Ships that sail far.

*Checks picture taken by her cousin*

"Crap, Car-Men... We both look like freakin MOMS,"

I just laughed, "Gosh... We do, eh?,"

It was her wearing a white sun dress with blue flower prints and me clad in a pair of shorts that matched my flowing white beach blouse posed next to a half eaten birthday cake bearing the picture of the entire boyband One Direction. My birthday girl was to turn sixteen that day.

She's still one year younger than me... I always forget that.

It's not like what we wore really flaunted our post-teenage stage figures to the extent people would gasp and go, "Oh spring chickens" and all; it was nothing of that sort! "Laughs to myself" To my horror and good grief, we've simply not seen each other in a while. Make that a very long while. Long term separation and suddenly, reuniting out of the blue does this to people. If I were to contrast that very picture with all of the other pictures taken along the years; years when we both bore skin tones one shade darker than original and when we spent most of our time lazing under the heat of the Sunday sun watching golf balls fly past us, each ball carrying a spoken secret between ourselves and sharing weekly stories our life...... I would end up sailing in my sea of nostalgia, adding tears to the water beneath me as I go. We looked somewhat more wholesome back then, smiling without any holding back, just forcefully expressing ourselves knowing that we could. One year later and here we are, unable to accept the fact that...

ARGH. We are "old".

But what matters is that we grow old together. Two little girls holding hands walking down the boulevard of life. Even though I am unable to be as close to my Bij as to how we were before, everything else would remain unchanged. It is rare to find friendships of that sort. I knew it when she sat amongst her class of friends but still pulled me in their circle and held on to my hand. I would have done the same for her too :') 

In life, we sometimes have to make the wrong choices first, before knowing what the right ones are. With this year being the last year of having to endure school life, I've found my own little circle of people whose names I know that I'll carry with me, carved in my heart, wherever our paths will lead us in this very scary thing called- the future. It's funny how I tend to nickname every one of those people in the name of food,  most of them being fruits in particular :P And thanks to a very loyal Potato who would send almost daily reminders for a weekly update, this blog is still alive and Hae does not feel abandoned so much any more. I like that she's taking up the whole of my Tuesday evenings as well, doing fittier things like hosting our own All England Badminton finals or slow running past houses around a neighbourhood we'll call our "old neighbourhood" someday and swinging swings that'll reach beyond the skies. One day I'll recall these days and add more tears to my sea of nostalgia.

You see... Potato's leaving me next year.

It's hard for me to say it in front of her but even though the time we had together was short, and I may not have known her long enough to be there during the peaks and lows of her life; I want to thank her for our short everyday. So Potato, I want to thank you for every day, down to every missed call which I never answered, or days when you made me do things that I would have never dared to do "cough failed auditions", spicy Pan Mee Fridays and the times when you gave me pillar of strength (although short but it works) to lean on to. I could think of a thousand sorrys to say to you, but I wouldn't because I want to keep on making you feel pissed at me until the day we're say goodbye. You giving me an angry slap to my face is still better than any wet sobby tears.

I always talk about harsh realities and always try to make wistful foresights on what the future will bring and everything but in brutal honesty: I JUST DON'T KNOW. And I am VERY AFRAID of the future because if it's going to involve me having to talk about Bij, Potato and many many more people whom I care about in a past tense, I would rather not live in the chronicles of the future. Yes, I still have those days when I craved the past, and crave it so bad that I could still taste the bittersweetness of what yesterday had left behind. It feels like holding on to dead body of a loved one. You know it's wrong, and would do nothing better for the future but you would do it as a last time thing.

As a Buddhist, I feel like I've failed time and time again because I cling too much and couldn't let go of things. Things of the past in particular. Like the time when I would look back again and again at crowds of strangers trying to make sure that they're okay. The time when I had to give in to the monster in my head. The times when I fail to get the better end of things. Every pointless argument trying to win over nothing. Every lost friend, even those that I still want to keep. And sunken ships of an old love that almost seemed to have drowned too soon...

Gone, going too soon.
I heard it in your voice when your love died...
"Stay just a little"
I love that song from Kina Grannis.

