Posts tagged with "memories"

Event Horizon

I was talk­ing to Eugene, or Yoog as I used to call him, the oth­er day after hav­ing no con­tact with him for over a decade. It was good to rem­i­nisce about the good times we had so long ago, me going to Australia for the first time to meet a friend of my moth­ers’, and him com­ing to vis­it from Australia, to stay with me.

It was odd to hear that I affect­ed his deci­sion to shift the focus of his card col­lec­tion to base­ball, as odd as it was to find out that one of my ex’s would scream my name in her mind while mas­tur­bat­ing.

I’m sur­prised, aston­ished, at how much influ­ence I could ever have on any­one. I still can’t believe it, since a card col­lec­tion can be such a sig­nif­i­cant part of a young boys life, and unat­trac­tive Chinese guys aren’t gen­er­al­ly the object of any­ones’ fan­ta­sy.

The more I think about it though, the more I real­ize all the lit­tle things that I’ve done to affect peo­ple, whether it’s some­one’s choice of uni­ver­si­ty (which, I feel, is no small deci­sion), or how I could ever bring some­one to tears.

I’ve felt like my life has been so worth­less for so long that I’ve been blind­ed to the part I’ve played in the life of oth­ers. It’s only with this new infor­ma­tion, this cat­a­lyst, that I’m able to begin to real­ize that I’m not so worth­less after all.

There have always been peo­ple whom I admire and respect. It’s only these peo­ple who real­ly have an affect on me. After all, hear­ing hurt­ful words from a per­son you look up to is much worse than from some­one you don’t have any respect for. I’ll always won­der if it’s respect which allowed me to have influ­ence on oth­ers, or whether there was some oth­er rea­son, such as love or friend­ship.

And per­haps, with time, there will be more.

HK, Fullscreen

I’ve been watch­ing a lot of Chinese movies late­ly. I always find the scenery to be sub­tly poignant, from the den­si­ty of the hous­es, to the con­fine­ment of the liv­ing arrange­ments, to the hom­li­ness of the shops. It makes me miss Hong Kong. It makes me miss see­ing my grand­par­ents. It makes me miss the quaint lifestyle, the diver­si­ty of food, the entire cul­ture.

If I end up going to Hong Kong this year, I hope to be able to tell my grand­moth­er how strong a per­son I see her to be, but I detest my lim­it­ed knowl­edge of the Chinese lan­guage. I wish that I could express to her in English how much I look up to her. If I had a chance with English, I would feel like I could do the feel­ing jus­tice. I hope she does­n’t hurt my feel­ings. I hope she does­n’t die before I see her next. I won­der who would cry.

I still remem­ber liv­ing with Kenny, hav­ing a great time at his place, play­ing with all sorts of inter­est­ing gad­gets. His par­ents were always good peo­ple, one of the few sets of rel­a­tives I care about.

The feel­ing is almost tange­able. I can close my eyes, and see myself there again, a lost, emo­tion­less, igno­rant boy. I miss the street ven­dors. I miss the smell of my grand­moth­ers house. I miss the bliss.

I real­ize that my feel­ings are prob­a­bly a result of my absolute con­tent­ment when­ev­er I was in Hong Kong. I’ve had some of the best times of my life there, and I remem­ber noth­ing but hap­pi­ness. It seems like I’ve been taint­ed with matu­ri­ty, and I’m try­ing to regain a lost part of my child­hood, the care­free being that is so char­ac­ter­is­tic of young peo­ple.

Tainted.

I like that.

Pandora's Curse

I had a dream last night, a dream that seemed so real, a dream I did not want. A dream of scat­tered mem­o­ries sewn togeth­er, cre­at­ing such a per­fect world, where love was requit­ed, where I was bliss­ful­ly hap­py. When I awoke, every­thing I had was gone.

All I was left with was hope, and empti­ness. I imme­di­ate­ly knew that what I had was false, too per­fect a world for me to live in. I felt bit­ter, as if I had some­thing tak­en away from me which I felt was right­ful­ly mine.

Why would my sub­con­scious trick me so? Why should I feel so ter­ri­ble, so laden with hope? Couldn’t my mind sim­ply give up this strug­gle, freely, with­out inter­fer­ence?

Hope is not a good thing for me. It makes me weak and vul­ner­a­ble. When I have no hope, then all is known. Nothing is uncer­tain. I am sure of what I have and what I don’t have. Progress can be made on accept­ing this. But when hope enters my mind, all progress is lost, and I can only try to fight for what I’ve gained.

Yet I wish to dream again tonight, of mem­o­ries strewn togeth­er, for they were so won­der­ful, that any let down seems worth it. I don’t know why I’d want to tor­ture myself again, feel­ing emp­ty and bit­ter when I wake up. Somehow, the high seems worth it, like some addic­tive drug Pandora was sell­ing out of her mag­i­cal box of plagues and death.

Perhaps I actu­al­ly do believe in what my hope is telling me. Perhaps I need to believe in some­thing, that some­how this will change, that things will be dif­fer­ent. Or per­haps I’m sim­ply a fool, will­ing­ly falling for some­thing that may make me hap­py, but emp­ty in the end.

Nothing good ever came out of Pandora’s box.