Dream on little dreamer

Oh you, how I wish...

No.

Prawning, and our story

I finally went prawning after putting it off for so long! It was something we had always wanted to do when we will still together, but somehow had never found the time to. Armed with Sean's rod and secret recipe bait, I went into the prawning pond brimming with confidence, planning to settle tonight's dinner with the prawns I caught. And after 3 hours of prawning, I finally caught...

One prawn. ONE. Miserable prawn.

Wtf?? Woe is meeeee. Thankfully I don't prawn for a living, I would have starved by now. Evon was just beside me, catching prawn after prawn, as I sat pitifully looking at my float that wouldn't even sink. She tried hooking my bait for me, in case I really sucked at hooking baits, but to no avail, I still failed to catch any more prawns. I think I'm just damn suay that day la. For the record, I went back on Thursday to try again, and managed to get 7. So, UP YOURS PRAWN. Overall, I enjoyed the experience. It was like a milder form of fishing, with a lot less patience needed. I had never prawned before, but this particular prawning pond has a particular significance to me. Because this is where the first part of our story ended 3 years ago. It brought back memories of happier times, times when she wasn't mine, but we were just happy being friends.

It all began when I was selling a pair of headlights for my old car. A guy called Shawn contacted me, and we met to do the trade. First thing that came to my mind when I saw her stepping out of the car was 'Daaaaamn, this girl is pretty darn cute.' She had a petite frame, long flowing hair, a really sweet face and an even sweeter smile. And yes, I will admit, I was pretty attracted to her ass as well. We started chatting; me, her, her then-boyfriend Shawn, and my then-girlfriend. In no time at all, I found myself very attracted to her. She had this bubbly, carefree personality, this playfulness and this quirkiness to her. She shared my strange sense of humor, which to some people might seem pretty lame, but we still always seem to understand each other's jokes anyways. The four of us started hanging out more often, and I always looked forward to her company. To me she was always just the awesome girl to hang out with, nothing more. I do think sometimes about how nice it would be if we were together as a couple, but never really believed it possible. We were both attached in pretty stable relationships then, so I didn't really allow the thought to take root.

Then I landed a job at Starhub, and roped her in, together with my then-girlfriend. From then, our friendship really blossomed. We spent work days laughing and chatting with each other, running off for smoke breaks together, skiving together. She would occasionally come to my table and smack me on the head with a cushion, and we would have a mini pillow fight in the middle of the office. I really liked how she always fusses over everyone, asking if they are hungry and want a biscuit or a cookie or a random tidbit that she always has to share. We grew really close, working together and hanging out after work at Shawn's place. Naturally, my then-girlfriend got jealous, blew her top, and I distanced myself from Jasmine ever since. Things started getting awkward, and I also stopped fetching her to and from work. I didn't want to believe it, but I really missed her laughter in those few weeks. It was then I realized, I had fallen in love with her.

After a few months, it was her finally her last day at work in Starhub. Which, coincidentally, was the day my then-girlfriend called in sick. And so, I had the opportunity to talk to her again. She told me she knew what was going on, and that she understands. It's just too bad that we will not be able to remain friends. I fetched her to find Shawn after work, and it was to this fateful prawning pond. I remember that being one of the longest drive I had ever taken. I took the long way there, and drove extremely slowly all the way. I didn't want the drive to end. We still had so much to tell each other, so much to catch up on. As we were nearing the prawning pond, our hands touched. By accident or not, I really do not know. My hand was on my gear knob, and hers resting nearby. My hand remained there a little too long, before I shifted it away. There was a long silence between us. We both knew that are a million thoughts running through each of our heads. For me, it was this overwhelming temptation to hold her hand, tell her what I feel about her. Because I know i will probably never see her again. But on the other hand, I had a girlfriend, and it just wasn't right. Finally, we reached the place, but she didn't get off immediately. She just sat there, as if waiting for me to say what I am struggling not to. Finally, I decided to just leave her with a goodbye. We exchanged farewells, and she walked off. As I watched her disappear amongst the crowd, I kept wondering if I should have said what I wanted to. Was I already starting to regret? And just like this, we disappeared from each other lives for the next 3 years. I still think about her occasionally, still wonder about what if things were different, but I never imagined that she would be a part of my life again 3 years later.

