Complete

We run away from the things that hurt us, that scare us, that we don't like. We run away to be protected. Out of the 36 stratagems in Chinese history written by one of the most famous politicians, the best is to get away at once. Okay so I think it's time to talk about bees.
Bees are more likely to sting moving objects. You are supposed to stand still when there is a bee around you. Bees are more likely to sting the person that runs from them. You are supposed to run away from the things that hurt you. But why does running away from this boy that doesn't love me back hurt a hell lot more? Perhaps this should be the real bee talk our parents should do when they refer to "The Birds and the Bees". Last night I started questioning if there's actually any complete protection over self. And I got nothing. You can get hurt by any means. And I guess "run away" doesn't do what I first told you just now anymore.

For the past few days I've been unable to word, or just to communicate. I feel like a piece of fabric put under the running water. There's nothing that I can carry because everything keeps leaking out of these loopholes that make up 80% of my being. Am I nothing or am I too much? I've always been the only one that's standing in my own way.

I met this boy who had a lot of amazing stories to tell, and could mesmerize people in an instant with his adventure tales of his life in the University of Oxford. Out of all the things we talked about, there's this special one about an interesting girl he mentioned that I could never possibly get over. Among the 14 scholars in Oxford (including my friend), there's an 18-year-old girl who can master 18 different languages, and has written a book using her own new language that captures all the valuable advantages of the 18 she knows. There are words in some languages that can never be translated into other languages. In Germany, people use "waldeinsamkeit" to convey the feeling of being alone in the woods. Cualacino is an Italian word for the mark left on a table by a cold glass. There's a word in Inuit that means the feeling of anticipation that leads you to keep checking to see if anyone is coming. Iktsuarpok. It seems like combining all the languages in the world might probably express every corner of human's intricate minds. But here I am, feeling iktsuarpok for someone in mind, frustrated by my inability to look for a word to deliver my ideas. I can't say that I don't love him anymore, but if he needed a light, I would set myself on fire. In the sense of doing that, I figured that nothing has changed. I still do. I still do. And tell me now, what's the word for that?

If you haven’t already known that there are animals that can regenerate their lost or damaged body parts and be immortal, here's a list of them: Lizards, worms, sea cucumbers, spiders, sponges, starfish, crayfish, salamanders, etc. Regeneration takes place because the poor animal wants to keep living. It's like their mechanism against nature; against death. Worms can grow a new head right after you cut it in half. Salamanders can grow a new tail if it is lost. Humans, however, are not able to do this. When we lose our limb, we lose our limb. When we die, we die. And this is the part that I never seem to understand. In Alexa Chung's book "IT", she mentioned about something Marianne Faithfull told her. "Nobody goes through life without having their heart broken and one day you'll wake up and it will be okay." And this is true, because I see people being okay even with a broken heart. A friend once told me that her church mentors said that falling in love means giving the other person an opportunity to crack your heart in half. Falling out of love means that the half cracked part is thrown away. So the more times you love, the smaller your heart is going to be. When humans lose what we lose, we can never replace it. I have lost a huge part of my heart, and the heart is the major part of the human body, and according to the fact I mentioned, it's unlikely to regenerate itself. So how does a person "wake up one day and be okay" when all that I feel is that I'm dying with this quartered-heart? Why can humans survive with a half-dead heart without regeneration?

I'm going to be 19 in about two months, and the only thing I can tell you is that the world is indeed very weird. Water can slip through fingers but it can hold up a ship. There are questions that can never be answered. Deserts should be dry and hot during daytime but it snowed in Egypt. And the people that don't deserve to be loved are the ones that need it the most. Nothing is ever everything because everything is incomplete. There are many loopholes and we're all running water that goes through it. And the biggest loophole of all? You have to let the world be incomplete in order to make it complete.

Before We Break

This is probably the first time I've picked up my pen since having told that I couldn't get into any university. If my younger self was reading this, she'd shake her head no, disbelievingly, "Man, this is so not how it's supposed to be!" And it was exactly what came into my mind a month ago. Instantly I turned into a house full of regrets. Instantly I was the girl back in first grade who lost her balance and stumbled on the trampoline floor. Instantly I couldn't react to the final knockout countdown while lying on the mat of the boxing ring. Everything was true except that I was actually lying on the wrong side of my bed, with the air-con turned on as cold as it would go. Man, this is so not how it's supposed to be.

