要謝謝愛

 

 

要謝謝你。。。

chocolate wrapper

During Valentine’s Day last year, my Korean friend Lee gave me a tiny chocolate with a pink wrapper. Inside the wrapper was a quote that I really like:

 

“Go where your heart takes you”

 

Looking back, my heart has taken me to places that I never imagine I will step foot on and to people that I will never otherwise meet, people who have then taken important places in my life. I guess I have always followed my heart.

 

 

But how far can your heart takes you? Does it has your best interests in mind?   

There will be a time when you have to listen to the logic inside your brain rather than to the thumping sound of your heartbeat.

Yesterday night, I dreamt of a clinic in Japan with my name on it. It was a vet clinic. Maybe the doctor there had the same name as me. Still, seeing my name there made me happy. So, I asked my sister (who was in my dreams) to take a picture of it so that I can take it back to Malaysia. I have successfully fulfill my childhood dreams of becoming a veterinarian, even though it was just a dream.

Remember how we have always imagined how our lives are going to be like in the future? Sometimes, that image excites us. Sometimes it scares us. The image that I saw when I was 7 is vastly different from the image that I saw when I was 21.

But what I know is, my life at 23 now is very different from what I imagined it to be like 16 years ago or even 2 years ago. Life really is unpredictable.

So even if my future looks scary to me now, I can rest assured that it will be totally different from my imagination.

I wonder where will my heart takes me next.

Walking Behind

 

She's running
And he's walking behind
He's trying
But he's last in her line
His love's dying but he keeps on trying he lives in fear with a love that's clear
(he's walking behind)
He's got love that he needs to give but she's afraid to let him in

CHORUS
To her world with no together
She can't see him in her picture
She wants love but her heart won't let her let him in
He's walking behind
He's walking behind

The phone's ringing
Is it her on the line?
Does he answer
Or is he wasting his time?
Her loves dying but she keeps on trying she lives in fear of a love that's clear
(She's walking behind)
She's got love that she needs to give but he's afraid to let her in

CHORUS
To his world with no together
He can't see her in his picture
He wants love but his heart won't let him let her in
She's walking behind
Yeah

They've got a love to give
But they're afraid to let it in
She's got a love to give
And he's got a love to give
So let em in
Yeah

In a world with no together
She can't see him in her picture
She wants love so let him in
To his world with no together
He can't see her in his picture
He wants love but his heart won't let him let her in
He's walking behind
She's walking behind

 

 

Am I running too fast?

Feelings

...are something that you cannot control, that’s what they say.

But when you are feeling nothing at all, you tried every possible means to make yourself feel something. Even if it means hurting yourself.

It’s like using a hammer to knock on your broken leg hoping to feel some pain on your already numb leg.

The slightest feeling of pain will make you jump with joy.

Because it signals to you that your leg is still alive.    

 

 

I wish my leg wasn’t broken too bad.

Magic day

Is it true that the older you get, the less birthday presents you will receive every year?

If it is, when will it reach the point when you get nothing at all?

Birthdays seem to have less meaning as you get older, at least it seems so to me. It isn’t just about presents and celebrations. It’s about feeling that a special day has been created just for you. A day when you know that you have every right to feel special.

A magical day.

But it became more and more like an ordinary day, as time passed.

“It’s no big deal, I’m just going to pretend like it’s any other day,” you told yourself.

“See, nothing special happen after all. I was right to have no expectations at the beginning, so that I’m not going to feel disappointed when it ends.”

 

And so, another birthday passed.

“What does it feel like to be 23?”

“Hah…Am I that old already??!”

 

It seems like I have reached that point when I turned 23.

For my dear friend, Dwight

“Every decisions could be our last decision in our life, knowing that any moment could be our last moment in this world.”

How true is that.

I’ve never imagined that I would have to witness the truth of this statement before my very own eyes.

He was his usual self that night. Hanging around us while we were making lemon sorbet. He used to joke about how good both of us would look together. I would just rolled my eyes quietly. How can a 6 foot tall man and a less than 5 foot tall girl look good together? He called me cutie on my first day of work and was one of my first few friends.

He always asked me to hang out with him after work, but I never did.

That night, he said he wanted to find Par, one of the Thailand girls, after work.

“I’ll knock on your door after this alright?”

Then he patted my head and said, “This girl never came out of her room”.

It was the first time he touched my head. It felt nice.

After we were done with the sorbet, he helped us carry trays from the back of the kitchen to the appetizer station, where we always worked.

Maybe he wanted to impress the Thailand girls, I thought. But without his help, it would be a difficult task for us 4 girls.

Soon, the dining room started to fill up and orders started to come in. We went back to work, us at the appetizer section, him at the dish-washing machine.

 

I never saw him after that.

 

May and I were asked to prepare the amuse-bouche, which was a small plate of one glob of cheese atop a slice of tomato (I never knew what is that), while Par and Joof were left to manage the orders at the appetizer station.

Usually, the guys would be handling the entree station because the trays there would be a lot heavier. But, at that moment, Ben and Ronnie were nowhere to be seen.

An order had been finished and it could not wait. The main chef then asked me to carry the entree to the main dining room. I went out of the kitchen with the tray, handed it to the server and headed back. It was all but 5 minutes. I was not prepared at all for the things I would see when I came back.

For some strange reasons, the sliding glass door to the kitchen was closed. I looked through the door into the kitchen, wondering which joker closed the door.

I could see some of the dish washers avoiding something, I thought it was some kind of insects or monsters. Ronnie came running out as fast as he could to the nearest exit. I’ve never seen him like that.

Then I heard it.

Bang!    Bang!      Bang!     Bang!

 

~*~

My friend was killed that night. The garbage man had hid a gun inside his jacket and opened fire inside the kitchen, killing my friend and the chief dish-washer. Another target, who was younger than me, had avoided the bullet by a few inches. The police came, people wrapped themselves in towels to keep from the cold, and the whole scenario looked like something from a movie.

I only manage to cry when Chea Chea, my roommate who came with me from Malaysia, ran into the dining room looking for me. She was working as a banquet server downstairs.

It was a Saturday night. And it was our second last week in Hot Springs, before we officially end our work contract. The sound from the police helicopter hovering above us accompanied us to sleep that night.

~*~

I could never really say what that incident taught me. I’ve learned though, that when a Jamaican dies, on the days leading to his funeral, his Jamaican friends would pump up the music, dance and party every night until he had been laid to rest. It was their way of leading him onto the correct path to heaven, I guess.

And the funeral would be an event filled with music and singing.

My friend never kept his promise that night. He didn’t get to visit Par after work. His “after this” never came.

He never had a clue that that night would be his very last night here.

 

I was browsing some of the topics on LYN when a post caught my eyes. It was the same post where I got the quotations at the beginning of this article from. The forumer ended his post with this:

“ Think for a moment, if you are playing a Mario game and you have only one life left, what would you do? And imagine if you have 99 lives, what would you do then?”

counting down the days

everything must come to an end, and the end is just another beginning.

to signify that you have moved on, you cut ties with the past.

you convinced yourself that you are ready to face the end and you are not going to look back.

you are different from who you used to be.

a new wardrobe.

a new haircut.

new shoes.

a new attitude.

a new you, to face a new beginning.