393: one of us misread

You know how every girl has fantasies?

I had a dream two nights ago. It was a normal party, and everyone was there. It was a gig somewhere, and people were singing, playing. Kind of like in 500 Days, but less cool. It was in the lobby of a shopping centre (I remember the escalators).

There were looks and glances, stolen moments. I felt the stares travelling all the way from across the floor. I think that’s the thing about dreams; you’re hyper-aware of everything that goes on around you, just because you can see everything. Every small detail, things that don’t make sense, even things that don’t apply to you. You see how other people sneak away to do something, how others linger on and try to avoid being noticed. How some people want to do something and then visibly (or not so visibly) stop themselves. Exercising self-control, always checking themselves. Dreaming is a wonderful thing. You see everything.

Anyway. Back to the point. Some guy took my hand and led me away, and said “you don’t know how difficult it is to watch you and think about you being with someone else”, straight to my face. On hindsight, this is probably quite funny. But I was touched anyway, at that point in time (even in my sleep — strange how the mind works). Fantasies are awesome. Because no one ever says this kind of stuff to girls in real life.

It helped that he was wearing a checked shirt. But I don’t remember his face anymore.

391: five hundred days is pretty long

The only people for me are the mad ones.

(As usual, cut for spoilers, 500 Days of Summer.)

388: look at the stars

I was wrong. There is a bigger storm coming.

387: circa july 2005

Four years on, nothing has changed.

There are many things that will tear you apart if you let them, and all of them have lines.

378: and when the storm comes, hold me close

There are few people I can listen to as readily as you, knowing always that you will have something worth hearing. Even though you’ve come — and you’ve gone — quite a few times, you’re here and I’m here and nothing changes. As you waltz back into my life I’m beginning to realise that you’d never really left, and the distance that separates us is painful and wide and altogether too long. I was surprised there was anything left between us, and not just anything, but something, in a way that is strange and unfathomable.

374: lifelong ambitions (让一切随风)

373: i’d rather dance with you

You’re so unkind, he sings. And he replies, well, you’re out of your mind.

It’s easy to forget that you’d ever left. Yet everything seems somehow different, somewhat changed in the meantime — things have moved, been torn down and rebuilt, or reshaped into different things, people have come and gone and drifted further away, and we’ve all descended into a strange pool of awkwardness we don’t quite know how to get out of.

372: es muss sein

366: and you exploded in my heart

 

The weather needs to get a grip on itself. It keeps alternating raining and not raining, the sun shining and not shining, the sky being cloudy and then not. It needs to stop sending me on rollercoasters because I don’t like being taken for rides.

364: 痛苦的相思忘不了

 

 

359: if it’s not rough it isn’t fun

Some things in life are painfully legal. The other day while I was cooking dinner with Sharm we were talking about something regarding Val: it’s possible, I said, after some thought. But not probable, our friend Peter interjected, and I didn’t know what to make of that. It hasn’t been so long since I’ve heard those particular words, which often seem to people like the same thing and contributes to the (mostly true) observation that law people are just a bunch of lunatics who split hairs regarding definitions all the time.

358: 心会痛，心也会感动

从没有放弃过心中的理想

… 不知不觉已变淡，心里爱

354: what you are is beautiful

I said, maybe Sally can wait this time. Every time I turn on iTunes and listen to the old songs I’m reminded of why I love music. The other day I had a conversation with someone (who was it, now?) about whether we would still be listening to new music when we were old. Of course, he replied, why not? Our generation is different from our parents’. I thought about it but we’re not so different after all. It’d be weird to find out my parents were listening to MGMT or whatever the equivalent is, and though this generation appears a lot more exposed to music than the previous one, some things, I think, change slowly, if at all.

 

351: keep your love locked down

 

343: i have fought the good fight

There are things I would like you to know, if only you have the time. After all that has been said and done, after all that has come and gone, what matters that is what is left is you and me. Maybe you and me, on two different ends of the earth, maybe you and I, who have been different from the beginning. We have travelled these roads, gone up and down these hills — as uninspiring as they might have been, our journeys are what we make of them. 

How do you feel as you travel through time and space towards a love you cannot save? The train rolls on, and the landscape never changes. Here the skies are dark and wintry, and one barely sees anything through the windows. One makes out the skeletons of trees and the falling snow, grey against the dark ground.

One may ask, 好好的一份爱，怎样会慢慢变坏, but the answer is simple. You remember the times when he said, there will be nothing left if only one side keeps paddling. One is tempted to continually attribute fault to one person, but the fact is that the oars on both sides must move in order to keep the boat moving; and then, more than anything, it must take two hands to clap.

