Monday, March 24, 2003
Dear Karin,
I watched Kenneth getting married last week. I was his best man. and it scared me. Not because of the logistical nightmare that it was, although I tell everyone that, or because I'm far too young to think about marriage - and I tell everyone that too - but because everything in my life is wrong.Not quite everything. Some things are on track, my career is plodding along day by day, and my parents are well, although for how much longer I don't know - my mother had a malignant lesion excised from her breast 2 years ago - 3 more years of tamoxifen to go. And I'm afraid for her too. But I digress.
The wedding scared me because it was so perfect. Kenneth and Hsin-Min were perfect. Their mutual love for each other was apparent, as was their sheer compatability. His pride in her shone through throughout, and how well he's done! Tall, slim, beautiful, clever. I envy them their happiness, but also wholeheartedly wish them well.
And my life in contrast is so imperfect. I've just ended (I think) a 2 year relationship. Retrospectively, now I can see how foolish I was to start. We have little common ground in terms of pasts, and even our presents are divergent. Our futures are impossible. More tellingly, she's just not compatible. Different OS. She's not funny - at least not in the way I need, anyhow. I loved her - but not in the way I need. I tried to learn to be who she needed me to be, but it just broke me - more than you did. I can't imagine marrying her. It has to stop. I'm hurting her so much - have caused so much hurt now. She wants to go on, but I can't play this game anymore. Ironically, I now understand completely what you were trying to tell me before, about yourself. Committment phobic. That's why the wedding scared me. I've become afraid to commit, except to someone I know is right for me. I don't know what to do. Feel like I'm going insane. So I drown myself in work, in things that will make other people happier. I immersed myself in helping Kenneth and it kept me distracted, and not-unhappy. (that and I like to imagine things went a little more smoothly) And now, on the plane back to Heathrow, I have nothing to do, trapped in my thoughts. I've become anhedonic. The movies give me no joy. The food is bland.
I miss you, Karin. I need your voice of sanity now. I need to hear about your world, and your thoughts about mine. I'm so confused. I felt so sad last night, in the midst of my joy, at the wedding reception. Their fairy tale come true - and such a sweet one. Mine dashed into pieces, possibly never even starting. Water under the bridge. Long since gone.
I'm probably scaring you as you read this. I'm sure you're well adjusted, wherever you are. Married? I don't know. I've lost touch so completely with you. Although I've burned every day to ask people who know you, so how's Karin doing? What became of her?
I never really learnt how to stop missing you. But don't worry. For you see, I don't think you ever realised this but I was harmless from the start. I would never have pushed you into a corner, never have risked even going near anything you didn't want. You mattered to me, more than I did. That's why I kept silent, so long, long ago on a certain balmy night, walking home from a certain cafe (which I revisited on my elective, alone) when you told me the ball was in my court, and what did I want to do? (and when you enthused about Paddington) The ex asks me that now, and I just shrug. I honestly don't know what I want to do anymore. But I knew then that I wanted to share my life with you.
Kenneth said in his speech last night that it was magic the instant he set eyes on Hsin min. His heart came ablaze (no, not literally, silly!)
I remember when I first saw you, turning around to face you and meeting your eyes haplessly. Instant shock, indescribable. It was magic to me, and I still don't know why. Haven't really seen the like since. Almost a sense of... recognition? Of familiarity? I don't know. Not all that deja-vu claptrap from the movies, but something less symbolic, something simpler. Something more real-life. I don't know.
