my job in the army, continue being the tutor of 4 students, I want to continue being a blessing in others' lives. A tad ego but a goal nonetheless.

I rhetorically asked in an earlier post if I would ever find love again. "No", I adamantly answered. Perhaps this will be true but who can say this certainly this soon? It does not matter to me anymore if I find someone who loves me on this Earth. I will continue loving others the way I love her and God's love will be sufficient for me. If I do find love again? That will be a bonus but one I can live without.

Unknown Horizons

Tomorrow is the beginning of recess week for many of my ex-classmates and friends. Wonderful how time passes so quickly - they've already completed close to two months in university.

Tomorrow I will be taking a taxi down to CMPB to take pictures of interviewees, for publishing in an army publication that most NSFs view as propaganda. Pictures for a publication headed by an editor who treats us as "ikan bilis", our work deemed as not good enough for his expectations. Tomorrow I will be saying the exact same thing about tomorrow's tomorrow. Because there will be no difference for the rest of these two years (or 592 days to be exact).

I have a university position waiting for me in a local university but it is not for a course I want. I know I will be miserable there and nothing will motivate me to stay here and graduate from that double degree. Seeing my friends expand their horizons in the same field that I wish to be in brings me pangs of regret. It brings me back to the time when I had the chance to be a part of it all: the lessons, the breaks, the stress, the fun.

Till today, it has been four long months and I still wonder why I didn't make it then. Am I really not good enough? I have never excelled, always second best in competitive situations. This doubt holds me back even as I submit my application to the best (presently) university in the world for a course that even the best students in the world get rejected from. 22 positions - what are my chances? The other universities I am applying to are not any better, each with around 20 places for international medical students.

I have been told time and time again that I am a bright student, someone with the potential to go to the best universities, to possibly change the world or at least peoples' lives with my abilities. Yet external validation does little to change this little self-belief I have. I am told that I am able. 4 months ago, my confidence was shattered by a variety of circumstances. I do not feel that I am able.

I do not know where I am going or how I am going to get to this unknown place. I worry now that I am not up to medicine (what if they saw it, rejecting me because of that?) and if not medicine, what do I do?

Have you even been on a boat, out in the middle of the ocean and just completely surrounded by never ending bodies of water? Where you can look out and only see water touching the sky? I am being spun around by the waves, tossed by the currents and though I know where I am now, I do not know which shore I will beach on. My outer self seems clear about situations. I have counselled others on their own confused states, advised them on the paths to take out of their problems. This was to the point that others deemed me wise. Inside however, I am perhaps more confused than all of them put together. I see my horizons; I do not know where they will lead.

--------------------

It just occurred to me that such feelings of being lost and uncertainty might just be a sign that I have to turn to God. Out of the blue, I was given this memory of Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." The paragraphs above seem pointless now that I remember this verse. It would seem that I diverged from God's path 4 months ago. After I broke up with her, after I was rejected, after going through all the things that the army made me do, I think I really forgot who is upholding me till now.

Though now I remember that God's plan is the perfect one for me, I still cannot help by ask why I have to continue on blind faith. Ironic perhaps, but one must be faithful to continue having faith. Faith builds up and when grown strong, it cannot fail. Faith that faith works helps I guess. God has an outline, an unknown syllabus for me. My horizons are still unknown but I just have to attend the lessons He puts me through, and I shall come forth as gold.

I know that this blog is called reminisce, the URL being http://toforget-impossible.blogspot.com. Now, I know that the grace of God will change all that. I may not need to reminisce any more, I will, in time, forget all my past. God, my future is in your hands now. Keep me and glorify your own name through me. Thank you for giving me these sudden answers, these revelations to my thoughts.

An Eternal Question

It was said once by someone that if anyone could predict the behaviour of North Korea or its "Supreme Leader", one would win a Nobel Prize. This of course was an off-handed comment to suggest the unpredictability of the aforementioned nation as well as its propensity to threatening the peace of the rest of the world.

In light of all the world's issues, ranging from natural disasters like floods drowning Bangkok and droughts in China, to man-made ones like Japan's nuclear calamity and political upheavals in Libya and Egypt (etc. of course), it would seem then that the only question I have is trivial. A waste of time and mind perhaps, as some might say, better spent finding solutions to other more pressing problems.

