Let’s keep the mistake at one

All it took was a couple of messages from you. The moment I heard that you were leaving town, my resistance crumbled.

You seem to have a knack for reading my mind with the most acute timing.

Meeting you was not the mistake.
I am really glad I went and truly happy that we were able to catch up with each other. It has been a really long time since I can talk to you like that. What really gladdens my heart is you making the effort to meet up before leaving. Maybe, it is a good thing for me that you are leaving town for a while.

Meeting you was definitely not the mistake. The mistake was after that. Not wanting to go home, I called L. It was probably the most senseless thing to do. I made the first mistake in making the call. He made the other one. Let’s just make sure we keep the mistake at one. I am keeping a distance from now on.

I cannot stop myself thinking you will never take advantage of situation and I can always trust you implicitly.

Thinking aloud

Guess I am still scared
Got to stop pondering so much
and take things as they come
At some point, I need to overcome the fear

Comforted

I was happy to see this on you and strangely comforted.

Even though, it was way too long ago, I will think of that day as a parting shot. I want to remember it as the day I said my goodbye to you. Cos, it was the last time that we had a conversation that was meaningful and real. It was like those good old days where we could chat about anything.

Your number has been deleted.
I do not want to have you constantly at the back of my mind anymore.

When I look back again and think of you, I want to recall our friendship and my silliness with a smile.

For now, I have the rest of my life to look forward to. I want to create joy, to experience new emotions and build new memories with close friends, family and new people in my life. Lots and lots of them.

Fun!

This is the best part of the trip for me. None of us wanted to stop. The poor man in charge had to smilingly chase us out.

19 June 09, 12.52am, Seoul

Looking at the night view of Seoul from the comfort of my bed. There is soft jazz playing in the background. I am propped up with 3 soft fluffy pillows in the most comfortable room I came across in this trip. It is pleasant and relaxing.

Yet, there is this sense of emptiness and loneliness swelling within me.

I thought of you today.

At the amusement park at Lotteworld. A lovely little girl came up to me, smiling endearingly, taking tiny unstable steps. I was positively captivated. She circled round me thrice, waving cheerfully at me, with her daddy close behind her. Watching her daddy trailing her step for step, I thought of you.

In a couple of months, your first born will arrive. Your world will be totally transformed. Your perspective on life will never be the same again. You are moving on to another step forward in the life that is far removed from mine. In a not so distance future, you could be that daddy bringing your little girl to amusement park and carefully following every single tiny step she takes. You will be that daddy carrying your baby up the flight of steps while holding on to your wife.

In that instance, I could almost see you as that daddy in my mind. You will be a good daddy.

I can’t quite explained the pained emotion washing all over me. The fact you are having a kid soon is provoking lots of reflective thoughts on what I am not doing with my life.

I thought of you in Jeju too, but without any accompanying thought. You just came to mind and the thought just drifted off. Maybe, it just a habit to think of you when I am in someplace nice. Maybe, there will always be a soft spot for you in my heart. But, I know these feelings are becoming distanced memories already.

I no longer think I should try to rebuild the friendship. It is easier to move on with my life without contact with you.

Surrounded by families throughout this trip, I see couples of different personalities trying to managing their families. Some of these couples blended so completely that you can immediately see how they complement each other. Some of these couples have personalities that striked you as completely different and yet, bit by bit, you see how these differences help them play different roles in managing their little ones on a day to day basis. None of these relationship are perfect, everyone is trying their best to live life in the best way they possibly could.

Looking at the mums, I questioned if I have the strength to do what they are doing everyday for their families. And, I was once again hit with the reminder that my bad habit to question too much is my ultimate stumbling block that leads to inaction.

In life, we often just sink into the roles life throw us and do the best we possibly can. Nobody can expect a ideal situation. And all I can ask of myself is to try to make everything I want a reality and put in efforts to make things work out the best I possibly can.

Look! Snow Shoes

Room for thoughts

What will you do if you have to handle a foreclosure and the reception you face is the entire family kneeling down in front of you begging you not to take away their home?

The realisation that this may be a situation that I find myself in someday, is not at all comforting.

Two superbeings with unalienable rights

So it appears that the boss and I are two super-beings whose unalienable rights has been passively recognised by those super-power beings who lord over us.

These super-power beings had decided that, quite unfortunately, they do not have enough prowess to save the earth. Those of them, feeling just that tiny tinge of doubt in this judgement, are unfortunately not quite sure whether it is actually their job to save the earth. After all, their real jobs are to save their asses.

Since nobody is quite sure of anything except the fact that their collective asses are indispensible, it has been unanimiously decided that the task of saving the world can be left to those beings with indisputable unalienable rights. Henceforth, in the face of any threats to earth, the two super-beings shall be notified immediately with the trust that they can save the earth by exercising their unalienable rights..or be destroyed together with the earth if they failed to react. It was also noted by all the super-power beings that it is actually mission impossible lah.

I can so feel the clouds of sympathy oozing from them.

My heart goes out to boss who looked gob-smacked. I wanted to say something comforting and amusing so that we can laugh it off but could not quite find the words. I walked back to my desk and realised that I am quite tired too.

P.S. I finally met up with M in her full pregnancy glory! I was feeling so derived by proper conversations that I talked and talked and talked NON STOP. I probably tired out both the baby and her, just from listening to me.

Just the quotes

I have always wanted to read Freya Stark travel writings but yet to grab hold of a copy. She sounds like such a fascinating and colourful character.

Meanwhile, reading her quotes definitely whet my appetite for more of her writings.

“Good days are to be gathered like grapes, to be trodden and bottled into wine and kept for age to sip at ease beside the fire. If the traveler has vintaged well, he need trouble to wander no longer; the ruby moments glow in his glass at will.”

“There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.”

“To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.”

“Most people, after accomplishing something, use it over and over again like a gramophone record till it cracks, forgetting that the past is just the stuff with which to make more future.”

“If we are strong, and have faith in life and its richness of surprises, and hold the rudder steadily in our hands. I am sure we will sail into quiet and pleasent waters for our old age.”

“One is so apt to think of people’s affection as a fixed quantity, instead of a sort of moving se with the tide always going out or coming in but still fundamentally there: and I believe this difficulty in making allowance for the tide is the reason for half the broken friendships.”

“This is a great moment, when you see, however distant, the goal of your wandering. The thing which has been living in your imagination suddenly become part of the tangible world. It matters not how many ranges, rivers or parching dusty ways may lie between you; it is yours now for ever.”

“The most ominous of fallacies – the belief that things can be kept static by inaction”

Speaking of quotes, I also like this one liner from the movie, Young Victoria, “A man who does not have any work to do becomes ridiculous!” Images of various personnels immediately came to mind:)

“Laugh at yourself and at life. Not in the spirit of derision or whining self pity, but as a remedy, a miracle drug, that will ease your pain, cure your depression, and help you to put in perspective that seemingly terrible defeat and worry with laughter at your predicaments, thus freeing your mind to think clearly towards the solution that is certain to come.”
Og Mandino