No it's not. Nothing is ever how it's supposed to be. As I was making space for writing, the chaotic objects on my desk brought me back to before I break.

My desk is a mess. The tarnished handwriting across the edge of the desk of what I thought I deserved, "Please please please let me get what I want this time." I almost forgot how hard I pleaded until my guts hurt. Whoever I thought was listening, might have marked it 'spam', because none of these things that I craved for has happened yet. But by and by I have reached the checkpoint of understanding that sometimes people think they want the biggest strawberry but they really don't.

My desk is a mess. A white shoe box full of my tools for art lessons when I imagined I could grow more kinds of flowers in the garden of the visual arts' field. It turned out the only thing I grew was sorrow, and I was no more than just a little bug in it that couldn't change anything. But then it started raining paper and the caterpillars on my fingertips reminded me that my next draft could be expressed through words, which was also a form of art. That draft was a masterpiece and those caterpillars have become butterflies and some of them are still alive.

My desk is a mess. Next to the box were fragments of an old copy of Teen Vogue that I'd torn up into bits. The self-image issue got across me pretty fast. Somewhere between the shattered mirror pieces on the palms of my hands, I learnt that trying to be the person you're not is wasting the person you are. Besides, nothing can hurt you when you accept yourself completely.

My desk is a mess. Under the postcards from a far side of the planet, something caught my eye – two key chains I bought for a boy I loved so much it made me sorry but still, I wouldn't regret a single day. One for myself and one for him, "Bring it to me when I come back from England, yeah?" but he walked out of my life before I had the chance to. I got him a fucking adorable key chain and the only things he got me were red eyes from last fall. Before I met him, I was this person who's always getting ready to leave when she finally felt at home. He walked through my door and I didn't want to be a nomad anymore, I wanted to go back. But it wasn't really my choice because he was the one who left. Most nights I just wanted to tie him up with a rope so tight that it cut off his circulations and I would auction him off to the promises he was meant to keep. Even until now, hearing his name in someone else's mouth still makes me shy and it makes me feel bad for feeling this way. And I thought the only meaning left of the key chains was that love isn't enough. But now that I have picked myself up from tripping over Cupid's shoelace, everything's crystal clear. No, love isn't enough. But I can be.

My life is a mess. Those mornings when you've awoken with nothing and no one, the nights when you wonder what it feels like to use your premium credit card to get a piece of beef unstuck between your teeth, but fall asleep being convinced that nothing will ever be what it's supposed to be because the things you would die for haven't really occurred even once. Tell yourself that it doesn't matter, because you are pregnant with the fondest memories and they are the "future" that's not supposed to happen but somehow they did, and it's what keeps you from driving your car off a bridge. Before we break, keep in mind that our future is always, always late.

Out of the huge mess I didn't expect would happen, the passion for writing knocked on my door and turned my house of regrets into evergreen – a forest that never goes dry. On the shelf above my messy writing desk, there's a line which I decorated it with two years ago: In all this chaos, we found safety.

A Great Perhaps

A backpack full of all the things I should bring and a head full of all the things I should leave behind, a hand-me-down suitcase stringing along my side like the Golden Retriever dream-dog I'd always wanted when I was little, the pressure on my knees felt lighter than usual out of the blue. There's a pebble in my pocket which I had taken from one of my mother's aloe flowerpots before going to the airport. It'd always been what I liked to do; to take a little piece of home with me whenever I leave, so that I'd never forget to think of this city without remembering all its details.

My plane had taken off before the sun even rose above the horizon. I took out the black pebble I brought. It looked like a piece of coal back in the flowerpot at home, but here - its surface had dulled; its color washed out; it looked smaller. How peculiar it is that when you take what you love from its home, it becomes so much less. This was not a peregrination. This was just a four-day trip to a place about 400 miles from home. But it had been a while since I got away from the city where we fell in love and meant it.