And then I got to know you. Endless telephone calls. Hearing your thoughts, and your laugh late into the night. Seeing your smiles, seeing your eyes; seeing you smile with your eyes. And I was hooked. I couldn't believe it. Couldn't allow myself to realise I'd already fallen for you - I was too yong by my own standards. 15! Must be pupy love. So I sat on it. You know the story from thereon. I figured it, this fascination, to be infatuation. Temporary, fleeting. When you left and I started pining (God I hated myself for doing that) it scared me. Shades of obsession. I told myself I was in love with an ideal, not a real person. I didn't know you well enough. But you kept coming back, and always that heart-stopping "quickening". That indescribable something. And years later, for a while at least, ironically when you were in the position that I find myself now, post breakup, confused? Tired? Seeking distraction? You let me in. I'm sorry if it seemed like I was taking advantage of your weakness, and I swear, by God, that I didn't know. It was just my phenomenally bad timing, immaculately imperfect as always. I don't know what you felt for me, if at all. You probably said things you didn't mean, and I probably compounded things by misinterpreting them. I've blocked out so many memories now that I honestly know *something* happened back there, but I don't know what, and it hurts me to try to remember, although it makes me smile too. The same way it does when I dream of you, infrequently now.
I revisited your old emails yesterday. You see, like you I never throw away old emails either; or rather, like the you I used to know. And it didn't hurt all that much I guess. I know there's no way back there. But it made me sad anyhow because I remembered why I loved you. And it was in just the way that I - still - need, and will probably always search for.
I loved you because you were funny. In a way that I need, in a way that gives me joy, that I understood. That I can be, as well - and enjoy, being. I enjoyed our banter, enjoyed your mock taking-offense, enjoyed losing arguments petulantly to you, enjoyed it all. If I could now, I'd give you a big hug in gratitude for all those moments I'll treasure till I die, and seek for the rest of my life. And maybe if I'm really lucky, I'll rediscover them someday.
I loved you for your wit and intellect. Your fears of losing them with age. Your neuroticisms. I felt like I understood them. I wanted to be there to reassure you that you were still beautifully intelligent to me when we were old and decrepit someday, presuming I still had all my marbles (even if you hadn't!)
I loved you for your insecurities and idiosyncracies. Completely, in my eyes, unfounded. Biased as I may have been, it didn't take a genius to see that you were special, and going places. Not like me, just doddering along in my own little way. And it shocked me and made me love you more when I discovered that that was the way you saw your own life progressing. Self deprecation and humility - yet so sincere in it all. In the presence of such ability. Beautiful, to me.
I loved the way you thought, and talked. Endearing, to me. And yet somehow Graceful, Refined. (and I shan't write "almost" or "vaguely" since I'm no kidding around anymore) I loved the way you embellished things to bring out the humour in situations, but treaded your way tactfully around crudity and tastelessness. I've spent two years now mired in crudity and hating every moment of it. And above all I admired and cherished your unpretentious simplicity. All of which I can only describe, as Grace. So many reasons to be graceless and proud. To be pretentious - and yet you were down-to-earth. You transcended banality. And my heart went out to you.
I even loved that you were sometimes selfish and self-centred, although these weren't the norm for you. Because, when you did it, you still tried to be good-natured about it. Because I could sense the conflict in you. Because it reminded me that you were a real person and not an ideal, and that I coul still love you for it. Because they weren't predominantly you.
I never saw you as a mother teresa figure, or even a Limin figure. I saw you as naughty but nice, rather than nice, but naughty. But naughty in a wholesome, amiable way. And I haven't seen any of that since, either. And I miss it so much. I miss you so much. I miss how I enjoyed being the me I was, around you. How you somehow made me better than the battered veteran of life that I feel myself becoming now. How you made me laugh, and laugh, and smile. I miss your eyes that I wanted to spend a lifetime looking into, and experiencing that indescibable whateveritis. I tried looking at your graduation photo plastered onto the wall that the RNSH, but whateverthatwas was't there. I guess it only resides within the real-life owner, then. It just made me feel sad to see your image, and wonder where you were, and how you were, and why you were set slightly aside from everyone else in that photo?
I've spent 4 years erasing your voice from my head, and learning to hear my own, again. I still don't know what I want, but now at least I know what I don't want, and ironically I find myself right in the middle of it. In a messy breakup that is wearing me down. And sometimes I still hear an echo of your voice, your reason, within me, and it saddens me, because I can't hear you for real.
