When the past catches up with you
Nov 10, 2005 in Diary-writer
I wonder just how many of my high school friends read this blog. Because they hardly leave comments, and very seldom do I get e-mails from these people asking me how I do, I'm going to assume there are very few.
I'm also going to assume that BECAUSE there are very few, they won't feel the thorns that I might just plant into this particular post. But if you feel them and they hurt you, I'll apologize first. I know honesty isn't the best bet in things like these, but then again, I'd prefer honesty over pretentious smiles anytime.
A number of people know that in my first official relationship, I went out with a high school friend who had apparent brains, and a pretty respectable ambition. It lasted three years, and it was just atypical of a high-school relationship. I was very much in love, 'in love' in the definition of that times. I'm not ashamed about that.
You have got to be in love with someone to be in a relationship that lasted three years, and when a three-year relationship breaks down, obviously, I broke down. I'm not ashamed about that either. But after that, time washes away emotions, and love is not a constant. You move on, and I moved on.
What I do not appreciate, is the fact that people refuse to let you move on, and insist on reminding you of the time when you behaved like you were forever going to be left behind. Perhaps, the real scenario isn't very much like that anymore… but several events after the break up just leads to me thinking like that.
Like for example, the reunions that stopped involving me.
The meet-ups that stopped involving me.
The friends who used to call, who stopped calling me.
The times when you see photos of groups that used to include you, that stopped including you.
After a while, you don't know what really makes your heart ache: was it the broken relationship? Or the truncated friendships?
However, as time goes, you begin to let these people stay in the past. You begin to realize that you just have to live in the present, and there are people who are more deserving of the title 'friends' now, than before.
So pardon me, if I stopped wanting to care if you cared.
Oh of course there were the inevitable bump-intos. You can't avoid them. Almost a year ago, I bumped into a girl, A, an ex-school mate whom I used to be rather close with, until after the break-up. I bumped into her at a local bookstore, I was in a rush to go to a meeting, she was there to get some stationery. I was at first, happy to have met her again.
At first, I thought, it would be easy to let bygones be bygones.
But they wouldn't let me. They wouldn't.
I thought it would be nice to talk again, so I cooked up a conversation. It began with a 'hi', and then shortly after, that customary, 'We must talk again.' Maybe it seemed unnatural, but you have to start somewhere, and then.
The 'must talk again' was a quick jolt back to reality.
'You know,' I remember her saying. 'I'm so happy you look better now. It was so hard to talk to you, you were crying all the time.'
'Oh. Was it? I can't remember, really.'
'Yes. Hai, no need to talk about these things.'
'Yeah these things are really stupid.'
'Oh you look so much happier now. You didn't have to cry so much, you know.'
Ma-hai.
Some of you will probably understand why I decided to block some people on my IM list.
The truth is, I've tried, I've tried not to deny the recent invitations. I know there is the possibility that the old mates have now begun to grow up just like me, except I'm still a little sceptical, and a bit cynical, and terribly suspicious of motives.
The truth is I'm also a bit tired of brushing off remarks like, 'You didn't have to cry so much, you know.'
The truth is, it hurts to be reminded, and to talk as if my past had a role to play in the apparent 'mask' that I wear now. It is also the fact that you do not seem to want to respect my present, and the people I love now, and the man whom I love now matters more to me than the past heart-breaker I used to go out with can ever imagine.
The truth is, you disqualify my current life as a farce just because I stopped belonging to your circle..
So suddenly, when the circle decides to initiate an official reunion, and I'm engaged in the arrangements, by virtue of my participation in a high-school forum that is half-alive (because no one else from other cliques ever go there), I shy away from the discussion. I make up excuses. I don't want to go.
I know it's not all of you, and that's where the dilemma lies. It's not all of you. It's just a handful, but it's because of the handful that I do not feel like going.
Then I thought of it again: if I don't go, what would they say? Sure, I ought not care, but can you really, really, not give a fuck? I know I can make you think that I don't give a fuck, but why should I pretend that I really give a fuck and I get bothered that these people will might say things.
And then there're the other people who I really, really want to meet, that I feel I'll miss out on if I not go. Like the teachers they're inviting, and the friends who still bother to come to visit me every Chinese New Year. Yet because of that handful…
Although I'm not deciding, not yet. I have a few months to decide, and I'll take my time in doing that.
Don't mind me, I got emotional. Or maybe, I was just pulling out the weeds.