I like travelling. I like how you can go places to look for the landscapes that resemble the world inside your head with no roads and no maps. I like taking all the wrong turns and still think that they're the turns worth taking. I like the idea of having an extra place to contain my overwhelming thoughts in a way that I start to feel so small. I like to build another story on somewhere new, fairy tale or tragedy, there'd always be sunsets and skylines that will keep it, rear it, ripe it. And reap it just to set a fire that is enough to light up the towns. That's what people say, in order to dig a deeper hole, you need to empty what was in it. In order to learn something new, you make spaces for other things to stay. So I turned myself inside out and poured everything away. That was to make sure I wouldn't end up in a common shallow grave.

It was not until the second evening after a talk with my friends that I realized we're all healing. We touched one another's wounds as if our past couldn't hurt us here. We took it out like a weapon. We talked until our words tripped and fell, picked themselves up, and dusted the dirt off their knees. Life has a flavor but it's buried under the soil. Life has a flavor you'll never know until you fall face-down in the dirt. Mint and hazelnut, I can never forget how it tasted. We might be young, but we're old enough to see that we can still be free when we're shattered. It will pour tomorrow but we're not weak today. From broken homes to battle scars to who we are, I've seen the many possibilities of loving people with all the little pieces. That night I thought I fell asleep in the sea, and it wouldn't be any scarier even if I jumped head-first into the water because there was no sadness for me to drown in.

I sent my future self a postcard the next day and attached a runaway smile that was worth the entire following year. If anyone could've saved me, it would've been myself. On the way to the airport, I reached my hand into the pocket and found the pebble I brought. It looked even duller. I threw it into the plants at the entrance and for whenever I come back, it should get smaller. You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens. And when it does, you will have found what you've always been looking for, or something much greater than that. But before this, you might first need to put yesterday behind. I have found a way to live. And it has been in my back-pocket after years of never knowing it was there.

While we were at the top of the world where it seemed like the sun was only seven miles away, I thought of the rusted empty shell I left behind and how much I had changed that I wouldn't ever want to come back home and be the person I used to be. No matter where I am, in Hong Kong or Taiwan, I would be carrying this new shell with me and I will start writing a new chapter that is so unfamiliar that the memories couldn't tip-toe around my mind and try to stir me.

The plane landed and it was getting dark. Coming back to this small city felt like holding hands with all the things I lost. But it didn't hurt a bit because I've taken it down with all the strength I'd been saving up. And this time, I opened my eyes. Someone once said to me, "Never close your eyes when there's something for you to see." And this is what I'm telling you and myself, too. Because right now, my God, you should notice how the city lights are looking at you as if you are something so much more than you could ever call yourself.

Our Realm

In between falling asleep and a dreamy land, where the fish in the pond never needs to be fed and the lawn in our backyard never has to be mown, there is an empire built by two. I'd like to go there once in a while, walking barefoot down the street of our used-to-be's. Anyone would be captivated after having only a glimpse of this world. It was built by our own hands brick by brick, with all the beautiful things we could ever imagine. The smell of a roaring fire. The never ending soundtrack of an ice-cream truck. Messy handwritten poems on napkins. There's a cozy little town where music is played 24/7. I'd trace the source with my ears, until I reach an indie bar. Only will there be smiles that welcome me, because it's exactly what I'd want it to be.

Time is unknown to the people and I wouldn't mind spending a life-time learning to dance Waltz with clumsy old men. At the far end of this splendor, we made it forever-Summer. Back in their world, they'd probably call it a "suburb", because there is a field full of the world's loveliest flowers. The cottage behind is his favorite blue and the yellow that'd make me happy too. It was constructed with ugly things which we'd wished they would turn pretty in here. The pouring rain in December. The fallen petals of he-loves-me-not's. The hurtful truths and the devilish dares. Busted lies and stolen heartbeats. Phony promises and empty apologies. Lying on the dandelions, I need not a net; just simply spread out my arms, butterflies would come and make a bet. And after that, far, far away I shall go, so as to show the seeds how wonderful it is to live in our world, for they have hitchhiked on the seams of my woolen sweater, they deserve a magic ride to witness something better. But the saddest words to be understood, are that this place is no-good to linger. Even Robert Frost knew that one should only get away from Earth a while, and come back soon after to begin over. And so I shall only stay before the rain in my heart spills over the brim, for I know heaven would remind me too much of him.