With all the time that's left,
it's time to cherish...
all that's left.
"Sea breeze blows"
Before we reach the harbours.


Sails apart,
CCM.

Light years and Light hearts.

Many light years ago, I, CCM, genuinely believed that the world and universe revolved around me, and hence, all of life's greatest events will eventually fall in place, in co-ordinance with the alignment of the planets in the universe, and everything will always be in my favour. Hae. Forgive me... For being a spoilt brat.

I was a selfish and self-centered little monster; and if it weren't for today's blabbermouthing, chatterbox session with a table full of the women who once witnessed my lifelong habits, I would have forgotten the little faggot whom I used to be.

And true to be honest, I feel glad to be reminded of sillier times and light hearted moments.

I was the 7 year old girl who had to wave goodbye hysterically like a lunatic to my mum every time she drove out for work and if I missed my daily opportunity, I would call her another 4 times to repeat the word GOODBYE over the phone with my mum begging on the other end to hang up. I was the one year old baby who nearly gave my uncle a heart attack in the car because I was afraid of the darkness of the still night; which resulted in him buying a battery functioned lantern just to shut me up. Yes, the ones that played funny folk songs along with it, so it was turned on and off throughout the whole journey because it sounded THAT agitating. I was also the 5 year old who tried to chase a house full of relatives out of my grandparent's house during Chinese New Year because I could not stand the thought of strangers sitting on my favourite swing, and I got a generous red "ang pau"(aka caning) on my buttocks for that, compliments from my beloved grandfather. To top things up, I was the only lucky offspring to have received the "rotan"'s kiss(aka caning) from every adult in my extended family, which means a big deal because that puts me on the top of the naughty naughty list.

Looking back, I was a weird kid. The weird kid who gave everyone headaches and bitterbitter memories, since none of them were considerably sweet. As I write this, the father of one of my childhood friend just walked past me and exclaimed,"Waa it's so late, you're another Lester now, bedtime for him's 3 am," and that was coming from the same uncle who cleaned my runny nose after jumping out of a pool during my of those regular beach trips we would make with his family of two sons then, and looking at him now my thoughts just go into a state of full nostalgia. Sigh, how much he's aged. He used to look so handsome, being at the prime of his late thirties with more hair and shine in his skin. Now, he's older, I'm older, and Lester's probably sixteen and God, I have not seen him in ages. We would all roll in sand, along the shore until we touched the rim of the tiny waves that came up to the shore. Days of island hopping, island after island with seas of greenish blue and sands that felt like powder and being the children we were, we cared about nothing but the fun.

I still do have a recollection of fragmented memories, memories that shrink along as the days go by, pictures in my head that grow blurrer as I grow along with time. Like all of us, I believe that more and more of these jewels will disappear slowly as we try to create more treasures to keep in our jewellery box of life; so that's why it's important to find a way to remember them. Remember that every one of those bitterbitter and sweetsweet moments count. In fact, by experience the more you try to forget something, the more you'll remember it. It's life in paradoxical effect, and we can't deny that, or fall victim to life's greatest suffering- which is life itself.

Life, is FULL of suffering.

I learnt that from 17 years of being a Buddhist. You live, you suffer and you feel happiness. Same goes with emotions. To be able to feel hatred in any way, there must have been love, once. My strongest belief is that the love-hate relationships are the only ones to last forever. There's never full love and full hate for anything or anyone; because when two elements are in play, they need each other to forge the strongest bond or the tie will breakeven (Yes, love The Script).

Love, love, skinny love...
Because it's another one of those sleepless nights, I'll talk bedtime stories.

Being the idealist I was back then, eleven years old and wanting to be queen, I also wanted to be some else's princess. Such years were filled with innocence and naivety, I became prey... to my first puppy love. I called it my first because I started the chase, that stupid gimmick "LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT"... I liked that bastard. I wanted him so bad that I would cuddle up in blankets and hug my baby bolster wondering why he had to be so "good looking" and why can't God just make us cousins so that I didn't have to feel anymore for him than a cousin or nephew or something. Even up until today, I still remember that he sat in front of me, left seat, and how he turned out and sang Love story out to me not knowing how hard my heart beat when he did and how I would walk halfway across the class just to catch his scent. One thing that I couldn't remember was how the chase died. Well, thinking about those years make me smile now.