The train is less silent than one expects. In France it was full of Japanese, polite to a fault and quiet as death, whispering around each other, afraid of stepping on someone else’s toes. Here there are murmurs of conversation, muffled laughter, and the sound of little children. Everywhere on trains people sleep and start up again, their heads nodding in time with the jerk of the trains along the rails. If I could, I would whisper my love to you across the tracks, and maybe you would wake up too.

And yet, even if everything is doomed, we take the same chances; and in a warped way, we follow the same paths. We try to not hurt other people as we strive not to hurt ourselves, rejoicing in our youth as we hurtle towards adulthood, drinking in the year as if we were starved of air. Like maniacs we shuttle from place to place, checking off boxes and ticking off sights as we go along, as if each place were so easily explainable, so easily seen. As travelers we brave only the surface of the iceberg, intrepid as we are, and yet what swarms beneath is what is important. What is essential, you remember, is invisible to the eye — it is only in your mind’s eye that you can see rightly.

And then, we paint our pictures in our memories. When we prefer not to take pictures, each detail of every city is absorbed, and we cannot get enough. We struggle to remember everything, as if each day were our last, and we could only breathe that air once. It could be that the people are unfriendly, too friendly, or unnecessarily friendly or unfriendly, but if one is objective one remembers that we do not know enough to judge. All we have are our impressions, and our thoughts, and these are all we have to go on. 

All was good and seemed normal as she walked towards the train that would bring her away, far away from these memories and the things that made her sad. For some it must have been a journey they have made before, towards a future they did not understand. She laughed and joked and smiled, just as she did all this time, brave and strong as she tried to be. As she stepped into the train she waved half-heartedly, as if she knew it might not be the last time that she saw him like this — and yet it was too late when she settled herself, and sat by the window. As she looked out she found no trace of him, and it might have been then she finally realised — neither too early nor too late, perhaps — that there might have been a time when he would wait until she left, but not anymore.

And then — across the rails. The train began to speed towards a new beginning in the middle of the night. Unclear and dark, perhaps, to a girl alone and scared as hell, but still surging forward, the only way she knew how.

 

房子建在海上，就注定一生漂泊. 但连浪子也不会吃回头草. 只要自己能抬得起头往前走，就是对的. 自己问心无愧，光明正大地活着，这才是坚强，这才是力量.

342: before the sunset, by the rivers

Celine: I’m glad you’re saying that, because I’m never able to move on like this. People just have an affair, or even entire relationships, they break up and then they forget. They move on like they would have changed brands of cereals. I feel I was never able to forget anyone I’ve been with because each person had their own specific qualities. You can never replace anyone. What’s lost is lost. Each relationship, when it ends, really damages me. I never fully recover. That’s why I’m very careful with getting involved … because it hurts too much. Even getting laid … I don’t do that, because I will miss of the person the most mundane things. Like I’m obsessed with little things. I think it’s the same with people. I see in them little details, so specific to each of them, that move me, and that I miss, and that I will always miss. You can never replace anyone because everyone is made up of such beautiful, specific, details.

340: worn me down like a road

She’s so pretty — and you´re so damn right –

but I’m so tired of thinking about her again tonight

339: remember 2008

The year has been eventful, to say the least. I ushered in the new year at the beginning of the year (last year, now) in a variety of circumstances; every year with the Hwa Chong people, screaming “Happy New Year” at the top of our voices around the swimming pool, and then drinking Raffles beer at the front of Block B, our cars parked in a perfect straight line along the parallel parking lots. I was wearing a red dress, I remember, and the rest were happy and drunken.

336: the sky will soon be full of suns

Time takes it all, whether we want it to or not, time takes it all. Time bears it away, and then there is only darkness. Sometimes we find others in that darkness, sometimes we lose them there again.

Stephen King

Everything must have a Before and After, just like a person is meant to mark time passing. Once gone a person becomes a milestone, and everything narrows to just a passage of time, and a bunch of labels. Memories are boxed away, stored for safekeeping, hiding themselves in the dust under the table, waiting for the time they may be taken out without pain or awkwardness. The person who stays may shed tears, hurried and quiet, furtive. Once the tears are gone, the ache dulls. Everyone heaves a sigh of relief as the epiphany eventually comes. They have been holding their breath hoping they too do not die waiting in the process.