Depression

The little black van is annoying me more and more! Seems new and unseen problems are coming up then I have never heard of. My IU went kaput after the accident, which I have no idea why. My sound system started turning itself off, my wheel has a weird screeching sound, and my firewall CRACKED. Yes, cracked. Wtf, is that even possible? How can a bloody firewall crack?? So the end result is that my clutch now refuses to work properly, and I feel like I am driving a track car everyday. Even driving isn't fun anymore. Nothing is, actually. Playing games is a chore, talking to people on whatsapp is a chore, playing games is a chore, thinking of ways to fix my van is a chore, fixing my van is a chore, talking to people is a chore. Hell, even eating is a chore. I lost all apettite today, and I don't know why.

So what the hell is happening to me? I honestly don't know. Nothing seems to appeal to me anymore. I don't feel like doing anything. Nothing. Zilch. I just want to... sit there. Even talking to my friends is a chore, sometimes I reaaaaally feel like shutting off for a while, and have some peace. But it'll be rude, and my friends are going to think something is wrong again, and ask me why, but I really have no idea. My head is literally hurting now, just from trying to maintain a conversation with my friends at the workshop a while ago.  And that is making me irritable, very irritable. Every small thing irritates me now, I am snapping and throwing tantrums at everyone. It's getting too tiring to smile, so might as well be grumpy.

I am about to meet my friends now to play some computer games. But to be honest, I really do not feel like going. Because that too, is a chore. I wanna just continue sitting in my van curled up in a ball on my comfy seat and be alone for a while. A very long while. Maybe with a beer. But I know the direction I am heading. I do not want to fall down that bottomless pit. I do not want to sink into depression. So however sick of everything I am, I am going to continue doing things. I must. One day I hope I will look back and be grateful I didn't let myself fall into a worse state than this. But it's really tiring, I can't really put it in words how tiring it is, it's like dragging a really heavy baggage with me wherever I go, but much worse. But I've got to pull myself out of this, or it's just going to get from bad to worst.

Happiness huh. The one thing I always wanted, now seems so far out of my grasp. It feels foreign to me now, like I don't even know him anymore. That pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, that sight of land that just disappear across the horizon. I don't even know if I'm heading in the right direction to get it now, I don't even know if its still there. But at least in sure as hell not gonna just sit here and wait for it to fall on me.

To have loved and lost

Better to have loved and lost,

Than never to have loved at all.

- Alfred Lord Tennyson

I'm definitely better now, I won't deny I still think of you, and I still miss you, but it doesn't hurt so bad anymore. I had a nice, long talk with a friend I haven't met in very long. We have only met twice before anyways, and the last 2 times, most of it is mostly spent talking about car stuff. Today though, the topic somehow came about to girls, and we started talking about our past relationships. Only today I noticed how much he is really like me, in terms of how we view matters of the heart. It's good to talk to someone like that, because somehow he knows exactly how I feel, and is kind of going through the same shit just a while back.

Looking back at the past year of my life, I would say a lot has changed, me included. Mundane relationships, physical affairs, emotional affairs, flings, one-night stands to falling in love and getting hurt, I had in all in the span of a year. People hearing of my story might probably think I'm an asshole. I wouldn't deny I am, I know there was a really good girl I hurt very much. There are a few who know each and every story behind every girl I had, who knew me more than what I appeared to be, who stood by me through good times and bad ones. I may not have known them for very long, I may be the butt of jokes about how I should be kept away from people's girlfriends and their daughters, but they are the people I'm really glad I found.

Would I say I regretted the choice I made? Despite what I am feeling now, I would say no. Because if I didn't, I would still be stuck in a relationship where feelings didn't exist anymore. I wouldn't have known how it feels like to love again, I wouldn't have these lovely memories. I would have lived my life wondering 'what if?'. I would never have known how it feels like to hold you in my arms. I would not have learnt so much about love and relationships. But if there's one painful lesson I have learnt, it's that I will never want to get into an affair again. Because now I know, that nothing good can ever come out of something built on mistrust, lies and cheating. No matter how beautiful it may have seemed, no matter how much I loved you in the end, no matter how much i had changed after I met you, the undeniable truth is that it all started on a wrong foundation, and one day it's bound to collapse.