I hope this letter finds you well, Karin. That wherever in the world you are, you're happy and your life is uncomplicated, fulfilling and peaceful. I hope that whoever he is, he's keeping you warm, holding you in the way that you need to be held, making you laugh in the way that you want to. I hope you guys cross swords and banter loads, and argue rarely. God knows, in the last 2 years I've learnt enough about disagreeing for a lifetime. I pray that you don't have to go through any of that.
I don't think I'm going to post you this letter after all, I don't want to upset you or unsettle your life if you've already built a good one for yourself, with the musings of a fecked up mind like my own. I don't want you to feel guilty or anything like that and anyhow I feel retrospectively that I hurt myself. It was my fault, all along. I shouldn't have flown over and done that, shouldn't have tried to lose you. Shouldn't have succeeded at last.
But I wish somehow that you'll read this, somehow, someday. Of your own free will. Have the chance to know that there's a message here for you, from me, but be able to not read it if you don't want to. Not to have to reply unless you wanted to. And if you did, to surprise me. If you didn't, I wouldn't know anyhow. Not because I want surprises, I'm not that self-centred I hope. But because it hurts if I know you got this but weren't replying. It hurts to think you might still be upset at me. Or worse still (?), apathetic. I don't know.
I guess as you once wrote, I'm hoping to hear from you again. And I mean that literally, too. Not because I'm harbouring some impossible dream of wandering off into the sunset with you, but because I miss your voice so much, and your reason. Your advice. Your friendship, which I still treasure so much, and which I still regret throwing away, so much. I feel so lost now. So entirely alone. I need a soulmate to guide me. Don't worry, I'm ready now to wander through life alone, in search (or not) of someone else who makes me feel for her the way I want to feel for someone. Someone who makes me feel as intensely about her, as I once did about you. Right here, between the eyes. Without even trying.
It would just be easier somehow with your voice at hand.
But I'll understand if I never hear from you again. I'll just presume you never read this.
I watched Kenneth getting married last week. I was his best man. and it scared me. Not because of the logistical nightmare that it was, although I tell everyone that, or because I'm far too young to think about marriage - and I tell everyone that too - but because everything in my life is wrong.Not quite everything. Some things are on track, my career is plodding along day by day, and my parents are well, although for how much longer I don't know - my mother had a malignant lesion excised from her breast 2 years ago - 3 more years of tamoxifen to go. And I'm afraid for her too. But I digress.
The wedding scared me because it was so perfect. Kenneth and Hsin-Min were perfect. Their mutual love for each other was apparent, as was their sheer compatability. His pride in her shone through throughout, and how well he's done! Tall, slim, beautiful, clever. I envy them their happiness, but also wholeheartedly wish them well.
And my life in contrast is so imperfect. I've just ended (I think) a 2 year relationship. Retrospectively, now I can see how foolish I was to start. We have little common ground in terms of pasts, and even our presents are divergent. Our futures are impossible. More tellingly, she's just not compatible. Different OS. She's not funny - at least not in the way I need, anyhow. I loved her - but not in the way I need. I tried to learn to be who she needed me to be, but it just broke me - more than you did. I can't imagine marrying her. It has to stop. I'm hurting her so much - have caused so much hurt now. She wants to go on, but I can't play this game anymore. Ironically, I now understand completely what you were trying to tell me before, about yourself. Committment phobic. That's why the wedding scared me. I've become afraid to commit, except to someone I know is right for me. I don't know what to do. Feel like I'm going insane. So I drown myself in work, in things that will make other people happier. I immersed myself in helping Kenneth and it kept me distracted, and not-unhappy. (that and I like to imagine things went a little more smoothly) And now, on the plane back to Heathrow, I have nothing to do, trapped in my thoughts. I've become anhedonic. The movies give me no joy. The food is bland.