One does not keep loving photographs of the past. The magic hurries on, even when the lovers remain, solitary as they are and separated by a world of nothing, and the label disappears. Though change is often imperceptible and sometimes fatal it is inevitable, and this is at least the one truism we are resigned to have to accept, even if it nevertheless cannot become our excuse. The past is a video game, the chase blurred in time and with memory; it makes things better, or worse, than they were. The night lights will seem brighter, the air cooler, the kisses gentler and more filled with love, and suddenly the light stronger, the words harsher, the shadow of a back darker, the actions more cold. One learns to stop speaking in the present tense. “Are” must become “were”, “is” must become “was”, and even “we” must change to “I”, “ours” to “mine”. One is never more aware of how the semantics of language must change for one to adapt, to survive, to avoid looking back what it all was. One must forget the old words, make up new ones. Descriptions must change, and so must greetings and goodbyes. Nothing is the same, and it must stay that way, a fragile truce to keep from breaking back into dangerous waters.

But words are words, and they only say so much. Photographs are photographs, and cannot be altered or reshaped or erased; they nevertheless remain moments from a previous life that may not be resurrected, but cannot be ignored. Most of the time they are good photographs: there are laugh lines, twinkling eyes, wide grins. In uncommon moments there are downcast looks, a melancholy forehead; and rarely, a tear or three down a cheek. Grief is never as easy to capture in a moment, knotty and tangled at the beginning as it is at the end, skilled fingers teasing away each painful memory as they continue. And one cannot pretend: that there is no pain, nor guilt, nor a love as measured and wonderful as it was sour and bitter. The moment remains, and so does the truth, and memory cannot make things better or worse. Forgetting is as big a crime as remembering too much.

As we twist and turn in our sorrow, the day becomes more beautiful. The sunrises may come later, the sunsets earlier, the day shorter. There is less time to do anything. The weather turns cold and the snow begins to fall, strange and wonderful as it is to have it at this time of year. As the year enters its darkest days the air fills itself with sparkling lights and festivity, the churches begin to open, and hearts themselves try not to close.

334: baby do you remember when

When I turned 21 I wrote somewhere that this may have been the best year of my life. More than 2003, when the world was my oyster and I thought I could do almost do anything, or 2005, where I was older, slightly wiser, proud of having overcome my pain. In 2005 I found friends, friends that have supported me till now, even if I didn’t find love. I worked my ass off and made it to where I am today, I had fun, I laughed. When I turned 21 I had the best birthday I ever had, possibly ever. It was the first time my mother realised, how many people there were besides her who loved me. 

It was a beautiful year, for the most part. I studied hard, I did well, the world was out there, and for once there was real promise, a real hope, a real future. There were friends, amidst the long hours spent in the study room. We spent beautiful hours together, beautiful days, beautiful weeks. I thought I was never more content when you came over and rocked me to sleep, like nothing else mattered, only me. With you I was everything and nothing, and I could be who I was. There was nothing to hide, nothing to run away from. We spent hours on trains, traipsing all over Japan, just you and me and the world out there, waiting for us to explore. We were young and happy, and in love, and I thought we would last forever. In those two weeks there were ups and downs, but I came back more convinced than ever that my choice was right.

This year has been full of decisions, of realisations, happy and sad. There are so many that I have made, and there are so many that I am unsure about now. This year I decided I wanted to spend a year in Europe. This year I decided to make my second year count. This year I decided to rebuild my old friendships, because something is better than nothing, and we have all grown up. And love is a strange thing; it creeps up on you. This year I was never more sure of my feelings. This year I decided who I wanted to marry.

In August Europe was waiting for me, and you, and it was going to be you with me. I wanted to spend these long wintry nights with you, huddled up somewhere, fighting the darkness and the cold.  It would have been just you and me, and love. There have been ups and downs this year, people have changed, people remained unchanged, people died. But everything has been fine, and I pulled through, because I have you, and you have always been there. It would have been 26 months yesterday.

This year I grew up. From intense happiness, to intense pain, I have felt everything there is to feel. I have not felt anything other than happiness in a long, long time, and I have not been alone in equally long. All those nights that I went to sleep with a smile on my face, I remember fondly, and I think about how it is like now. Many things have changed; but many things haven’t. I still think of you everyday, but I cannot tell you anymore. 

Be strong, I tell myself. The world is not ending. But there are walls between us now, walls I can’t climb. There was a time I prayed that these walls, not having to be built up, would never have to be torn down. I remember how we began, those slow, tentative beginnings, and the way we ended, quick and hurried and brutal. In between the beginning and the end there are all these memories, which don’t just drift away and die. Everything that I am has part of you in it. Everyone we love changes us irrevocably, but I wanted it to end with you. 