I just wished we could have had a different beginning, and we would probably have had a different end. I wished the circumstances we had when we met were different. But I know now it is too late to wish, that bygones are bygones. There is no use regretting, I can just learn from my mistakes and move on and be a better person. The story of us is one I will never forget, one that will be close to my heart for a long, long time to come. To me it's still the most beautiful thing that had happened to me in the last 26 years of my life.

I told you I would contact you again one day when I feel I am ready to. I hope by then I can tell you that I found someone new, someone I want to make feel like the happiest girl on this planet again. Because I know that's what you want for me, and that you'll be happy for me like I'm happy for you now. Maybe, one day we can be friends again.

Memories.

I can't believe how weak I have become. A single trip to my old workplace, the place we first started getting close, the place we had so many great times together, the place I fell for her, and I started feeling shitty all over again. It's been months since our breakup. I need to wake up. Now.

Poison.

Honestly sometimes I don't know what's going through my head. All these thoughts, feelings. Some I know are wrong, but sometimes things just feel right. Maybe Samuel is right, that I should try acting against my feelings sometime. Because I am sometimes too idealistic for my own good. I need a bit more realism. The world doesn't revolve around how I feel. Sam had always been like a dad to me, even though I had not known him for very long. He's the opposite of me, he approaches things with a very logical point of view, and as a result he always gives me pretty good advice. He's also always helping me out when I'm dirt broke, always the one to discuss crazy car ideas and girl stuff with. He's someone I really enjoy hanging out with, so I can say I am really glad to have him in my life. I really don't think I should be looking to be in a relationship anytime soon. Get back on my feet, get my life in order first. Make myself a better person before I start thinking about anything else.

But I know, the seeds of poison have already taken root in my mind.

They had been all along. Dormant. Waiting.

But my thoughts are feeding them now.

And I know that if I do not suppress them,

I will be making the same mistake I had been all my life.

And nothing beautiful can ever blossom,

out of the seeds of poison.

Of cars and friends.

It's been a long night, but my van is finally almost ready. Fixed a few more wiring annoyances here and there and managed to get my lights working right too. And then I realised, that my new intercooler setup is able to clear a stock bumper. For those who think I'm speaking alien, basically it just means I do not have to cut ugly holes in my bumper just to fit my intercooler anymore. Woohoo? NO. Apparently, my mechanic Mark had already cut my bumper, and he gave me the dark stare of doom as I put forth ever so subtly the suggestion that I wanted to change bumper. I know for a fact he spent the whole afternoon cutting my bumper but aiyaaaa, I can be very anal when I want to. The two gaping holes staring back at me just annoyed me more and more the more I look at them.

Then Samuel offered to give me his bumper, because he says he doesn't mind an ugly bumper. I refused, because I am definitely not going to let him live with an ugly bumper just because I want a nice one. Glen also offered to give me his bumper, because he also doesn't mind a cut up bumper. I refused too, but it's just nice knowing that my friends are willing to do that for me. I am really thankful to have found these bunch of friends. They are people I know I can depend on to help me whenever I need them to, as will I for them. They are the ones who stood by me through my worst periods when I was down and depressed. They will always help me pay for stuff when they know I'm piss broke, and never said a thing about it. You guys and girls are awesome (:

And one thing me and the guys have in common, is our passion for cars. Not in the typical Singaporean sense, simply throwing money at workshops and enjoying the results they get thereafter. We are the kind who will spend hours working on our own cars, fixing and improving them, learning about them inside out. We can have hours of geeky talk about how things work, and improvising ideas to achieve the results we want. That's why all of our cars we can be truly proud of, because we know that we built them through hard work, sweat and tears. There's a very different satisfaction you derive from building a car with your own effort, versus paying someone to do everything. It's rare to find people like us in Singapore, so I would say I am pretty lucky to have found friends like this too. That is what brought us together at first, and that is one of the things that continues to bond us together.

