Time: 01:26
Mood: Wanderin'
Funny how at times, I didn't care if I will never speak to my school friends for the rest of my life....and funny how at times, I miss them and their antics at surprising volumns.
Funny how I thought I'm relieved to have left school, a place that brought me little joy but taught me a lot about life, and funny how now I miss school, well, sometimes.
Funny how, now that I thought about it, those taunts and those jerks I bear with for years, whom I hated with the burning fire of a thousand suns, has taught me about self-respect, self-confidence, self-esteem and dignity. Funny how now I can look back to Form 3, 4 & 5, when then I'll cringe, grit my teeth and hold my head high as I walk past them and hear things...now, now I can look back and laugh.
Funny how I thought school sucked and college is great, but there's a pang, something's missing. Friends who knew me in and out, friends I've spent my early teenage years with, friends I've shared crushes, junk food, holidays, trips, make up tips, arguments, falling out, shattered dreams and the darkest periods of my life with.
Funnily, I know I have moved on. I am feelin' good about college life, I have new friends, entirely new network of people from all over the nation. Rebuilding was a challenge I fully embraced. Friends who knew me through and through knew deep down I'm painfully shy and awkward about meeting new people. Being alone at that was daunting. I was bolstered by the knowledge that all my classmates, whereever I look: up or down, left or right, was making the same pilgrimage. And now I'm here. I know little things about people-like their chilli sauce fetish, cotton candy urges, their favourite cuss words. I see strangers in May became close couples. The transitional period is the worst of all, it happens right now.
Funny how I no longer tell my already-promoted old friends about new things in my life. I share Amazing Race enthusiasm and outcry with new friend. I go to movies with them. Shop for clothes. Talk about deep and not so deep stuff. Yet ..yet we're not so close yet as for me to simply call them and talk for hours. I scroll my phonebook, and I call..nobody. I talk to my old friends, yet I feel a gap. An emptiness replaced the shared experience of being in the same environment. In other words, I'm not to discreetly saying I felt left out. I no longer have the same privilages, the same priority as I once had.
Funny how it took this much for me to appreciate what they've given me, what we've shared for 5 years. Some I don't talk to anymore, in fact, I've fallen out with a few in school itself. But whatever may come, I thank them, with my full gratitute, for being passengers on my bus.
Funny how a couple of nights ago I visited an old friend's new blog, read about her life, that I felt left out the most. I cried. Not because her entries were particularly touching, but because the days are really over. REALLY over. I'm inadvertedly, irrevocably being pulled by the sand of time, and there's only one direction: forward. I pulled back a bit, and glimpsed back a bit. It felt good. And then I have to move forward again. Oh, life.
Friends of the past is the sweetest. We were kids looking for our footing. There's no ulterior motives. Everything we did or gave, it was done and given or the sake of doing and giving. Cannot say the same about the world of adults. College is people mashed together and depending on each other for sheer need.
Funny how, when I do my thing, get a little insane, grab a little attention in college, be my kooky, crappy self that my new friends call me "unpredictable". I protest! Whatever I pull is, in my humblest opinion, utterly predictable coming from me. Predictable! As opposed to UNpredictable! I. AM. PREDICTABLE!
Ai. I dunno la. I really dunno. What am I trying to say? Who am I trying to convince? In a nutshell, this entire blog should just be erased and replaced with one single sentence: I miss my old friends!
On the other hand....
I'm losing my marbles and vocabulary. I'm running around asking for translations of words from Cantonese and Malay into English. Perfectly simple and banal words like gangrene, promotion and ultimatum. No more cantonese! Must. Speak. And. Read. More. English again!
Comments:
Alvin Choong made this comment,
It's good that you see that quality is more important than quantity.
No one needs many friends if they had quality ones.
GenieOnTheLoose made this comment,
wow... that's my exact feelings abt moving on. it's unevitable yet... i sometimes wish the times would return.
now all those articles in cleo finally makes sense =P
Jun Hoe made this comment,
Yup gal, you really put down in words how I feel exactly. How our old friends in secondary school played a really big part in our lives, and still do. But now they're gone, and we're left grasping the air, and then we our hand caught some twigs, but it doesn't compare to the solid branches we're used to for support.
But it's glad that you have moved on. I'm trying to do that too, although at a slower pace. And I think I'm starting with some great friends and a new big bro I found in debating. ; )
A visitor made this comment,
Hmmnn... you seem to not really like your school life much, huh? I must admit that I loved my school years, from Standard 1 right up to Form 5. I just find it a convienient place to socialise, learn about life, and yes, also to learn about my subjects (not!) ;) But maybe it's because I've had good 'experiences' in school. Everybody's different, I guess.
xar
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