It was a question planted in my mind some time ago. It resurfaced when my colleague mused at its irony. So, can true, pure unconditional love ever exist between persons? If not, in what modified form did I give and experience it? I thought I experienced such love but thinking back, she never really did love me the way she claimed she did. This could bias the discussion below so caveat emptor.

The premise of unconditional love is for one to love a person in his (or her) entirety, to love him for his qualities, flaws and so on. Every single cell/molecule if one wants to put it that way. It also asks one to love another without expecting love in return, or anything for one's self for that matter. It is a self-sacrificial love, perfect in its purest form. To think of the other without thinking for one's self.

Yet to love a person is to want the person to change for the better. It is human imperative to help a loved one be the best he can be. And how can it possible to love someone's flaws and still want them to change? Unconditional love is freely given and infinite. It does not end, no matter what, even if one observes flaws in a person. It perhaps is not so much the irony of unconditional love but the paradox of it - to love flaws one wants the person the change is not loving it at all.

It was proposed that unconditional love is an impossible concept for humans, only possible from God (a perfect being). Instead true love between (imperfect) individuals is said to be "conditioned" love, where kinks can be ironed out without losing the love he once showered on her and vice versa. In absolute terms, this is not unconditional love anymore but something modified to support and help each other in any committed or close relationship.

Thinking back to the times when I was still with her, I can say that there was neither unconditional love on my part, nor on hers. One reason she gave for the break up was my insistence that she changed parts of her life. She never did see that I meant it for her own good, she was too involved, blinded and stubborn to understand what I wanted for her. Though she insisted that she always thought for me, my feelings and ex cetera, I never saw it when she went about doing things behind my back and justifying it at the end of the day. Her words never held any weight, her promises worth even less. She never saw the blades she stabbed into me each and every time that happened. She left me bleeding and bled me dry without a second thought.

Yet she said she loved me. Unconditionally. I do not know what she meant by this love because betraying someone this cruelly and hurting someone so badly would not even fall under what I have identified as "conditioned" love above, even less as unconditional. All because I loved her, I tried, time and time again to forgive her, to point out her ways to her so she might change. These efforts were all dismissed as attempts to control her life. I became the bad guy in the relationship and my actions were the basis for the break up. Was this fair? No. Was this what I wanted? No. Was this what she wanted? Perhaps, from the very beginning maybe.

I should not be so quick to judge what she thinks. I should only write about what I know to be true. A moment ago, I was tempted to send her a message to tell her this truth: I still love her and I will never be fair to any girl I might meet for she will only be a replacement. I agree with my parents that I am a fool to have loved her and its only stupid to continue loving her when she has moved on with her life.

But stupidity is a component of falling in love isn't it?

Better in Time

It's been the longest winter without you

I didn't know where to turn to

See somehow I can't forget you

After all that we've been through

Going

Coming

Thought I heard a knock (Whose there, no one?)

Thinking that (I deserve it)

Now I have realised that I really didn't know

If you didn't notice

You mean everything (quickly I'm learning)

To love again (all I know is)

I'll be ok

Thought I couldn't live without you

It's going to hurt when it heals too

Oh yeah (It'll all get better in time)

Even though I really love you

I'm gonna smile because i deserve too

Ooh (It'll all get better in time)

I couldn't turn on the TV

Without something that would remind me

Was it all that easy?

To just put us out your feeling

If I'm dreamin'

Don't want to let it (hurt my feelings)

But that's the past (I believe it)

And I know that, time will heal it

If you didn't notice

Well you mean everything (quickly I'm learning)

Ooh turn up again (all I know is)

I'll be ok

Thought I couldn't live without you

It's gonna hurt when it heals too

Oh yeah (It'll all get better in time)

Even though I really love you

I'm gonna smile because I deserve too

Ooh (It'll all get better in time)

Since there's no more you and me (No more you and me)

This time I let you go so I can be free

And live my life how it should be (No No No No No No)

No matter how hard it is

I will be fine without you

Yes I Will

Thought I couldn't live without you

It's gonna hurt when it heals too

Ooh (It'll all get better in time)

Even though I really loved you

I'm gonna smile cos I deserve too, yes I do(It'll all get better in time)

Thought I couldn't live without you

It's gonna hurt when it heals too yeah

Ooh ooh (It'll all get better in time)

Even though I really loved you

Going to smile cos I deserve to

Ooh (It'll all get better....)

