Thursday, December 17, 2009

The last pages of 2009

It's getting better and I can see the light at the end of this 6 week long tunnel.

I've been so busy I forgot to indulge in my annually whimsical, nostalgic end-of-the-year stock take on life. Instead of being mopey as I contemplate and get all introspective, I was veering towards physical and mental burn-out instead and hanging precariously off the cliff of sanity.

I suddenly miss certain people and wish I could give them a call. But I knew I wouldn't know what to say and also have to contend with their surprise because its been ages since they've even heard a whim from me. Especially if they're not even on facebook.

Just like that, I've been married for a year. And lived 26 years of my life. And still wondering where this bullet train called life will ever slow down for me to smell the roses take in the sights.

For someone who doesn't have many memories to fall back on to reminisce, I find it strange that I feel the way I do at this time of the year. While I miss the innocence, laughter and predictability of yesteryear, there is no way I'd go back even if I could.

Yet when I hang out with youths almost a decade younger, they bring out so much of me. In youth, we don't have the prerogative of hindsight and wisdom. In their pits, no matter how deep or shallow, they can't see the possibility of getting out of it. The 'defining' exams that threaten to seal their fates were the single most major thing. Depending on their results, it would be either a huge catastrophe or their passport to a somewhat eternal bliss. (Until the next big exam) I find myself laughing inwardly when I listen in on their conversations and try to follow their erratic train of thoughts, reminders that even though their landscapes are now renovated with ipods and various other gadgets, I've walked that very same road too.

It was a small world with fixed routes before you arrive at the great unknown and adulthood beckons and responsibilities increase. It was a world where your first love had utter dominion over your under developed heart. (and when you had to go separate ways, that same heart died) Where a single disagreement rocked like an earth-shattering earthquake. Where grades in school were determinants of success. It was a pre-historic time before life taught you to distrust, before fortresses were built around vulnerable hearts etc.

Today I'm just glad for the handful of friends I've been graced to grow up with and grow old with. That they are the constants I can fall back on when the world throws me with too much confusion and change. I miss them and hope to see them more often before life robs too much of our time together. I miss those who have fallen away for reasons I don't even remember anymore, whose friendships I once cherished so much, those who've known me enough to finish my sentences but didn't stay long enough to finish journeying life with me.

Like you said in my dream last night, "I truly ache ..."

Wish you well, whereever you are now.

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