There isn't an explanation of his departure, one of the architects that got away. I guess after all, to the backbone, he's not a believer and maybe he was scared that later on he'd go astray. So Reality was what he chose, at long last I couldn't lead him by the nose. And now I'm the only one left to watch over this forbidden land, I might as well keep it secure as much as I can.

This world is safely locked in a dungeon, but silly me, I always mistakenly let others in, and they long to further explore our masterpiece. Oh dear, in case anyone doesn't know me, I am twice as selfish about this place as I can be. So forgive me if I forcefully push you away, for it is now the only thing I own that would stay.

Spring

Expect nothing, they say, so you won't be disappointed when it turns out the other way. And that's what I did when I left a party on 420, half drunk, with only a few bucks in my clutch, looking for a cab in my velvet-peach heels at 4 in the morning. It was me at my worst but it was also me at my best when it came to the last chance of saying goodbye before his flight on the next day. Drunken words, sober thoughts, and yet I'd forgotten to leave some cash for myself to go home. I didn't know where I was going and every step felt like a mile but the only thing I did was sending him a text, “its freezin n im on my way 2 c u”. I didn't know where I was going and I didn't know where I'd been. My feet hurt but it was okay because at least I felt something. I got into a cab and I cried as I was telling the driver the address and that my feet was hurting so bad and I asked him if a hundred bucks were enough to reach there because it was all I had. I cried even harder when he said yes, and asked me if I was okay. I said, “I will be.” when I got off the taxi and made my way to the sidewalk where I waited for him. “Are you still cold? Hmm?” He spoke in small, small words, keeping his voice low as if he didn't want to wake the ghosts of our past. It was like a hello and goodbye all at once but there were still so many feelings that I carried and this scene didn't have to be. It was just us, sitting in the dark, and we got nothing left to say - only the beating of our hearts, but one's a drum and the other's a pebble thrown into a lake. It was the first time we felt so disconnected and yet, so close and so familiar. I looked at him and the only thing that came to my mind was the picture of icicles melting under the sun. Beautiful things are so easily destroyed by the world. Beautiful things are so cold. Beautiful things only stay for a season. My feet were hurting, but then another part of me decided to join in. “I don't want to walk the remaining roads with you anymore,” he finally broke the ice. I told myself that I didn't expect anything anyway. So I nodded and jokingly said, “My feet hurt.” He gave me money to go home, and before I left, I said there was no point in seeing each other again in the future and I waited for him to say something. But I guessed he agreed because I watched him walk away in silence. It was 6 when I got home and I told the driver to keep the fucking change. It was me at my worst and it was me at my best. That night I laid in bed as the aftertaste of melted icicles drained into my throat. The only feeling I had was the pain in my feet, and everything else was numb, God, so numb. But for some reasons, it's utterly unbearable to be like this.
I guess expecting nothing can disappoint you just as much.

You can't choose what stays and what fades away

Mirror Mirror on the Wall

Nobody ever notices another person's hidden wound until it starts releasing a fetor that can sting your olfaction for weeks. There are wounds that mend, and there are wounds that ulcerate. The mirror in my bathroom was hung at just the same level as the top of my head to my chest. Before I walked into the bathtub, I stood naked and stared at the mirror for quite a while as I thought about how much people actually knew themselves when they hadn't even really seen their own faces directly. I stood naked and examined my appearance with my fingers brushing across the overlooked wrinkles and wondered how they got there. There are bags that hung like cradles under my eyes from sleep deprivation and tiny acne under my chin from the stress of the pursuit of happiness. I thought about how isolated we were; no matter how many faults we could spot on people's faces, no matter how often we mingle with one another in words of care and deeds of love, there were significant parts of us that could never be seen by any of them. I ran my palm down my chest, maybe that's a good thing, I thought. Because in here, beneath this rib cage, there was a hollow container. This place looked more dreadful than an empty piggy bank that everyone would frown on. This place was as wounded as a bear's leg caught in a bear trap. This place was as negligible as a phantom limb. I felt a bit relieved when I couldn't see it in the mirror, and sometimes I even forgot about its existence.

