Gazing

There we laid, upon grass that lightly tickled out necks, as we crossed off another cliche - star gazing. With the light breeze fluttering between our toes, you traced a finger across my arm and said that stars made you realize how insignificant we all were, in the grand scheme of things. In the eyes of the universe we are but a speck. I disagreed. Look at all those millions upon millions of stars, I said. Screw the stars because they are the ones that are insignificant. Each one twinkling with the same one-pixel glow, half perhaps already dead by the time its light found its way to earth. I turned to you and affirmed that there was only one of you, there ever only will be one of you, and what I had was more impressive than the stars.

Needle

I'm not someone who's afraid of needles. I know of many friends who would rather stare down the  cross-dressing Satan lobster monster from Powerpuff Girls (the scariest cartoon rendition of anything I've ever seen) than be in the general vicinity of a needle. Even as a kid, I'd face mandatory injections or blood-draws with a stoic bravado not usually present in me. Having something stuck in me was simply not that terrifying for me, a rule that would prove to be true later on in my adult life as well. Very adult, in fact.

I used to go for weekly facial sessions with Annie, who would prick my face with a needle for hundreds of times, and then squeeze out all the 'bad' blood that cause blemishes. The process takes two to three hours at a time, and you'd think that having a needle hovering above your face all that time would be just unbearable, but in the name of beauty, I stuck it out and eventually came to adore it. When I moved away from Singapore, I still dream of having facials done and miss the fantastic bundle of gossipy energy my Taiwanese beautician has. 

As a result, I was under the impression that if I could take Annie's weekly prickling for 7 whole months, I can withstand a tattoo needle without screaming bloody murder and threatening to slaughter the tattoo artist's entire family and dog. I had found the perfect design, a Japanese haiku, written in calligraphy, that translates to "The thief, left behind, the moon in my window". With my design in mind, I made an appointment with the Blue Lotus lounge, reputably the best place for tattoos in Madison.

Heart pounding, I walked into the tattoo parlor.  I had probably never felt so intimidated in my life, I felt like I was in a classic fish-out-of-water movie where the hero (me, in this case) has to overcome his distance among the people on the other side of the tracks where hilarious misunderstandings ensue, after which they all come to have a deeper understanding and begrudging respect for each other. And this was only after I made it up the first flight of stairs.

To my surprise, Noah asked if I wanted to get it done right there and then. I was only scheduled for a consultation but he had a cancellation which left him free to do mine, if I wanted to. I faltered for a milisecond and decided to do it. It was long overdue, and with the perfect design I figured I might as well get it done now so it can begin healing. Hence began the process. 

He had me lie on the side (I wanted it on the right side of my ribs) while he prepared the ink and the strangely medieval-looking needle. "It's gonna hurt a little," he said. "So remember to breathe." 

Nothing could have quite prepared me for that first contact. The needle buzzing, I felt a sharp piercing on my side, like a rusty vibrating fork scratching me to death. Every few second or so he would lift the needle up and wipe away the excess ink, then go back for it. The worst of the pain came when he started working on the bits that were directly above my ribs, where there was contact with bone. It felt like someone was trying to drill into my bone, and the vibration would slow down as you felt the needle bouncing on your bone. I wondered why I was subjecting myself to such torment as an involuntary tear flowed down my cheek onto the sterile-wrapped chair.

"Is it over?" I moaned when he took a longer-than-usual pause.

"Nope." He replied, while another tattoo artist laughed in the distance.

After probably 20 minutes, my suffering was finally over. It was like I birthed a child, only from my ribs, and my child was a beautifully inked calligraphy of a haiku. My breath caught as I checked it out in a mirror - it was absolutely mesmerizing. My right arm was sore from holding it over my head all throughout the process, but amazingly, that was the only thing that hurt. The fresh tattoo was red around the edges like a burn wound, but apart from that it didn't feel like anything at all. 

I walked out feeling completely empowered and probably high from the endorphins released when I was in pain. I promised I would get one with Jaystine when I was back in Singapore, we'll see if I manage to find another perfect design by then.