Anyways, I really should be getting to sleep. Till next time!

No. No way no.

No it's not going to happen again.

It shouldn't.

It wouldn't.

Oh yeah it's hard.

I hate how life works sometimes. Just yesterday I was thinking I was feeling better. Today my mom decided to talk about her. I went for a haircut with Linda and she brought me to the place where me and Jas used to have late night supermarket trips, and spent hours at Cash Converters looking through used CDs. My friends kept talking about her and her stuffed toys in my house. I went to catch a movie at Cineleisure, and that place brought back so many memories of her. Then just as I reached home, tired and wanting to sleep, Mel mentioned that she calls her husky 'manja boy'; that was the first nickname she gave me since we got together because of how I always like to give her hugs and cuddle with her. Now I find myself missing her all over again.

It's hard, hell yes it is. But I will get through this.

Rainbow after the rain

Yeah things are getting better for me I guess. Maybe moving on isn't simply, moving on. Maybe its not a process which only takes time, but effort as well. I am forcing myself to smile, to push away the thoughts of you everytime they come, to stop checking on how you're doing and to stop listening to those sad songs. I am trying to occupy my time now (read: buying stuff when I am already piss broke. But hey, retail therapy never hurt nobody), I am starting to hit on girls again. I can't wait for my van to come home so I can start working on something I love. Yeah, it's getting better. It's time to get my life back on track. Yes Mel, I am coming back to Earth.

On a side note, I met her again today. The girl with that lovely, mesmerizing smile. It was still as captivating as I remembered. And I'm beginning to find myself being attracted to her liveliness, her spunk, her infectious cheeriness. Hmmm, who knows?

Random pic

My baby's coming back!

Yes he's alive, breathing and grunting and spewing black smoke into your oh-so-precious atmosphere. I miss him to bits. He's always been my buddy when I'm down, offering me shelter and great music and a nice, quiet place to be in. Sorry for always hooning you when I'm in a bad mood, but you never fail to make me feel better.

Most people will never understand this strange bond I have with my van, but I'm very attached to him really. For one, is the amount of time, effort and money I have spent on him. Almost every single part of him, I had worked on before. I had spent a week driving without a dashboard, because I took it out to reupholster it. I had spent a month painstaking carpetting the rear, slowly finishing it part by part everyday after work, and having the entire van smelling so strongly of glue, I had to drive with the windows down to avoid knocking myself out. I had spent a week at home soldering and rewiring my speedometer, just to make it look more modern. I had spent a month at a workshop, slowly porting my engine head with a hand drill, while my engine was being rebuilt. Countless days and nights were spent with my friends just working on our cars, rewiring our sound systems, soundproofing our rides, widening our fenders, spraying our rims, working on our engines, keeping our cars clean, etc. There is a very big difference between how I feel about my old car and this van, simply because of the amount of effort that went into it. Because everyday I drive, I know that its a van that I had built (mostly) myself from ground up, how I transformed it into something I really liked. Everyday I was driving the fruit of my labour. When people commend my van, it just makes me swell with pride, a pride I wouldn't feel on a vehicle which I simply paid money for people to work on it.

He's always been there for me. If he isn't, its usually because I did something stupid like crashed him, or cut a wire I shouldn't have cut. He's the one who is following me everywhere I go for work, carrying my tools, my laptop, my stuff. He's the one who is always there with me when I just don't feel like meeting anybody. I can just buy my beer, head off to my quiet spot, and spend the night there with him, oblivious to the world. He's the one that is always an outlet for my emotions. I can take him out for a spin at night and feel much better after that. He's the one that gets more likes than me on Facebook, the one that people know me for, he's my pride and joy. He's the one I get drunk in, the one I can sleep in when I don't want to go home, the one I have great times in, the one I cry in, the one I have long talks in, the one I have a little lovemaking in sometimes.

He has his tantrums too, there are times he makes me so frustrated I could strangle him, if he had a neck. But strangely enough, he rarely acts up when I'm broke. But once I have my pay, everything breaks down. He can be annoying, but at least he chooses a good time to be annoying. I'm really beginning to miss that fella.

