11 February 2008
10:50 PM
I have belatedly realised that I should get around to turning the page of the year 07, and move forward. I wanted to leave this to my birthday, but that came and went. Now it's chinese new year, and while I'm fidgety and a little uneasy about reevaluation and reflection, it should be done, if only so that it can Rest in Peace, from here on.
So I glance through the pages of those days, grimace at the red mistakes / embarrassments, at blue unhappiness and a saffron-yellow sickness. It's surprisingly easy to see the things that need to go, the things that can be erased or put away for 'future reference'. The things to forget - some who believe they can live within their own reality, cocoon themselves in their pretty microcosm and forget about People. Bitterness has many faces, yet somehow I thought Decency was always a prerequisite in a civil society. We're a civilisation here. This isn't about elite uncaring faces; it's about believing not just in yourself, but in some basic goodness in others.
Then again, happiness is so slight, personal stuff. Maybe it really is just a benign, callow unsophistication. But no matter, moving on.
There are the things that have faded, those that have bled through into the junior college Page of life, only to become a permanent fixture in my memory, that I should remember when the mood strikes.
The way we laughed, looked, liked, lived.
The hand I shook, the smiles exchanged, the feeling of sudden illumination one gets when we need to believe we've found another someone who could, well, relate.
Hearts that used to race beat slow stop, whatever.
The filly, childish feeling one gets when one is just that, feeling coltish and childish.
At times I questioned misfortune, where at every turn there was someone lurking about, tarnishing the past. It could not remain prestine, untouchable, not with the prying hands and eyes, the proverbial reader-over-the-shoulder.
I find also that perhaps, I never did really have a liking for sultanas, and wonder if the aloofness that promises a protective distance is but merely a foil, a way of protection. But now that I may physically, methodically, wrench any liking whatsoever, it has left a pit in the already-blemished plane of my Feeling-being. These things, I know, take time to heal over, but they always do.
Eventually.
I am in the process of inking these things into my pages. There, they are clear, written, not to be forgotten, but to be removed from limbo, and set in stone. And then, just like that, they are gone, into Permanence and away from Me.
There are the things that have become a part of me, indelible as ink stains on a white shirt. Experiences I will remember;
the ebullience of performances, the 'leadership', the unchartered waters of academia I stumbled into and upon, the pure and simple Fun that existed so powerfully, so essentially, in my sphere and in my society.
People that will stick, Skippy peanut butter on bread.
People I've been allowed to love- amazing, strong individuals who have changed me. People I will still love/admire ten years from now, because they were worth it, because we are worth it.
Every day I renew my amazement at the breaking of day. Every day is another time when He brings blessings, and that incredible freedom I cannot explain. Boundless love that I receive with bended knees, because I am not worthy, and will never be. But I am provided for, given to freely, anyway. Whereforth comes such forgiveness, such understanding?
And so, this is where I strive on ahead, in good hope and good faith. This is where I refresh my affirmation, And I'm just beginning to let go of some of the aforementioned, so that I can be free, to fight the good fight.
I'm getting ready. Smart foot in front, left knee on rubber tracks.
Spikes dig into pebbled red rubber, look to the line before me.
Let me place my hands just right. It is a science, this getting ready.
Give me my 150m for the perfect sprint.
I'm getting ready.
Here, let me give you a hug, before you disappear around the bend.
Here, I have you,
and thus, I let you go.