Dreams, are my Reality

I live in a dream. I survive in an imagination. All because I could never bring myself to see you again in real life.

I dreamt of you last night. It was a beautiful memory, a montage perhaps of all the times we spent together. It led on to what it could have been, an impossible future. But that's why it is called a dream, why I use the word "impossible". It will never happen.

You seem content with your life, busy working on assignments, completing projects that you must. Now I can't even find you online; you don't want me to be even able to take a glance at your profile picture. Why?

Sometimes I wish we had met in a different circumstance. I wish that we had just remained friends, perhaps even good friends. I wish we had never gotten together, never spent those times we did, never became as close as we were.

I should stop using the word "we".

The irony lies in the fact that I am only wishing such things precisely because I became close to you, I spent those times with you, I had gotten together with you. I became more than a good friend to you, I became more than a friend to you. Friends don't hurt this badly even when they fall out with each other. But you were, and still are, more than a friend to me.

"You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams." - Dr. Seuss

I used this quote once, twice. When dreams are the only reality I want then, how does this quote apply? I have reached a point where I know thinking will only make things worse. I know that I have to deaden myself to these emotions, these wishes, these hopes, knowing that they will always only be what they are - dreams.

I will work hard in all that I do now not because I want to but because I have to. I will go away in less than two years, move away from everything here that reminds me of you. I won't come back till I am completely sure that my heart no longer aches for you.

In achieving other aspirations then, I will forget this past reality and these impossible dreams. You've left your mark; I hope you're happy.

Small Things

I still can remember how she made me guess her number.

Remember the first movie we watched. Remember all the movies we watched. Remember the last movie we watched.

Remember how we talked late into the night, over the phone, over Skype, over MSN, over email.

So many small things I still can remember. Yet the small things are what make each and every relationship unique. Girl meets boy, boy meets girl, girl gets boy, boy gets girl - isn't this the general story arc for any love story? Throw in the intricacies of notes, talks, dates, kisses, hugs and these are the things that will make the story special.

Did she think our story was special? Or was it a run-of-the-mill, cringe worthy, dime a dozen love story? Whatever she might think, I don't care. To me it was my first love and as they say, the first love is special. First loves, it is said, last forever. I will make it last forever because it is the small things that will make me remember her forever.

It is the small things that will never fade. On my desk lies a dartboard, one that has accompanied me from childhood. There is a plastic folio behind it and inside, there are bits and pieces that are hers. I do not dare look behind that dartboard for I know those things will only make me miss her more.

I don't think she misses me any longer. I am glad that she doesn’t. I am happy if she can move on without me, without missing me at all, to find someone she can consider her true love and to find someone she can be happy with. That someone will be a lucky person and he better take good care of her.

It's about time I let her go from my life. A new chapter is opening for me and I've resolved to never let such small things affect my ultimate goal in life. I will care for others in the occupation I am aspiring towards; I don't need a special someone to care for me.

Yes, I think I have given up on love. Let's wait for someone new to change my mind.

Admonishment

I sincerely hope you attended the morning service today. I think it was a sermon that applied both to you and me. I hope you understand why I did what I did in the past. I know that you might not want to believe that my actions might be justified. But they are and I do not feel so bad admonishing you now.

There are so many things I warned you about, so many things I wished you didn’t do, so many things you still went ahead and did anyway. You said that you cared for my feelings, but true to your heart: can you say that you did? I waited for a month, 3 months, 6 months, a year and did you try to change? Maybe the naysayers were right for once.

You weren't meant for me.

I wish, wish so badly that I could continue to be your friend, to help you grow in the years ahead, to be there to assist your maturing, to make you a better person. There are reasons why I cannot be your friend anymore and most of them are out of my control. This hurts me because it is a Hobson's choice.

I know you won't forgive me for all that I've done. But if you do see this, I will try to explain that I did it out of love for you. I wanted you to be better, not for me, not for others but for yourself and for Christ. All the times you have made me feel like the bad guy for doing so and you might still feel that way. I am content knowing that I know that I did it out of love and not the intention to shame or humiliate. You don't need to agree.

