Regression to the mean

"One day I'll wake up 
And it won't hurt anymore"



Even if you don't remember me, remember my name
I remember you, and yours.

Even if you don't feel anything when you look at me,
When I look at you,
I remember the way I felt when I was with you,
The way you made me feel.

The way you kissed me, held me,
Made me laugh, made me cry.

My face in your hands.
Your kiss on the back of my shoulder.
Your arms around my waist.
My hand in yours. Your lips on mine.
Fingers and bodies intertwined.

When You and I were Us.
I remember the first time, and the last.

I'll never understand why I feel the way I feel about you,
All I know is...
I'll remember for the both of us.

first kiss

first kiss

sweet 
soft tender

butterflies

holding faces

first time

looking into your eyes

fingers intertwined
so intense

A snapshot of love in full flight

"Under the endless invoices from nannies and car mechanics, receipts from the supermarket with points promised yet never collected, and a veritable Commonwealth of magnets acquired at various travel hubs, lies a photograph that must date from the first year my girlfriend and I began seeing each other. I’ve no idea who took the picture but I’ve always been especially fond of it. She is on my back in my arms, and I appear to be running as hard as I’m laughing. The glowing red cherry of someone’s cigarette smudges across the frame. A snapshot of love in full flight; the very essence of that first, wild, beautiful year where we would stay up all night and do all the things lovers are supposed to do, and many of the things they’re not." 

- Jonathan Heaf on Date-Night Dressing

And if my heart should somehow stop

And there are times I know when I will have to chase you
And the further from my side you go, the longing grows
And I will hate it, I still want you,
Cause I will hate it, but I still want you around

Another sleepless night. 
I find myself here again, penning my thoughts. 
Why am I thinking about you? 
Perhaps this is a symptom of post-traumatic (Valentine's Day) syndrome.

Romance... what is that? 

I used to think love and romance were about grand gestures - flowers, couple rings, candlelight dinners - and showy declarations. It's taken me 27 years to realize otherwise. True romance is in the little gestures.

It's easy enough to splash out on one day a year, but it's quite another thing to hold her to sleep every night, to make her breakfast in bed every day, to walk her to and from the train station without fail, to carry her out of the bathroom after every shower, to prepare baths for her (complete with candles and incense) after a long day, to crazy dance with her (wearing pjs) in the kitchen/living room when a good song comes on, and slow dance with her (standing on your feet) surrounded by people at a party, looking into each other's eyes like you're the only ones in the room. To draw her little maps (because she always gets lost) and leave typewritten notes around the house for her to find, to sketch her when she's unaware, to make her limitless cups of coffee and tea, to chide her when she's hungover and nurse her when she's ill. To love her through the good, the bad and the crazy.

To tell her she's the best thing to ever happen to you, 

And to leave her because you know it's the best thing for her. 

Almost 2 years on, and I still haven't been able to fully open my heart and let anyone else in. I'm afraid no one will ever love me the way you loved me. That I'm incapable of loving like that again, because I'm terrified of getting hurt. I'm so broken on the inside I don't feel anything anymore. Worse of all, I don't think I want to feel. 

We all get one great love in this lifetime, I'm afraid you might have been it. 

I want you to know, 
that when I hurt you I didn't understand what I was doing. 
But I do now. 

I didn't love myself enough to let you love me.

"Dearest Gilly, sometimes I feel there's a hole inside of me, an emptiness that at times seems to burn. I think if you lifted my heart to your ear, you could probably hear the ocean. I have this dream of being whole. Of not going to sleep each night, wanting. But still sometimes, when the wind is warm or the crickets sing, I dream of a love that even time will lie down and be still for. I just want someone to love me. I want to be seen. I don't know... Maybe I've had my happiness. I don't want to believe it but, there is no man, Gilly. Only that moon." 

- Practical Magic

Before Sunrise / Before Sunset

"When you've felt that much about a man and he disappears from your life, after a while you start to think it was just some foolish illusion on your part and that the other person walked clean away, no scar tissue. But maybe the other person felt the same."

It's unhelpful quotes like these which are the reason I am where I am today. Sitting cross-legged in bed post-clubbing at 5:51 am on a Sunday morning, hair dripping wet from the shower, wearing glow-in-the-dark pjs from when I was eleven, and thinking of you.

Still you. Always you.

Finally watched Before Sunrise and Before Sunset consecutively. From over three hours of dialogue, this resonated the most: "I guess when you're young, you just believe there'll be many people with whom you'll connect with. Later in life, you realize it only happens a few times." 

In my twenty six years, I've only had a handful of true (romantic) connections, some of which culminated in relationships, others which were fleeting but memorable nonetheless. I'm painfully aware of how rare it is to connect so intensely with someone on a mental, emotional and physical level, which is why I couldn't / don't / will never understand how you could simply walk away.