There was this time when I was little, I accidentally pierced a needle through my thumb. My finger didn't look very pleasant, of course. It was the kind of wound that would make people feel your pain just by looking at it. It was the kind of wound that would make me feel the actual pain multiplied by ten when I thought of it. So I came up with a solution. I put a band-aid on it and pushed the bloodstained memory to the back of my head. As time went by, I forgot about the injury; it was numb and easy. Two days later, the wound started to ulcerate, and the pain intensified. With the help of my parents, it recovered a week later, somehow. But at the same spot where the needle penetrated, it left a scar that was only visible if you paid enough attention to. Every time I looked at my thumb, tremors traveled from the nerves underneath the scar through my spine to my entire body, reminding me of the horrible scene years ago, and my finger simultaneously felt the same ache under subconsciousness.

I have found myself yet again in a state I absolutely did not anticipate. It's not my finger this time. It's somewhere inside; somewhere invisible to our naked eye. After putting a band-aid over it, I told myself that it wouldn't hurt as long as I didn't think about it. This wound was gouged deep and wide; as immeasurable as the depth of a well. There was treasure inside that had been excavated, and nothing was left. But based on the experience of a ulcerated wound, it's untenable for further damages in virtue of such mistreatment. And soon enough, this wound started to reveal itself to me and others. I endeavored to loot from others and cram things into this hollow wound of mine. It felt worse eventually, as it should be. I rued how ignorant of me to disregard where I was damaged because even if I found a cure, there would be an eternal scar branded on it. And it would hurt whenever it beat.

The first book that led me to think the most was Looking For Alaska by John Green. I was an intact closed-bud when I first read it, and I can't believe it is still very relatable for me. In the book, Miles Halter once said that, "At some point, you just pull off the band-aid, and it hurts, but then it's over and you're relieved." Maybe that's what we should do, too. Let air reach the wound, let it breathe, let it heal. And as you're doing that, replenish yourself not with others but with what you have. Most people tend to ask for something in return to fill up the hole inside, which will prevent them from healing because they only put the focus on what is gone, instead of asking themselves what should really be stuffed into the wound. I guess I was most people.

Before you choose to give yourself away, piece by piece, you have to be willing to let go of these parts of you, instead of looking at those empty spaces as places that you need to fill as soon as possible. Look at them as places for you to grow into; as a breathing room. It can be a result of losing yourself by pouring others into these cracks because it is as if the materials that will never be a part of us in the case of a dental filling. Let the wounds show and let yourself go. Carry yourself with the idea of wholeness and let yourself in. There are things that leave, but there are also things that continuously come in and choose to stay for good. So when you give away yourself lovingly, pick the people who deserve it, and never be ashamed of this unconditional bestowment, because we can only let the pain go by letting ourselves go.

The mirror in my bathroom was hung at just the same level as the top of my head to my chest. Apart from the wrinkles and acne that could be observed, I awoke the courage to see my long hidden wound beneath the band-aid. And in this empty space, there was a new-found purpose budding where blood pumped through.

Genesis

"God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light; 
and God saw the light was good, 
and he separated light from darkness. 
He called the light 'day', 
and the darkness 'night'. 
So evening came, and the morning came; 
it was the first day."
Genesis 1.1 


This was what happened before light was separated from darkness. There was a rocking ocean inside a pupa. There was a rosy lunula covered with draining magma. There were 9 months named after the gestation period. Then there arrived a new face. And there was no cord attached. There was a place to rest in. And there was a factory to mold this new face. There were labors who worked through words and not by hands. There was a routine. There was monotony. And there was a long haul. There were brilliantly molded faces that once fled a much bigger pupa. There was the anatomy of earth. And there was a God, or so they said, and He said, "Let there be light," and here I am. A part of me was born, and another part of me, too. 

From a very young age, I've been living with the kind of control that can push me to a higher realm of consciousness and achievement; the kind of control that one can lose easily. The kind of control that if once is lost, it takes almost a lifetime, or so that's how long it felt like, to learn to regain. If humans could live to a hundred years old, I would at least be over 200; a century for getting by in darkness, and another for living in light. 

