On a whim I decided I had to get out of the apartment. Episode after episode of 'Don't Trust the Bitch in Apt 23' was doing nothing to help prepare me for my impending finals, so with much difficulty I managed to tear myself away from James van der Beek's magnetic narcissism (for those who haven't seen the show, JVDB is not the bitch in question) and with my 'les francais sans frontiers' textbook in tow, headed out to seek a haven of quiet solitude.
I found myself back at Monona Terrace. It's been almost exactly an entire year since I've been here, the last time being the time where Damian visited me, and we spent out first night here on the terrace overlooking Lake Monona, freezing in the uncharacteristically cool summer breeze and shooting the shit. The most fascinating pair of dastardly minds finally reunited, we were together again and unstoppable. The me back then, that kid, thought he survived so much and was so proud of himself while having no idea what was impending. That self-congratulatory smug chump, thrilled beyond belief to finally see an old friend, still not quiet believing that the prospect of Celine in Vegas is in fact real, and most of all eager leave Madison.
As I sit here now in this same spot, with barely 2 weeks left before heading to Singapore, I come to the strangest realization that I'm not as eager to jump on the plane and take off. I have been missing my family and best friends so much that I frequently dream of them, and I have no doubt that their ever-lasting presence in my life has been crucial to my survival here, but I think I have been beginning to separate my lives. I need them in my life, but at the same time I have to accept that my 'life in Singapore as I know it' is over. I am no longer the boy who lives in Singapore and studies occasionally in the US. I have been, in fact, for two years now, the guy who lives in the US and occasionally visits Singapore. My life and future here needs to be the constant with visiting as Singapore a bonus. Perhaps I am not so eager to leave now because I have found footing here. In a manner I believe it's a sign of personal growth, that I'm not running back to the familiar at the first sign of trouble, but rather willing to stick it out.
If I had the chance to go back in time and talk to a 20 year old me, I doubt he would believe what I had to say. He wouldn't believe that he'd truly fall in love for the first time, that he'd finally find the perfect design for that long-awaited tattoo, that he'd have his heart so irrevocably smashed that he'll still wake up on tear-soaked pillows, that he'll have his hair cut short, that he'll construct the perfect blanket fort, that allies in his fraternity are closer than he thought. I would tell him anyways, I would tell him to be magnanimous with love, to care even if someone else wouldn't, to have the strength to pick up the pieces even though he knew the consequences going in. I would tell him that he hasn't seen anything yet, because maybe a 22-year-old James would one day say the exact same words to me.
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