Because I still love you.

I used to know

Now and then I think of when we were together
Like when you said you felt so happy you could die
Told myself that you were right for me
But felt so lonely in your company
But that was love and it's an ache I still remember

You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness
Like resignation to the end
Always the end
So when we found that we could not make sense
Well you said that we would still be friends
But I'll admit that I was glad that it was over

But you didn't have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened
And that we were nothing
And I don't even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger
And that feels so rough
You didn't have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records
And then change your number
I guess that I don't need that though
Now you're just somebody that I used to know

Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over
But had me believing it was always something that I'd done
And I don't wanna live that way
Reading into every word you say
You said that you could let it go
And I wouldn't catch you hung up on somebody that you used to know...

But you didn't have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened
And that we were nothing
And I don't even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger
And that feels so rough
You didn't have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records
And then change your number
I guess that I don't need that though
Now you're just somebody that I used to know

I used to know
That I used to know

Somebody...

Waiting

1 week since I've last spoken to her. It will soon be 1 month, then 1 year, then a lifetime. I am waiting for something, I just don't know what it is. Am I looking for closure? Am I seeking life to pass faster so that the end comes quicker? So that I will not have the suffer this pain for that long?

Maybe that something will never exist. Sometimes, I wish her happiness, for her to move on with her life contented without me. At others, I cruelly wish that she cries for me, to move on without loving another. Yet I know this will never happen. So quickly, she has moved on without me, it was something she already wanted for a long time. She is happy, she is alive. Without me. Did she cry for this loss as much as she did for her past experiences? Do I really want to know?

I didn't want it to come down to this. I wanted to celebrate her birthday with her for a second time. I had her present picked out, I had already planned to buy it.

I am waiting forever. For an endless pain to disappear.

You Aren't Here/There

How do two souls so in sync tear themselves apart in such a short time? How can they walk down the road of a year, of 365+ days of constant conversation, then take the split roads that take them apart? How do you expect me to live alone when you were always there?

All my life I've tried

To make everybody happy while I just hurt and hide

Waiting for someone to tell me it's my turn

To decide

Song lyrics speak truths. They speak the innermost feelings of my heart without needing me to form even a single word. Yet, I've learnt that there is no pleasing everybody. I gave up my own love for the comfort of my loved ones. I hurt you to heal the rifts in my relationships with others I loved.

Just hurt and hide. I am told to embrace my fears, bare my sadness, open up to others to let them know how I feel. I cannot do that because it would simply make everyone around me upset again. I know, I have tried. So yes, hurting and hiding, this has and always will be my modus operandi.

Because the only one I stopped hiding from no longer seeks.

You aren't here anymore. I promised you that my heart was only yours and would forever be yours, no matter if I could be with you or not. Do you remember this promise if promises even mean anything to you? It does to me, and I'll keep it till the end of my life. Maybe I am jaded and I will regret penning this down as a tangible record. But I do not want to go through this all again so I won't try again. My promise is not perfect and it would be selfish to write this, but I will anyway: I had hoped you made the same promise to me.

I don't think you ever did.

Losing Myself

To control a nation, you have perhaps two options. One is to provide for your citizens' needs, to give them what they need and they will maybe love you for what you have done. Two, which could possibly be the preferred option, would be to work them to hell and not give them the time or energy to think about what may be or what they can do to make things better.

That is the power of work. Facing a goal, moving towards it, sometimes you hardly remember what happens around you anymore. You lose yourself in the process, forgetting things that might be important to you in the past, present or future. Sometimes this is for the better: who hasn't heard of stories where people who are jilted in love push themselves to the limits in their occupation, trying to forget the unwanted truth that brutally confronts them.

I try. I used to think that the lax hours of my current posting would benefit me, give me some rest instead of being for example an infantryman/rifleman cleaning their rifles after "chionging sua". I thought that it would be good, but when I am trying to shake loose my past, time on hand is not something I want. I truly want to lose myself in my work, to seek goals related to my current work and my future occupation.