Collisions

They say there's no such thing as coincidence - especially fictional TV detectives with a penchant for removing and replacing their sunglasses as they deliver one-liners - but of course there is. The world was built on coincidence. Life began as a series of infinite random collisions until atoms and molecules finally meshed in a way that sparked off life. You and I were both products of random coincidences, it just so happened that it was that spurt of your father's ejaculate that found its way to your mother's rarely hospitable uterus, and by chance they found themselves at a point in life where they didn't have to suck you out with a vacuum, so hooray for you.

So don't tell me everything happens for a reason. Why would it? The universe isn't conspiring to make you happy, and it isn't planning a grand finale where you will finally make sense of it all while learning little lessons from all the seemingly-bad things that happened to you. Because the universe doesn't give a crap. No one's out there puppeteering your life, basically everything that happens to you happened by chance. You ask why do bad things happen to good people. Why? Because fuck you, that's why. Things happen, sometimes they're excellent like french toast served in bed by an army of midgets, sometimes they're terrible like homeless people who look you in the eye as they masturbate on the street. Ever notice how you only start believing that 'things happen for a reason' after something good happens later on? That's you searching for connections where they don't exist, connecting the dots from a now-comfortable vantage point.

I believe that nothing happens for a reason. Absolutely nothing. The world doesn't owe you happiness, and trying to rationalize everything as something potentially meaningful would just be self-denial. So when good things happen, don't take it for granted and when bad things happen don't take it personally. People happen to be shitty and disasters occasionally happen. In the grand scheme of things, we're just little tiny molecules bumping into each other, hoping that one of those collisions would be slightly more meaningful than the other million.

Opening Night

Describe the perfect date.

"Do people really still ask these unoriginal cliches? Dinner and a movie, awkward hand-touching in the cinema and pathetic single-stemmed roses, hastily purchased 10 minutes prior to the date? To me, the crux of a good date isn't about what two people do or how much he spends, but instead about the hope it gives them. A perfect date is one where neither party ever develops the impatient toe-tap, the stifled half-yawn, or the inconspicuous watch-glance. To me, the best dates are the ones that are completely unstructured. Just head out together, with nothing planned and no tables booked, no cute script memorized and no discussion questions prepared for moments of awkward silence. 

One time we just took a walk together with no intention of going anywhere. A passing comment about how Library Mall's construction was finally completed after two years led to us deciding to walk along the new pathway instead. That change in course brought us to the newly renovated museum's gift shop. Little comments about the painfully pointless decor that the gift shop sold made me optimistic; you can't hate so many of the same things without having some sort of genuine connection. The back and forth repertoire was organic and sitcom-funny without being rehearsed, the casual way his hand sometimes lingered on the small of my back thrilled without being overly PDA-ish.

From the gift shop we entered the museum-actual, and realized that we stumbled on to the grand opening night of the newly refurbished Chazen. We were among the work of Warhol and Picasso, and I was enthralled by the beauty he resonated, glowing even beside masterpieces of the greatest artists the world has seen. Perhaps the timing was what made all this even more magical than it surprisingly turned out to be - it was exactly two months after the last time I'd seen my previous, which was in turn exactly two months after we first met. I was slowly being brought back to the mentality of believing in relationships. 

For me, at least, this was a date that I perhaps needed most at that juncture of my life. It gave me a boost of hope and a taste of what I'd been missing, as well as the touch of a man I'd come to dream about for months to come. The unfortunate fact that I'd been unceremoniously dumped without warning a few weeks later didn't change the fact that it was a date I deeply cherished. As easy as it is to write him off as a lying, manipulative jerk, but that wasn't the question now was it? The perfect date, that was what I'd gotten."

Return to Monona Terrace

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.

What Hurts The Most

"You know what's fucked up? When all of a sudden, someone just wakes up and decides to never talk to you again. No reason. No explanation. No words said. They just leave you hanging like you never meant shit to them, and what hurts the most is how they make it look so easy." 

You're single? Why? 

