When the past catches up with you
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.
November 10th, 2005 at 11:17 pm
…..That’s a very silly way for them to think. While this might mean never getting to know those who are better now, sometimes it’s just so much easier to stop contacting a whole group of people so you don’t kena on the sly from those who remain the same people that you broke away from years ago.
November 11th, 2005 at 12:00 am
I have never attended one of my high school re-unions for similar sorts of reasons … well, I didn’t have a break up, but a few idiots put me through a lot of crap and stuff, and it’s easier not to go than to put up with people piling crap on you. Two years time will be my classes 25th year highschool re-union.
I am wondering if my friend Gary will make it, as he has a brain tumor which is killing him. My friend Gregory is the only person who I still have contact with.
My bestfriend from school hasn’t talked to me since my marriage break up (and I don’t know why) and … well, I haven’t spoken to anyone else in years.
My friend Sue died, which was sad. She died of anorexia as she thought no one liked her.
It’s sort of strange as I’ve gone from being the popular guy everyone thought was funny to knowing absolutely none of them anymore!!! The only thing they seem to remember was I was thrown out of home when I was nineteen and had to live on the streets of Sydney. That somehow made me a complete outcast!
Life’s weird like that. It’s like a box of chocolates!
November 11th, 2005 at 12:48 am
Dabido:- I have seen ur post regarding ur past..hey u very strong, so much thing to learn from u.
Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.
November 11th, 2005 at 1:09 am
The only reunions I go to nowadays, are when any one of my friends get married. I kind of hate going sometimes, because it’s like everyone has moved on and stuff, while I’m still stuck in the same place they last saw me. But then things happen like, I met a friend I fought with years ago over some stupid silly thing, and we still keep in touch now. Even more than those I was close with when I was studying. Sometimes the past just needs to rest I guess. If not it’ll bug you all the time.
November 11th, 2005 at 2:07 am
I know how you feel. Sometimes, I feel it rather hard to deal with old primary school or secondary school friends, because they are all seemingly stuck in a time loop, or perhaps, not them being stuck there, but the fact that in their eyes, I will always be the old ‘me’, and never who I am now. Of course, long years of separation may have contributed to this, but such assumptions are rather naive.
November 11th, 2005 at 8:51 am
edmund:
maybe it is rather haughty of both of us to behave as if we know better, eh? but then again, why do i so agree with you?
November 11th, 2005 at 9:45 am
hmmm…this post is reminiscent of the one about your past, a couple of months ago i think.
true, we will always remain the same person that we were in the eyes of certain people, simply because the perception they have of us from high school seem ingrained into their mind.
likewise, our perception of other ppl will never change, like the old adage - you can take the person out of the high school, but you can’t take the high school outta him. certain traits will always remain the same, no matter how old one becomes…
November 11th, 2005 at 9:54 am
I’m sorry if I’m “obviously” generalizing here. But it would seem to me that, from what I could gather from your post, I’d say there’s a slight tinge of “not making the effort on your part”.
Yes, you could say “I’ll do what I feel is right” or “I won’t do something that would please everyone but not me”. Quite true in fact. However, I just feel that when it comes to friendships and making them last, we still have to do our own part.
To be there for the friends that we know are truly sincere and not for the “hi-bye” ones. Unless, of course, you just simply don’t want to put up with the faces or uncomfortable remarks from the latter. Which brings us back to the issue of “Why should I?”.
Take care, mini.
A daily visitor,
Bing
November 11th, 2005 at 9:58 am
I’m still with a couple of my old friends that I’ve known since secondary school, in fact one of them is my housemate now.
Things are pretty much the same between us since the first day we have known each other but can’t really say about the other friends that I have lost contact with. I even forgot some of them when I bump into them :oops:. But yeah they do dig out your past when you meet them, because that’s the last thing they know about you and that’s the way they think they can connect to you. It’s just an initial thing though because after they know your present news, they won’t bother with the old.
I’d like to meet my bully during secondary school and get my revenge on him though..:twisted:
November 11th, 2005 at 10:08 am
i think what’s coolest is the fact that the prettiest girl in school at that time isn’t really the prettiest girl in school anymore. and some of the not-so-hawt chicks at that time are now hosting their very own tv shows and look really hawt!
November 11th, 2005 at 10:42 am
Mayhaps A had ran out of things to say. One comment is as good as another as she rambled it off her tongue. Oops, too late, can’t take it back.
Nevertheless, time never truly heals all wounds. It merely dulls them. Which makes memories all the more… sweeter, for lack of a better word. Better to cherish. Both good and bad.
It rules to be a goldfish!
(Sorry ah, a bit contradictory. Friday mah!)
November 12th, 2005 at 12:11 am
Mini’s observation is just so right!
The hottest girl is no more the hottest. She is married with two kids and a 2 year old stretch mark.
The hottest boy now owns a 36 waist and receeding hair line. He works so so as an engineer in good international company.
The classroom monitor is now running a chain of restaurants and the girl with braces at 16 is now the center of attention.
The one with the biggest boobs ended up as a SIA stewardess. She is still known as “Oh that’s Tina with the huge *cough cough*”
The wallflower is now a successful and beautiful corperate high-flyer. She buys a property in Damansara CASH each year as a present to herself.
The ones who were slim and beautiful are more often than not, not so pretty as compared to their ugly duckling sisters, who are now just so damn gorgeous.
The smartest boy ended up as the professor in uni while the naugthiest boy is now owns a factory earning billions for him while he’s playing golf somewhere on earth.
The class nerd has 3 kids, shared between a wife and a 18 yr old mistress. He also drives the swankiest car in the class.
Life handouts the funniest future.
November 12th, 2005 at 2:26 am
Life’s weird sometimes.
And yes, the past do haunt us and there are times when we cannot avoid it because it will be there in our minds.
Well, I don’t really like it when my past catches up with me because it brings back old memories…