Come back soon buddy, let's smoke out the roads together again.

Farewell, ba xa.

It seems like just yesterday Oanh and I (yes now I know her name) had our 2nd date. She came into my car, and asked me where are we headed to. I asked her if she has been anywhere before, she said she had never been to anywhere other than the few shops around her workplace. Alrighty then! I decided to give her a quick tour of Singapore. We explored around places like Orchard, Marina South, Marina Bay, Raffles, Clarke Quay, Harborfront, Mount Faber, East Coast Park, Chinatown, etc. Her eyes shone like a little kid the moment we entered Orchard, with the brilliantly lit Christmas displays. She whipped out her phone and started snapping photos and videos of anything and everything. She smiled and laughed and pointed at things, telling me things I only half-understood. But it was OK, I was just really happy to see her smile like this. And I thought, I wanted to make her smile this way for her last few days in Singapore. I want her to leave this place with some good memories.

Fast forward a few days, and last night was the last night she spent at my place. She was quieter than usual, I guess she knew that the brief moment our lives crossed each other was coming to an end. She called me 'ong xa' which means 'hubby' in Vietnamese, and told me to call her 'ba xa'. She gave me her Vietnam number, told me if one day I do visit, to call her, and she will bring me around Ho Chih Minh City, as a friend. It was a long embrace we had, as I dropped her home this morning before we went to work.

Farewell ba xa, and thank you for the times we had, however short they were.

Days like this.

The days are getting better.

I find myself thinking less about you.

I find my happiness slowly returning to me.

I thought I was finally getting over you.

And then there are days like this.

Days like today,

I don't know what triggers them,

what causes them to come.

But days like today,

I find myself back to square one again.

I miss you so much it hurts.

Memories of days gone by return in all vividness.

I try to fight them, sometimes I win.

Usually, I don't.

I start to lose myself in my thoughts,

I start to detach myself from the people around me.

I try to smile and keep in conversation,

but I hardly manage anything past a smile or a casual remark.

But I'll keep smiling,

because I don't want anybody to think anything is wrong.

Because I don't want people to see how stupid in love I am with you.

Because I don't want to fall back in the same dark pit I am trying so hard to crawl out from.

But its fucking hard.

I never realised how hard it is to act happy.

It's days like this that I realise,

there's still not a day that goes by without me thinking about you.

It's days like this that I realise,

I'm still not over you.

Prayer

I went back to pray at Loyang today. It was a place I used to go once or twice a week, when I just broke up with Jas, to pray for her to have a happy life, to always be the girl I fell so deeply in love with. In a way, I guess he did his part. She is happy now, really happy, as far as I can tell. And that is a kind of consolation for me. I haven't returned to thank him for the favor though, and that seems kind of ungrateful, so I went back today.

I like that place, there's something about Chinese temples (most of them, at least). They evoke this sense of peace, and comfort, and calm. And I'll be honest, part of the reason I go there, is to hope to get a glimpse of her, because I know she goes every week. She wasn't there today though. So I did what I came to do, today I prayed sincerely and thanked every deity there for looking after her, and fulfilling my wish. And to make sure the new guy treats her well, if not I hope his testicles fall off. Me? Nah, I didn't bother praying for myself. He probably knows I don't believe in him, so he probably won't give two shits about me. I just hope that if he does exist, he will keep watch over her.

So what is a non-believer doing in a temple? The same reason I'm writing this blog I guess. It's a form of release for me, someone/something to tell my feelings to, an outlet for my emotions. My friends have been more than supportive of me these months, and I don't want to keep depressing them by whining to them all the time. I wouldn't need a reply or consolation or anything like this (if my blog were to suddenly type back, "It's ok, cheer up brah.", I will seriously freak out.), but it just helps that little bit to have something/someone to tell your feelings to. And I know she believes in him, so if he does help her somehow, I guess its good anyhow.

I left the temple feeling slightly better than the crap I was feeling this afternoon, so in a way, these visits to the temple always did me some good.