I miss you, Karin. I need your voice of sanity now. I need to hear about your world, and your thoughts about mine. I'm so confused. I felt so sad last night, in the midst of my joy, at the wedding reception. Their fairy tale come true - and such a sweet one. Mine dashed into pieces, possibly never even starting. Water under the bridge. Long since gone.
I'm probably scaring you as you read this. I'm sure you're well adjusted, wherever you are. Married? I don't know. I've lost touch so completely with you. Although I've burned every day to ask people who know you, so how's Karin doing? What became of her?
I never really learnt how to stop missing you. But don't worry. For you see, I don't think you ever realised this but I was harmless from the start. I would never have pushed you into a corner, never have risked even going near anything you didn't want. You mattered to me, more than I did. That's why I kept silent, so long, long ago on a certain balmy night, walking home from a certain cafe (which I revisited on my elective, alone) when you told me the ball was in my court, and what did I want to do? (and when you enthused about Paddington) The ex asks me that now, and I just shrug. I honestly don't know what I want to do anymore. But I knew then that I wanted to share my life with you.
Kenneth said in his speech last night that it was magic the instant he set eyes on Hsin min. His heart came ablaze (no, not literally, silly!)
I remember when I first saw you, turning around to face you and meeting your eyes haplessly. Instant shock, indescribable. It was magic to me, and I still don't know why. Haven't really seen the like since. Almost a sense of... recognition? Of familiarity? I don't know. Not all that deja-vu claptrap from the movies, but something less symbolic, something simpler. Something more real-life. I don't know.
And then I got to know you. Endless telephone calls. Hearing your thoughts, and your laugh late into the night. Seeing your smiles, seeing your eyes; seeing you smile with your eyes. And I was hooked. I couldn't believe it. Couldn't allow myself to realise I'd already fallen for you - I was too yong by my own standards. 15! Must be pupy love. So I sat on it. You know the story from thereon. I figured it, this fascination, to be infatuation. Temporary, fleeting. When you left and I started pining (God I hated myself for doing that) it scared me. Shades of obsession. I told myself I was in love with an ideal, not a real person. I didn't know you well enough. But you kept coming back, and always that heart-stopping "quickening". That indescribable something. And years later, for a while at least, ironically when you were in the position that I find myself now, post breakup, confused? Tired? Seeking distraction? You let me in. I'm sorry if it seemed like I was taking advantage of your weakness, and I swear, by God, that I didn't know. It was just my phenomenally bad timing, immaculately imperfect as always. I don't know what you felt for me, if at all. You probably said things you didn't mean, and I probably compounded things by misinterpreting them. I've blocked out so many memories now that I honestly know *something* happened back there, but I don't know what, and it hurts me to try to remember, although it makes me smile too. The same way it does when I dream of you, infrequently now.
I revisited your old emails yesterday. You see, like you I never throw away old emails either; or rather, like the you I used to know. And it didn't hurt all that much I guess. I know there's no way back there. But it made me sad anyhow because I remembered why I loved you. And it was in just the way that I - still - need, and will probably always search for.
I loved you because you were funny. In a way that I need, in a way that gives me joy, that I understood. That I can be, as well - and enjoy, being. I enjoyed our banter, enjoyed your mock taking-offense, enjoyed losing arguments petulantly to you, enjoyed it all. If I could now, I'd give you a big hug in gratitude for all those moments I'll treasure till I die, and seek for the rest of my life. And maybe if I'm really lucky, I'll rediscover them someday.
I loved you for your wit and intellect. Your fears of losing them with age. Your neuroticisms. I felt like I understood them. I wanted to be there to reassure you that you were still beautifully intelligent to me when we were old and decrepit someday, presuming I still had all my marbles (even if you hadn't!)
I loved you for your insecurities and idiosyncracies. Completely, in my eyes, unfounded. Biased as I may have been, it didn't take a genius to see that you were special, and going places. Not like me, just doddering along in my own little way. And it shocked me and made me love you more when I discovered that that was the way you saw your own life progressing. Self deprecation and humility - yet so sincere in it all. In the presence of such ability. Beautiful, to me.