You think back to yourself going, "Stupid little girl,". That's puppy love for me. It's that phrase of life when you're undergoing a small part of an epidermic change that seemed like a milestone life event and you'll think that you've known nearly everything or maybe EVERYTHING. So that was why I believed that true love is all about feel and emotion, and whatever I saw that made my eye twinkle was all that mattered.

The 17 year old me now would pinch that eleven year old girl's cheeks and go, "You'll see what you'll think about that bastard when you turn seventeen,".

And for the sake of older times, I'll keep my lips sealed about what I think. But if I were to be able to travel in time, I would remind my younger self of my dear cousins words in one of her letters to me, "Unless if you're ready for it, don't,". I have felt deeply, before. But I was never ready, Hae. The one thing that could completely destruct me were my emotions, and time and time again, I was always the prisoner of love.

Trying to break away from its chains,
but we all know
that life's a circle and cycle
of sufferings
bittersweet
heartfelt moments......
And the more you resist,
the more you feel.
Still stuck.

Goodnight Hae,
CCM.

That's the thing about growing up...

It sucks. It's the most important stage of your life.

Because everything that has happened, or is yet to happen at this phrase of life, will eventually define the kind of person we'll turn out to be. Every mistake, fragment of soon to be forgotten memories, even the ones that don't matter much; will come back to haunt us someday. And when that someday comes, we could only wish that we were the same young batch of seventeen year old hopefuls trying to find our rightful places in this world right?

...Right?

... I'm honestly not so sure about that. At the moment, that is.

Hae.

I owe it up to you so much, for I should have written more. For deep down inside, I know that I'm no longer the same girl who wrote that depressing post about my nanny's suicidal attempt three months ago. It's only been less than a hundred days, but it feels like as though I've aged a hundred years. You know it when you look into a mirror.

Mirrors of time.

And feel like you've lost something. What was once a look of timeless innocence, a flower that's never withered once but stayed in its season of full bloom... Gone. There really is no explanation for it, except for the fact that sometimes, we really do lose ourselves in the midst of trying to find ourselves. In this phrase of time, living life in such routine, but the occasional hard bumps and knock downs that REALLY push you out there; to conquer the roughest and deepest waters and give you a chance to resurface...

Only to find that you're still searching.

Alas, forgive me, Hae, for being seventeen. However, I would remember to make a mental note to always and always remember how difficult it is to be seventeen and trying seek solace in this mad, crazy and world of ours. I want to look back and laugh at the tearful wet moments and cry over the moments that I'd swore that I'll never forget. 

Here's an interesting way to see "change": Music.

Hard to believe but inevitably true. Music is like another language, that does all of the talking through songs being sung by voice, maybe even a voice that does not belong to you, but when you replay the song in your head and literally feel in your veins, you feel that connection. Without knowing it, you start singing too. The world's biggest joke will be me rebooting my old phone to find that my 2011 playlist screamed nothing but what's loud and crazy- young renaissance. Don't get me wrong on this... I still have High School Musical tracks in my current playlist and yes, I'm never deleting those tracks. There's nothing so nostalgic as to listening to a song that drowns you into a pool of memories and you smile that silly smile to yourself. Crazy reminiscing. 

New Heights. Kina Grannis. Paradise Fears. The younger Coldplay. The older songs. The six string beauties I have at home.

I say, thank you for the music, the songs that made me sway against the wind instead of being blown away.

It's 12.23 am on my lappy, and it calls for another sleepless night.

However, I promise with all I have in and out and all over me...

Then I'll write about every other sleepless night,
what's...

innermost 

deepest

darkest

sweetest

"sour"iest

lightest

hardest

even the ones that I'd rather forget...

I'll tell all of them to you.

Because sometimes even I tend to forget...

That I made you to serve the very purpose...

Of remembering.

To remember who I am.

Love you,

CCM.