It's funny how ordinary it is when it rains on someone else, but when it rains on us, it always feels like a hurricane. There was a time when I was poured over, and the sun never came out. I lived in darkness, and darkness I became. How inequitable it was, that everyone could bathe in sunshine and yet I was thrown into this giant whirlpool. It made me so angry, because that's not what I thought I deserved. I stamped on the ground, spit on the grass, shot down the swallows; nobody should reap what I couldn't. I threw tempers at my parents, I bade my sister do the things she was unable to, I gave my friends the cold shoulder. I painted galaxies on my skin and gashed myself ruby bracelets. I drank like there was no yesterday and smoked as if tomorrow didn't exist. And that's how much I hated myself. Him. Her. Them. It. And because I sang and danced and smiled, they thought it had done me no injury, and because all that I wanted was all that I kept pushing away, they thought I enjoyed being on my own; I was never really where I was, I was only inside my head. There were times when all that I wanted to do was to tear a hole in my world and escape. There were times when I couldn't hold back from climbing out of the balcony and draw a close to my endless insatiable tendencies of self-destruction. Sometimes when everything falls apart, it makes you want to fall, too. I was out of control, I was losing it. I was drowning in this whirlpool; it was swallowing me whole, and nobody was there to drag me up because I'd pushed them all away. 

I remembered how I was full of love, and nobody wanted it. So I molded it into bricks and built four thick walls around myself, and so, inside was a place where I lived all alone. I decorated these walls with mirrors and hung lousy thoughts all around. It wasn’t a nice place to spend time in, but I was protected. 

All this time I thought I had it good in this safe house. But things that are built on broken things will eventually crumble. I forgot what it felt like to feel, and I forgot what it felt like to be around others. I thought I was better than them just because I've been in the dark, and I poured seawater in their wounds just to watch them cope with the pain I was in, but it was mainly because I thought they didn't have any wounds. I was so jealous of those who had everything they wanted, of the things they took for granted. And I thought I should also be granted what those people had. But it never occurred to me that they didn't deserve any of those, either. 

It took me a thousand sleepless nights to hold myself together. It took me a dozen painkillers last night to kill the earthquake in my head caused by insomnia. And the side effect made me tremble like a puppy in the winter rain, and my world rocked in consciousness and control. It brought me back to the time when there was no light and no darkness. In the time in between, I closed my eyes and thought about it all. I thought about the beginning and the transformation, and how I finally got here. It wasn't the ground's fault that I'd been mistreated. Neither was the grass', the swallows', my parents', my sister's, my friends'. Ever since I was little, I've always asked myself, "What's the point after all?" Well, maybe this is the point. Maybe life is about wandering off to darkness, and spending a long time and a hell lot of energy to finally see the light, over and over again. I always thought the strong ones were the people who could still stand up in the dark after falling over and over again, who could still survive in it, but now I think the strongest ones are the people who can turn darkness into light, and revel in the sanctity of the dual existence of happiness and sadness in life. And how do we do that, how do we see beyond darkness? Forgive. Forgive yourself. Forgive him, her, them, it, and close your eyes and become the light.

This or That

It didn't occur to me up until today that I'm still so strung out on my previous relationship. Two days ago, I was comforting a friend and I told him that it didn't matter how hard we hit the bottom, because what really counted was whether we could float our way back up. After that he didn't miss a beat and asked, "Are you on your way back up then?" I told him I was. I guess that's what you always tell a miserable person; that there's hope, that the sun will shine a little brighter.

But that question kept me up all night, because I was so very confused. "Are you on your way back up?" Am I?

How do I even know which way is up? You tell me. Every night I go to bed with the thought of all the possibilities of him coming back so that I can have a sound sleep, and every morning I wake up trying to forget the late night thoughts just to hold myself together. And in my dreams he always comes back holding my hand bringing me to places I've never been, giving me shivers like it was in reality. In my dreams he always comes back and takes me back to the café where he used to wait for me after school and tutorial classes. In my dreams he smells like Spring and Summer and Fall and Winter. But then in my dreams he's also the child who hides the things he's broken so that nobody will ever find out about it. In my dreams I try to look for all the pieces of me and accidentally wander off. In my dreams we play like children, but not quite, because I seek-and-hide him like the most precious treasure in the world. In my dreams I end up crying desperately because I don't like what I dig up. In my dreams I dig up the fact that I am losing myself in the game.