"Why would you possibly ask me that? What do you want me to say, that after everything I've done I am still left with nothing tangible to show for it? I am single because clearly I fucked up somewhere, or that I am fucked up somewhere. I am single because watching old movies and drinking wine is a full time job, because I'd rather drill holes in my bones than degrade myself trying to appear like-able to jerks, because I am better than the person I let myself get cheapened to. Are you asking because you're looking for me to tell you how much more comfortable I am being independent, so you can feel more comfortable about flaunting your new relationship around me? Or are you asking because you subconsciously want me to think deeply about how I'm lacking as compared to you, and that I need to reevaluate and restructure my life to be more like you? You wanna know why? I'll tell ya why. I'm single because I didn't forward all those chain emails as a kid and now I'm paying for it."

21

I always refer people to the trusty world of Myer-Briggs personality profiles when I'm accused of over-thinking. I can't help it, I would say. INFJs have a predisposed condition where we can't help but over-analyze every facet of our lives. This almost-crippling mentality has led to many instances where I just stand in a store for, staring at a product while my mind races with possibilities and calculations of every possible scenario that can result from this purchase. No shop-keeper likes a guy who just stands there in a daze, especially if he's salivating over a set of porcelain kitchen knives. Makes me look positively demented. 

But as I turn 21, I couldn't help but wonder, as Carrie often does, what does being 21 mean? A seemingly arbitrary selection of an age that is supposedly the time where we're magically responsible, or at least responsible enough to vote and to drink. There is definitely a thrill of finally being able to get into a bar, to be able to purchase alcohol, to be able to be publicly intoxicated and not give a damn. But is the chase of a drink all 21 really means? It's not as if I've been unable to easily get some alcohol, especially in college and in a town where we spit in the face of drinking-age laws on a weekly basis. 

Is it the symbolism of being a true adult? It is, after all, the final age where people actually look forward to. After this it's gonna be a long road of learning to live with your age instead of celebrating it. I believe our modern world is one where innocence is lost early but maturity is gained late. We have legions of men-child and baby-sluts, possessing both the complicated mindsets and sexuality of adults with the impulses and emotional in-capabilities of children. I have done some very adult things, but at heart I often feel like a child. I feel like I'm masquerading as someone who has things under control, who is able to go out there and conquer it all by himself, but on the inside I feel just as easily bruised as a much younger me would. 

In earlier generations, a 21 year old would have been married with children and earning the bread and butter for his family, but here we are, still living off our parents' money and going to school and being our professors' bitch. A 21 year old in our world really has none of that adult burden; a simple walk down a college's main street with the stumbling drunks (as I have been for many times) would prove as much. We're really all still children. So what does this age mean then? To me, I believe it's a point where I have to recognize that my adult life is ahead of me, and that this is a point of new beginnings. What I do now can no longer be based on the years of childish whims behind me, but instead on this whole new exciting world of adulthood. 

I think that recognizing that I don't have everything figured out is the point of being 21. If nothing else, it's a place to take a pause and reevaluate where I am and where I want to be, because whether we like it or not, the future is coming right at us.

Only If For A Night

After years of being concert-deprived on the island of Singapore, where mega-stars never tend to visit, I developed a sort of compulsion to attend the concerts or shows of anyone I'm even remotely interested in. The concept of 'there'll be another time' will never occur to me, for I have been brought up to believe that you get one shot and then it's over.

It should come as little surprise then, that for someone as completely amazing as Florence Welch of Florence + the Machine, I would make the trek down to the city of Milwaukee, 1.5 hours from Madison by bus. The concert is held at The Rave's Eagles Ballroom, and apparently, as Florence herself told us later on, it was one of the most haunted venues in the country. Ghosts would drown guests back in the 19th century as they swam in the basement's pool, tickling their feet and yanking them to their watery graves. Absolutely perfect for a Florence concert. 

The ticket I had purchased was for the VIP balcony section, but a quick survey of the venue proved the balcony to be a completely ridiculous place to sit for a concert. It was far away and slanted in an oblong oval shape, utterly pointless for a concert where you'd want to be as intrusive to the performer's private space as possible. I wanted to be so close that Florence's flowly sleeves could possibly slap me across the cheeks as she twirled around the stage. I abandoned the idea of the balcony and instead got in the standing floor area where I slowly inched my way towards the front and center of the stage. I got to about 15 feet from the mic-stand before encountering a group of delicious looking strangers that I would like to accidentally rub up against in the darkness of a concert, and hence I halted my journey there. 