I loved the way you thought, and talked. Endearing, to me. And yet somehow Graceful, Refined. (and I shan't write "almost" or "vaguely" since I'm no kidding around anymore) I loved the way you embellished things to bring out the humour in situations, but treaded your way tactfully around crudity and tastelessness. I've spent two years now mired in crudity and hating every moment of it. And above all I admired and cherished your unpretentious simplicity. All of which I can only describe, as Grace. So many reasons to be graceless and proud. To be pretentious - and yet you were down-to-earth. You transcended banality. And my heart went out to you.
I even loved that you were sometimes selfish and self-centred, although these weren't the norm for you. Because, when you did it, you still tried to be good-natured about it. Because I could sense the conflict in you. Because it reminded me that you were a real person and not an ideal, and that I coul still love you for it. Because they weren't predominantly you.
I never saw you as a mother teresa figure, or even a Limin figure. I saw you as naughty but nice, rather than nice, but naughty. But naughty in a wholesome, amiable way. And I haven't seen any of that since, either. And I miss it so much. I miss you so much. I miss how I enjoyed being the me I was, around you. How you somehow made me better than the battered veteran of life that I feel myself becoming now. How you made me laugh, and laugh, and smile. I miss your eyes that I wanted to spend a lifetime looking into, and experiencing that indescibable whateveritis. I tried looking at your graduation photo plastered onto the wall that the RNSH, but whateverthatwas was't there. I guess it only resides within the real-life owner, then. It just made me feel sad to see your image, and wonder where you were, and how you were, and why you were set slightly aside from everyone else in that photo?
I've spent 4 years erasing your voice from my head, and learning to hear my own, again. I still don't know what I want, but now at least I know what I don't want, and ironically I find myself right in the middle of it. In a messy breakup that is wearing me down. And sometimes I still hear an echo of your voice, your reason, within me, and it saddens me, because I can't hear you for real.
I hope this letter finds you well, Karin. That wherever in the world you are, you're happy and your life is uncomplicated, fulfilling and peaceful. I hope that whoever he is, he's keeping you warm, holding you in the way that you need to be held, making you laugh in the way that you want to. I hope you guys cross swords and banter loads, and argue rarely. God knows, in the last 2 years I've learnt enough about disagreeing for a lifetime. I pray that you don't have to go through any of that.
I don't think I'm going to post you this letter after all, I don't want to upset you or unsettle your life if you've already built a good one for yourself, with the musings of a fecked up mind like my own. I don't want you to feel guilty or anything like that and anyhow I feel retrospectively that I hurt myself. It was my fault, all along. I shouldn't have flown over and done that, shouldn't have tried to lose you. Shouldn't have succeeded at last.
But I wish somehow that you'll read this, somehow, someday. Of your own free will. Have the chance to know that there's a message here for you, from me, but be able to not read it if you don't want to. Not to have to reply unless you wanted to. And if you did, to surprise me. If you didn't, I wouldn't know anyhow. Not because I want surprises, I'm not that self-centred I hope. But because it hurts if I know you got this but weren't replying. It hurts to think you might still be upset at me. Or worse still (?), apathetic. I don't know.
I guess as you once wrote, I'm hoping to hear from you again. And I mean that literally, too. Not because I'm harbouring some impossible dream of wandering off into the sunset with you, but because I miss your voice so much, and your reason. Your advice. Your friendship, which I still treasure so much, and which I still regret throwing away, so much. I feel so lost now. So entirely alone. I need a soulmate to guide me. Don't worry, I'm ready now to wander through life alone, in search (or not) of someone else who makes me feel for her the way I want to feel for someone. Someone who makes me feel as intensely about her, as I once did about you. Right here, between the eyes. Without even trying.
It would just be easier somehow with your voice at hand.
But I'll understand if I never hear from you again. I'll just presume you never read this.