I used to hate running, how the pounding of feet on a track doesn’t do anything but bring about pain. I used to think it was pointless. There was no enjoyment I could glean from the activity. I've started running: Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays (although only on a treadmill) and I think it boils down to me not feeling the pain anymore. It is possible that mental anguish can drown out physical suffering. I think I have experienced that for myself.

I do not cry anymore. Sometimes I try to but I am too far gone to feel sadness anymore. I am resigned to the world being a cruel place, surrounded by faux laughter and pseudo happiness. I don't feel sad anymore, because there is nothing that deserves this emotion. Nothing. I cannot feel sad for a world that decided one day that what I considered to be happiness and bliss should disappear forever. Vanish indeed, into thin air, leaving me grasping for something that never existed, does not exist and will not exist. I leaned over a cliff to touch something that I could never have and fell into a valley that I will never leave.

Yes, I have changed. Have I lost myself yet? I don't know. But I do know that I will in the end and because of you, I will never be the same person. The old Matthew is lost to the wind, torn to shreds by the vortex of betrayals and lies.

Maybe I'll grow old and become a cynical old bastard. But that's what you get when you're a cynical young man.

I'm tired.

I wish, I wish upon a star

To take me away from this place. To bring me somewhere where I can start anew.

There is another reason for me to want to go. It is a reason bigger than the compulsory service I am doing currently. It is a reason, perhaps the only reason right now that would make me want to leave.

It breaks my heart to say this, but I want to go away because you are here. Yes, you know who you are if you ever do chance across this blog.

In one stroke I lost much I held dear and hoped for. In one month actually, and it was the worst month I was going through in national service. Distraught, stressed, angst - these words would not have been able to describe the mental state I was in that week. I silently cried, every single night, with tears that would not fall. I had to suck it up, take it all as it came: the pain from the break up, the disappointment and sadness from the rejection, the berating and scolding from my superiors. I had to put on a face, to appear like nothing was wrong. On the inside though, I was writhing and wincing from the pain that came from within.

1 month that made a whole difference to what I believed in. I believed that there was such a thing called care. Now I realise I can care for others but there will never be any reciprocity. I believed that there was such a thing called trust. With so much betrayal, how can I expect to trust anyone from now on? I believed that there was such a thing called concern. I guess that exists only in an adulterated form.

I believed that there was such a thing called love. Now I don't.

I wish, I wish upon a star that I can believe again in love. I'll do that better if nothing around me is familiar, I don't know anyone and I can start again. A new chapter, in academics, in social life, in love, in life. Will I find that overseas? Or is it the memory that counts, that determines this ability to forget the past and to forge a new future?

I wish I had missed the first time we kissed cause you broke all your promises.

I cannot be your friend, never again. I think that is what hurts me the most because I never trusted anyone with more than a portion of my heart till I met you. I gave you my all. It was a mistake and as they say, a mistake is a lesson. I have learnt, I have grown wiser but a little more disillusioned with the world around me. I don't think I'll ever try to find friends any more and I'll keep those I have right now at arms length because of you.

I keep trying to escape from the pain. But with something that stems from within, that comes from my entire heart, my entire being, will there ever be true relief? Can metaphorical glue or tape hold the pieces of my heart together? How long will I need to heal? Is there a place where I can go to recover faster? Scars can still hurt you know.

I have learnt that it is possible to hate love, no matter how oxymoronic it might seem. I guess the real question I keep asking myself is this: will I ever love again?

The answer? No.

Till the day I can't remember

I will be writing here.

I had the misfortune of roaming around Square 2 yesterday. I had time on my hands so I figured, why not walk around and see what I can find? Bad idea. To see a table in a ramen shop and remember how I once had a good time there, having a meal with someone I once loved. To remember how I walked from a hospital across the road, meeting someone up just to grab an ice cream. There are too many memories in that place.

There are too many memories everywhere I look.

I wept as I played the 2nd movement of Pathetique today. Yes, I feel pathetic, crying over something that is already lost to me. It used to be a favourite, now it just hurts to even hear the soothing melodic strands that stream out from beneath my fingers. My fingers can play the piano, but my heart no longer can bear it. What used to be a blessing now is just a cursed memory. I never want to hear that song again.

Till the day I can't remember. That's a hope.