To my utter disappointment, there was an opening act. I have never enjoyed openers, and I know they have it tough, trying to get a crowd to like you when all they want is for your cheap low-fat pudding ass off the stage and to bring on the main course. This guy was particularly awful, singing in a whiny whispery tone that seemed like a bad Michael Jackson impression. I had never seen so many people on their phones and talking to each other while an act was on. People might as well start standing with their backs to him. Just when I thought I could take no more, God must have heard my plea for he struck a girl down with a fainting spell, and right in-front of me, no less. I outwardly gasped as she fell to the ground but inwardly squealed with delight that there was something to place my attention on. The circle of people around her backed off slightly to give her some breathing room, but of course no one wanted to go get help and abandon their prime spots. The opening act continued playing his stupid electric guitar, oblivious that people were fainting in protest of his awkward horrid-ity.

The setting up of the band instruments took another half an hour after the opener finally left, and the lights dimmed exactly at 9pm. The crowd began screaming and stomping and I wondered if this ancient building was built to withstand this. Amidst the drumming and blueish fog, there she finally appeared, stately and majestic in a greco-inspired cape. Florence strode over to her mic, and it was magic from the first notes she sang. The crowd pulsated with a feverish, electric energy, almost trance-like, as we let her ethereal beauty possess us. Artistically, it was perhaps the best concert I had witnessed. Celine's Vegas show was huge and grand and has its own merits, but Florence's set was simply art. Unlike many 'artists' today who go for elaborate, jarring costumes in the name of 'art', Florence's persona just seemed natural and authentic. When a singer is genuinely creative, you don't have to go out of your way to shove it into everyone's faces, so by simply being connected to her music, she was demonstrating true artistry without resorting to 'shock value'. 

She is a completely enchanting and weird person, especially when talking to the audience. She spoke of the ghosts in the basement, and invited us to summon the ghosts up to the ballroom where she dedicated 'Leave My Body' to them, because she thinks ghosts are misunderstood. To my delight, she had us do the thing where we all jumped up and down rapidly during the last chorus of 'Dog Days are Over', something I had seen her do with an audience at a music festival. At that time I just thought that being in that crowd would be amazing, and never imagined I would be part of it right there and then. The asshats up in the balcony must be just kicking themselves. The floor is always where it's at. 

The show went on till it was almost 11, and by then I had missed the last bus back to Madison. I was stuck in Milwaukee with my phone almost dead and no place to go, and it was just the prime time for all the crazies and the junkies to start emerging from their holes. Why are they so interested in getting me to talk to them? Do they think I just walk around with my big bag of drugs and distribute it to whoever that says hi to me? They really need to reevaluate their game-plan if this is their primary way of getting high. 

The only thing left to do was to check in to a cheap hotel to spend the night, and then head back home the following morning. Wherever Florence is, I hope she knows what I've been through just to hear her talk about ghostly problems. 

Epilogue

Our final days together were fraught with equal amounts of anxiety and depression, tears and resentment. As much as I wanted to accept my loss with the grace and wisdom of an adult and not the screaming grief of a child, I couldn't fake it. Now, curiously, a friend was put in a similar situation, and I was prompted into looking at the epilogue of our story.

I remember being at the 1 Altitude bar. I was having drinks with Damian and Jaystine at the rooftop of the tallest building in Singapore, soaking and relishing in the last 3 days I have left before heading back to Madison. From up here, problems seem so far and tiny in the distance, nothing but insignificant specks of blinking lights. We talked about life, of love, of the inappropriate pictures of us on my phone and of how I should put a password lock on my phone if I had half a brain. Over tequila sunrises and Moscow mules, we shared our respective fears and dreams of the future. Unlike the kids we all once knew each other as, we are all now standing on the cusp of adulthood, all uncertain but hopeful.

I remember receiving a text message from you, as we were just on the topic of you. Perhaps talking about how you once got to skip work on the account of your uncle's death but first came over to do the naughty with me while keeping me in the dark about it. Or perhaps about our first date where you fed me chocolates by the river. In your text message, you asked me where I was, and said that you had just finished watching a play of some sort. I told you about our little night out on 1 Altitude, and for the moment put you out of my mind as I leaned out over the glass barriers and stuck my head into the wind, letting it take my breath away. 