Between us there has always been the years, there has always been the love — and still, there are always the hours. I’m a selfish idiot, and maybe I’m crazy and stupid, I know that, 

but I love you

330: one night in beijing

Things begin, things end, things begin anew. The logic is the same and it is always the same cycle, and everything appears to be a game. You play, you win, you play, you lose, you play. You win again, or you lose. There are never grey areas; everything is one or the other. Still you play. Everything defines itself by something else, and when there are only two alternatives there is always something that has to give. Rarely are we faced with more, and like most life-changing decisions, there is really only one way to properly go about it, which is to say, not at all. Nobody thinks. Nobody cares. We remember the times that we sat together by the riverside, thinking about our lives, wondering where we would go. We eventually came to the conclusion that there was nothing we could do; this is the way it is, this is the flow. If we make a mistake, so be it. It is our life to live. We win, we play, we lose. Everything is a risk and we pursue the exciting rather than the familiar, because we are free, because we are young, because we can. It is the reason why nobody turns back, why nobody wants to be faced with regrets, why everyone looks forward and keeps going, because the past is painful and hard to bear. There are only two alternatives. And yet everything in the present must also have a past, in the same way that it must also have a future. It may not be better, it may not be worse,  just — different. And then how much remains the same is the scariest question, because it is possible to come full circle and realise one has never moved from the same spot. It may be the same as watching someone sit quietly by your side, not saying anything, but understanding. It may be that someone’s back is turned away from you, someone who doesn’t look at you anymore, who doesn’t say anything and will never say anything anymore. It may be the case that having someone is like not having anyone at all; or that we are faced with the ghosts from our past all the time, pretending all the while that someone is there when they are not. 

329: distance has no way of making love understandable

One year ago I wrote about winter. It was exactly a year ago, give or take a day. It was after exams and I was emotional, I was high, I was thinking about a lot of things. It was a year ago, and I made my choice. The other entry’s title seems strangely and funnily ominous now. It’s funny how my feelings haven’t changed, not at all. But people do, and then I remember that I am not enough, not anymore.

It’s snowing outside and I wish I was warmer and had less work to do. I wish for your sake, that I could be happier in this silence. I am trying to be strong, and give you space, because it’s not my world anymore, but it is so hard. It is unbelievably hard.

327: 永远高唱我歌

What somebody said to me today; it was the nicest thing someone’d said to me in a long time. 

 

325: 夜夜听歌不睡

It’s always easy to write about others, to trivialise our own pain and the way we are feeling. When the experience is about someone else, everything takes on gigantic proportions. We search for meanings of life, for a way out, for ways to find ourselves in the middle of these messes that other people have made. We rummage through their debris and emerge, philosophically and with a bland smile on our faces, with a life-changing statement. We learn from other people’s mistakes.

And who are these other people? Are they strangers, do we know them, and will we continue not to know them in the future? As people come together and drift apart, as people leave and meet new people, treasure new faces and love new things, the ones left behind struggle to remember what has been lost. The stories of our past shouldn’t always repeat, but they often do, and we end up not being the people that we think we are. We disappoint others; we disappoint ourselves. There are parts to us we have never realised existed. Everyone is upset.

Still there are people who believe in us, who care. Who, by means of a quiet word or two, a gentle smile, packages from overseas and a phone call, a well-placed hug or two, calm our souls without them knowing. The only way to keep going on is by yourself, to make your own decisions. We drift through life this way, relying on ourselves. The more cynical amongst us will tell us that there is no one but ourselves. That the only ones who can solve our problems are ourselves, that the only ones who can calm ourselves are ourselves. Sometimes they are right. But they are not always right — there are always other people. There will be better people, worse people, people good and bad for us, people who love us more and love us less. We are never alone, and for this reason, the people we surround ourselves with are important.

There are constructive relationships; there are destructive relationships. Some cause you pain slowly, some stab you straight in the gut. Some fade away like a distant flower, some explode like fireworks. Some people begin with the end in mind, and others keep dreaming things will last forever. At the end of the day, we make the best of things as we can, we tidy up our lives, we try to move on. The ones who stay with us all the way are the ones worth keeping.

321: somewhere he opens the window

Ever since I’ve been in London, my left knee has been hurting more and more. It hurt when I cycled, it hurt when I was walking around London, and it hurt especially when I was standing around in the National Gallery trying not to look awkward shifting my weight around. Now when I lie down, I can’t sleep properly because there’s a dull ache in my knee that doesn’t go away unless I leave it straight.

Bleh. I really need a bolster to prop my leg up. Is it because of the cold? My left ankle is hurting like shit, too, but then again, I twisted it twice in Italy. I thought it was because I was wearing slippers, but I twisted it twice again wearing boots in London. So it’s just me being clumsy or something. Weak joints suck.

To everyone who’s been worrying, sorry. I’m coping the best I can, really.