I guess the difference between you and me is that I've experienced firsthand the brevity of life at a young age, so when something special comes along, I know better than to let it slip away. After all, life is short; it could all end tomorrow. Might as well have lived today.

It's too late now anyway. The damage has been done. You've made a fool out of me.

Friends, you say? Why? So you can convince yourself you didn't hurt me as deeply as you did? Sorry, but my pride - pretty much all I have left - won't let me; I can't be friends with someone I'm still in love with. Although if anyone asks, I will plead plausible deniability. It's hard enough admitting it to myself, let alone others. For God's sake, I can't even look him in the eye for fear of giving myself away.

Above all, I refuse to beg someone to want to be with me. I've lived long enough; I deserve better than HAM. I deserve better, full stop.

＂没有爱的能力，比没有性的能力更可悲。＂

an exercise in restraint

if RS has taught me anything, it's this.

we shall see.

forgiveness

looking at old photographs; achingly bittersweet. memories i've almost forgotten making. filled with the strangest sensation; like looking at another me, in another life. i recognize my own face, but feel nothing. empty inside. in this very instant, it feels like my seemingly endless reserve(s) of love have suddenly run dry. as if nothing in the world could ever make me feel whole again - just in this instant.


wondering how one can be so certain about the future in a moment, how one can make plans, have hopes and dreams... and how easily a heart can change at any given time. when that happens, there's not a damn thing you can do about it. no amount of tears or money in the world can turn back time; back to day one zero, start all over again, "hello stranger."


they say, when the heart knows, it knows. i guess you could say, i knew when to take my leave. i just never knew i knew, if that makes any sense at all.


i'm not sad or nostalgic. i'm not anything, really. if i had a choice, i'd do it all over again. if i could live my life one more time, i would live it exactly as i had lived it before, 


but better.

"SHE LIVED WITH GRACE AND DIGNITY" 

if i had my way, i would have that engraved on my tombstone

..... but i'm not certain i can say that about myself anymore. in the eyes of some, i've fallen from grace and there seems to be nothing i can do to regain a shred of dignity. what's worse is... i used to see myself as a paragon of virtue (ha ha, as if!) at the very least - a good, honest person. the kind of person who would never knowingly hurt another. and yet, in doing what was instinctive (and necessary) for the sake of my sanity/survival at the time, i hurt the ones who loved me most. 


i've never been on THEOTHERSIDE before; i don't like it over here.


the past half a year has been a continuous uphill battle, my heart has grown weary. i don't want to fight anymore. i don't have the emotional capacity to survive another war of words.


in your eyes, i have sinned; and for some reason unfathomable to all but you, the betrayal burns deeper than any other. you might as well burn me at the stake and be done with it, because short of a miracle i don't see you letting go of this anytime soon - say within the next 10 years?


however, the ultimate question is: can i ever forgive myself? how does one even begin to seek/attain forgiveness from oneself? 

for·giveness (fər giv′nis)

noun

1. a forgiving or being forgiven; pardon
2. inclination to forgive or pardon

what the * have i done.

i'm speechless
and trust me, that doesn't happen often
even blue moons occur with a higher frequency.

first, there was shock
then came that all-too-familiar
sick feeling, rising
from deep in the pit of my stomach
the pale face and shaking hands
next anger, raised voices
finally
calm. silence.

i'm so stupid.
somewhere deep in my subconscious,
i already knew this was going to happen.
yet, like a fool
i waited.
that's all i seem to do these days,
wait.

kinda like, you know it's bad for you
but you still do it anyway?

the little voice inside your head is going:
don't do it!
but you ignore it,
pay it no heed.
instead,
you jump headfirst
into the next big potential mess.

this is harder than i ever thought it would be,

"nobody said it was easy,
it's such a shame for us to part
nobody said it was easy
no one ever said it would be this hard."
- the scientist, coldplay.

but i've been through worse,
and i shall pull myself through this
the way i always do, (hopefully)

move forward, don't look back.

thank you daddy,
because of you
my tears have all dried up,
i can't cry no more.
as much as i want to,
there're none left to shed.
and in this case
that's a good thing
believe me.

on a different, but similarly painful note, it's funny how just one look at your photo sends a jolt through me. more like an electric shock. what the fuck have i just done. what have i done.

sometimes i wish i had all the answers. don't you?

i wish i could meet someone for the first time and just know, "he's THE ONE", i wish love wasn't so bloody complicated, heck, i wish life wasn't so bloody complicated. i wish i knew what the hell i was doing - have i made the biggest mistake of my life? have i just walked away from the love of my life? have i completely screwed up and hurt everyone who ever cared about me? my mother seems to think so, correction, know so, but then again she also insists that i'm crazy so... whatevs.

yes no maybe i don't know, can you repeat the question?