I remember we were just getting ready to leave, walking towards the elevators that would bring us back down to the first floor. The elevator doors chimed open, and thunder struck through my body as I recognized you on the other side. There you were, just half-smirking in that devilish manner I had first fallen in love with, as if this dramatic entrance was what you had been planning all along. These movie-magic moments, scenes where, if I had seen in a movie I'd have found completely unrealistic, were happening in my own life. Were these the reasons why we go through everything we do, just to experience for once in a lifetime, such exquisite bliss? 

I remember the four of us sitting by the pier of the Singapore river, the waters lapping at our ankles as distant music drifted by from bars across the river, providing the backdrop of what I would soon come to know as our last real conversation. A cover band in one of the bars across us was playing Jason Mraz's I'm Yours, I could hear, appropriate considering I had done a version of that for you around the beginning of our relationship. The four of us talked and laughed a lot and I was surprising myself that I could find humor at this juncture. At least it's ending on a good note, I told myself. My leaving was pushed to the back of my mind for now, but it was resiliently edging forwards.

I remember you walking me home and taking the lift up with me as usual. Before exiting, I turned back and sneaked in one final kiss. 

That was the last time I ever saw you. 

On the last day before I left, I was in Damian's room where I received a text message from you, saying that you're not going to see me again, citing how it was going to make things too difficult. I was alone while Damian was getting drinks or making a call. I stared at my phone for a beat, jaw hanging open, then cried when I realized I wouldn't see you again. I cried at your cruelty, at the abrupt loss of the one thing I held most dear to my heart for months. Then I gathered myself up before Damian came back, for I wanted to let him see me leave with my head held high. There was time enough for tears after I had passed through Changi's departure gate.

After living in a daze for two months back in Madison, I realized that something very fundamental in me changed. Or was broken. I was weak now, or at least the kind of person the old me would consider weak. Neurologists would chalk it up to symptoms related to dopamine withdrawal, romantics would call it heartbreak. Regardless, I knew I would never be the same person again. Part of that scares me. Areas in which I once was ruthless towards, I now had more compassion. In situations that demanded my trust though, I grew skeptical and cautious. I believed in the strength and power of love now, yes. But I also saw the darkness of betrayal. I would always consider, perhaps unfairly, that your one-sided decision to not see me one last time an act of betrayal, but that is simply the way I have been forced to regard the events. 

It took seven months for me to be able to write about this. To this day, even after all this time, not one day passes where I don't think about you. In a very pathetic sense, whenever I picture what my future would be like, I would still unconsciously cast you as the star, there by my side. Does dopamine reliance really last this long? Do the scientists have answers for this? 

When my friend, in this oddly similar situation, asks me if it was worth it, I'd say, "yes, if he makes it worth it." You made it worth it because you were worth it. 

I only hope I was worth it.

Run

Fight or flight: The two basic instincts all animals are born equipped with. When faced with a problem, you either handle it or you run. But can we run from our problems? We've heard it so many times, reinforced by old adages from the pseudo-wisdom of supposedly more experienced past generations, that we probably all have this notion that running never solves a problem. We're encouraged to stay and deal with issues, to be headstrong and tough. It's a sign of weakness if you choose to avoid instead of confront, or so we are led to believe. 

Why then, does nature provide two options for animals in danger if the 'right' thing to do is to fight? All animals, by that definition, should evolve fangs and talons that enables them to take on predators and prey alike. But that's clearly not the case. Some have adapted by evolving longer legs and better stamina, for the sole purpose of fleeing the scene in dire times. The simple fact of the matter is that fleeing is many a time a very viable, and often superior, option. 

Sure, you can't run from debt, from oppressive parents, from the emotional wreck of a past relationship. Some things find a way to stick with you for life, and no amount of running is going to solve it. But I have always appreciated the wisdom in fleeing today to fight tomorrow. Running and getting some distance between you and your problem can really help put things in perspective. Everything looks different from a distance, and perhaps the new outlooks gained in life would be the very things that eventually lead you towards the resolution of your problems.

So I say run. Run as fast and far as you can. Your problems will be waiting for you when you're ready to handle it, there's no rush for now.