And all of a sudden I felt so disgusted by it. Which way is up, really? It felt exactly like when you've finished a really nice meal with all the people you like a lot. And he just felt like a plate of its leftovers. You packed it in a doggy bag and took it home. And at night when you couldn't sleep, you sat in front of the leftovers and didn't know what to do with it. Because you thought it'd be such a waste to flush this delicious food down the toilet, but meanwhile you're too full to enjoy it. So you just sat there and waited. You waited for yourself to feel hungry again, and while you're doing that, you're also hoping the leftovers wouldn't turn too cold, even though you knew it in your heart that by the time when you felt hungry, the food wouldn't be as fresh and tasty as before. And sometimes this remote relationship felt like a cup of cold coffee that nobody wanted to drink or chose to remember because a few extra sugar cubes had been dropped into it, and it has become too sweet to drink. Too sweet that it would make your throat feel a bit too tight. And sometimes it felt like sleeping under the thick covers in Summer with the air-con on. It felt so uncomfortably tepid and you just wanted to push the covers away so the cool air could reach your lukewarm skin. But you're also concerned that a while later, you'd catch a cold from this chill. It sucked for whichever choice but you're also better off in both.

If life was made up with dilemmas, I would be the tightrope walker with the shortest balancing pole. The tightrope walker who spent a millennium just thinking about which foot should go first. The tightrope walker who was too scared to make it to the other side. The idealistic, never-will-be too realistic tightrope walker who got stuck between "clinging nostalgically to the last moment and clutching greedily towards the next".

Three Minutes

Would you believe me if I told you there's a dimension where time is elastic and this "place", is on earth, right now, right here?

I went there when I was toasting my bread this morning. It happened as soon as I pressed down the button and waited for the everlasting three minutes of my toasted bread. It happens to some people while they're on a train ride, or in the shower, or on their deathbeds. I was just thinking about random things like the dinner tonight and tomorrow's plan and maybe some other stuff like old songs that I used to like and people that I used to talk to but not anymore. And all of a sudden it really got to me because for a few seconds everything just felt so distant and nothing felt like the surroundings and you wanted to run straight into your mom's arms but it felt a bit foreign and you suddenly forgot how you used to be 12 and now you're here, and this was the first time you'd ever been this old but it just wasn't supposed to feel like this. And nostalgia suddenly consumed you and you knocked on your chest but nobody's home. All I could think of was how it felt when I lived every day exactly the same way, but when you looked back, everything has changed and it felt painless but for some reasons it's aching inside.

I once read a book called The Catcher in the Rye. The main character, Holden, says that his favorite place to visit is the museum because in there, everything always stayed right where it was. I remember the time when I got to this part of the novel, it also felt painless but it's aching inside. There are times when I tried to roam about the memories, both good and bad, and refused to keep walking because it's unpredictable ahead and I'm the ones that never let go. But the sad fact is that the past is kept behind displaying windows and all we can do is just watch. A lot of people do this too but soon enough, they pick up their things and get going because there's no time to waste. I've wasted mine and now I have to remind myself of the brevity of life and I have to keep walking. It's definitely fine for people to stay put. Fine for old people, I guess. Because for now, we are young and we still have the strength to carry on. The people you miss are walking ahead, too and you may meet them on your way, or you won't. But if you choose to sit in front of the window, you'll soon find yourself all alone. For now, we are young and everything in the museum will always stay the same. I was the girl who sat in front of the displaying windows and secretly wished the good memories would live as long as I would and the bad memories would magically turn into something that wouldn't hurt. And I was the girl who fogged up the window with my breath and drew hundreds of smiley faces to make that wish come true, but it never did, and instead, I just watched them fade. For now, we are young and I tell myself that there are better things and greater challenges ahead and drawing smiley faces can always wait.

Ping! My toast was done and it was the longest three minutes of my life. For now, it is the first time you've ever felt this old, but it's also the last time you'll ever feel this young. I picked up my nice warm breakfast and expected a tremendous breakdown, but it never came. And believe me, breathe in and out and you're going to be fine in about three minutes.