Monday, March 24, 2008
10:55 pm
It is very disheartening, when (pardon the obvious currently inflated state of my ego) people whom you've all along thought to mean enough to, just blatantly forgot about that day in your life that signified the anniversary of your existence.
Okay, so I don't really give much thoughts to my birthday, other than it's the one of many that compels us (my secondary school friends and I) to meet up, because we're all too busy with the different things in life that our birthdays end up being the only days when we can truly free up mutual hours to spend together.
But still, it stings that people who you think are friends enough didn't say anything, and had practically disappeared off the face of the earth since graduating from Polytechnic.
Not to mention that I had found out about a somewhat important life-event only through someone else's blog.
Can you believe that?
Then again, there are those who I've never expected to remember my birthday who have sent me well wishes. And I hardly talk to some of those people (as compared to the previous category of I-guess-friends), and at least one of them was someone I don't recall ever telling my birthday to.
And where does that put the rest of you, whom I've been patiently waiting for a message from, whom I did not dare hope to receive a message from, whom, as a result had my mind dancing and singing in an irritating chorus of "I told you so!"?
Pssh. Whatever.
I should curb my tendency to complain. I like to complain. It's an outlet for me to utilise my vocabulary when I'm in the mood, and when my mental thesaurus is feeling sufficiently cooperative.
Still, it's a nasty habit, and I should try to reduce the quantity and frequency of which I rant.
Anyway, today was my first day of working alone. Like, really alone, because the other guy who was helping me along the first few days went back to his studies and thus I had a miniscule controlled and calm inner panic session on Sunday because, what if I'm still as muddled as I was two weeks ago? What if I screw up? What if I felt stupid to the others working there? What if...
Ah... Bad habit number two: Paranoia.
I drive people (and myself) nuts with it.
Well, as it turned out, things weren't too bad today. At least, not as bad as my fatalistic mind had made it out to be.
*Huge sigh of relief*
One day at a time. Just gonna take one day at a time.
It's bittersweet, the hold you still have on me.
And yet it's pathetic, how I allow you to remain having an iota of propriety over my being. I won't say it's my heart that you have, because you didn't have it, and I was too young and not well-versed with the workings of people-relations enough to know how to go about giving it.
What you had was my time, hours I've wasted when I could get home earlier to get some rest and TV time just so we'd sit together for twenty minutes during the bus ride home, then chat for another ten minutes at the risk of my mother getting annoyed for my not getting home faster. A risk I took, because it's you, and that you're only less than a metre away from me.
You had my attention, and I didn't recognise it until years later, that you literally had me from "Hello." I grinned because you appeared at the extreme edge of my peripheral view; I laughed because you were laughing from something we said; I never fail to know just where you are if you're near enough for me to know.
Sometimes it hurts like an ache (clichéd, but true), when memories resurface. They still do. And then I'd take a moment to relive the past, of how young we were, and how foreign it all felt that it took two years and a friend to state things right in my face for me to finally see it for what it was.
I've thought about you today, although I can't forgive myself for doing that and had rolled my eyes at how uncharacteristically sentimental I was being.
I've always berated myself over the irrefutable truth that you had- still have- such a loose but definite hold on my mind, both conscious and subconscious.
I was waiting for the bus to take me to work, at the bus stop where we used to wait for the other bus that would take us to school. I've never admitted that I had begun taking the insanely-early bus just so I could spend thirty minutes more with you, have I?
So I was waiting for the bus today, far enough behind the stand that I was at the void deck of the HDB flat instead, in my highly-uncomfortable heels and breathing in toxic gases from some inconsiderate person who was smoking upwind, when I had this sudden urge to walk the few steps to the front of the bus stop so that I could look up at the apartment unit where you used to live just across the road.
I bet I could find it in a heartbeat, not needing to count up the number of storeys. Needn't ever, since the first few mornings when you waved to me from the corridor in the school uniform and with that silly grin and I had wished that the bus would be slow enough so that you could catch it, because that way we'd both be on it.
Then I realised how foolish I was in that moment this morning, so I focused on what my iPod was playing instead.
On my way home today, I got on the bus that passed by our secondary school. When it did, my eyes went straight for the first seat at the bus stop opposite the school's side gate. In my mind I saw the two of us racing to get that seat, and I bumped my finger on it in the process. You won, and I whined about a hurting pinky.
I feel really dumb now, that these things still seemed like yesterday to me; that it's just as fresh in my mind as if it had happened mere seconds ago; that you were grinning that silly grin and I was rolling my eyes at you.
It is really stupid. Even more so that I'm here blogging about it after so many years. And I'm annoyed at myself for periodically succumbing to the already-faraway recollections. Yet somehow, it's all right, because I really need to get this off, even though I know it'll be a long time before I can no longer remember the old days, the hour-long Saturday phonecalls, that thin scar in your right eyebrow, and that sparkle in your eyes.
Labels: TK