8 years on and none the wiser. i seem to have acquired an irritating knack of meeting the sleaziest scummiest douchebags in the history of mankind. abusive guys, shockingly (below)average guys who think they're all that, guys who lie, period. (hence my current policy of checking ID on the first encounter), guys who think that money can buy you friends/lovers + objectify women and have severe groping tendencies - and these are just the scumbags hailing from the minuscule island of singapore.
 
don't forget the creepy german, aussie banker with ex-wife who propositioned me in hotel lobby, dutch guy who asked louie if he could 'borrow' me for a night, young swiss in barca, possible bisexual czech at gay club in amsterdam, polish chef at house party, swedish millionaire cum asshole in milan, condescending politician from oxford - the list goes on - i can't remember them all but i sure as hell have met some interesting/weird guys in my brief 24 years.
 
now what?

the terrifying truth is, i really DON'T know anything anymore - i'm just as confused as i was at 16, the age of my first foray into the big bad world of relationships - and as much as i hate that glaringly obvious fact, i've acknowledged that in life there are some things you're not SUPPOSED to know eg: who you're going to marry and have 10 children with.

if i could predict everything ahead of time, i'd be psychic now wouldn't i? besides, where's the fun in being a know-it-all?

your ex-lover is dead.

When there is nothing left to burn
You have to set yourself on fire

God that was strange to see you again
Introduced by a friend of a friend
Smiled and said, "Yes I think we've met before"
In that instant it started to pour

Captured a taxi despite all the rain
We drove in silence across Pont Champlain
And all of the time you thought I was sad
I was trying to remember your name

This scar is a fleck on my porcelain skin
Tried to reach deep but you couldn't get in
Now you're outside me you see all the beauty
Repent all your sin

It's nothing but time and a face that you lose
I chose to feel it and you couldn't choose
I'll write you a postcard, I'll send you the news
From a house down the road, from real love

Live through this and you won't look back
Live through this and you won't look back
Live through this and you won't look back

There's one thing I want to say, so I'll be brave
You were what I wanted, I gave what I gave
I'm not sorry I met you, I'm not sorry it's over
I'm not sorry there's nothing to say

I'm not sorry there's nothing to say

two days, two declarations.

who knew love could make one so repetitive?

bear with me *grin*

it's not often that i allow myself

the option of wearing my happiness on my sleeve

without residual feelings of guilt.

too much to stomach?

tough.

oh, just bite me

:)

i saw chace crawford.

*edit

status: watching gossip girl on my laptop while waiting for my laundry to dry (i had no choice, i ran out of clean underwear heh) and for hot water, to take a bath.

man, seeing chace crawford in london must be the HIGHLIGHT OF MY LIFE.

how random is that!? it's weird watching him onscreen now knowing i saw the actual specimen itself - right before my very eyes. i'm 100% positive it was him; he was even wearing the same outfit (heather grey long sleeved tee and beanie) as was featured in teen vogue, conveniently stashed in my bag - the second i was done gaping, i immediately whipped out my copy to double check, then i proceeded to smile dreamily for the next half hour or so, at nothing and no one in particular, all the while thinking: lili/mandi is never going to believe this! followed by what the heck is he doing in london? more so, alone?

*screams*

i must admit i've never seen a boy quite as beautiful as him before. *swoon* he's like a walking talking living breathing piece of art, or a sculpture.. sculpted to perfection. thank god for self-control, otherwise i might've pinned him down and raped him. hahaha. i kid, i kid.

on a separate note, my weird behaviour is freaking me out, i'm not usually... clingy. ugh. i don't care, i'm blaming the hormones. with complete disregard to the kind of treatment i'm accustomed to, this should not be happening at all. no matter who likes who more. because i'm not CLINGY or NEEDY and neither am i a fan of PDA. it used to send shivers down my spine - not in a good way - so how and when did i unknowingly join the club? AHH. kill me now please.

no calls
no texts
no msn
no physical contact

that should do the trick.

(*note: we accidentally broke every single one of the abovementioned rules.)

perhaps i'm too used to the game.

it's like i've been touched by a magic wand, my body feel blessed all over.

secrets

some secrets are meant to be kept
and this,
surely qualifies as one of them.


xoxo

he said she said.

he said she said

"kiss me."

rainbows & butterflies.

"It’s not always rainbows and butterflies"

so true.

lah dee dum.

this is so not how i imagined to be asked out,

hence warrants a *double pout*

i have to admit, i'm disappointed

enough to make me consider saying "no",

hard as it may be.

oh wells,

only time will tell.

for now, i'll just sit and sulk

(just for awhile).

Kitty: As you can see, I've worn a lot of shoes in my life. It's time to focus on me for awhile and go barefoot.
RM: But, hypothetically speaking.
Kitty: You mean, hypothetically, if I didn't work for you.
RM: Hypothetically, of course.
Kitty: You'd be the first pair I'd try on.
RM: (slowly he smiles and they clink together wine glasses)