Do you know that you laugh a lot?
And every time you do, time just stops,
Like right now, my heart just went 'pop'.
You can't hear it now, that's okay,
But you're really taking my breath away,
What sorcery are you using that got me swayed?
Is this the day and the way?
God knows, and only you have the say.
That was what I said to her in my dream,
Hello darkness, my old friend,
How have you been?
Don't misunderstand for being buried in the sand,
You know I'd still visit you when the moon rings,
Without having you to guide me with your hand.
Normally, people won't dare to step into the darkness,
But I, the odd one out, love walking in nothingness,
When crickets sing softly with the silence,
And where the wind and leaves collide,
Truly, a paradise for introverts to hide.
However, the state of being nocturnal,
Can prove to be detrimental,
For an illusion can become plural,
Then eventually becoming sempiternal.
But I shall fear no evil,
Even through the darkest valley,
The falling petals will guide me,
And the shepherd refreshes my soul,
Beside quiet waters calming my woes,
And lying down in green pastures,
Instead of having my feelings tortured.
Dusk has gone, here comes dawn,
I'm sorry but I must take my leave now,
No need to show me the door, I know how,
I appreciate your company,
However, I have to go back to my reality,
I'm not sure when will we meet again,
Maybe next time when I'm in pain,
Or perhaps singing in the rain,
But just remember my name,
So you'd always be a part of my sane.
Here I am again looking at you laughing,
No longer dreaming, time's not stopping,
Only you and your smile are all I'm seeing,
Although you're unreachable, that's okay,
Maybe it's better this way,
And that's good enough to make my day.
When I was in secondary school, I remembered one of my English optional essays titled "...and that was how I met her.". That sentence must be the ending sentence of the essay, as much as I wanted to write it but it would take me too long as I could write in into a novel.
So no, the title has absolutely nothing to do with the popular drama series How I Met Your Mother.
Some weeks later, I then posted my blog post of the same title in Friendster.com which has disappeared due to the revamping of the site. It was about my first love that never came to be, but at the same time she became one of my closest friends, she was "The Sun" to me. I'm sorry I cannot not share it with you all, but maybe someday I will rewrite it again...in 3D (LOL GEDDIT?)
Anyway, thinking back on one of my past love life. It kinda inspired me to write this story, I actually did an old post about this before four years ago, but I want to republish it again because the last time I did was kinda incomplete, and I think this is my greatest story (yet) to tell too. This will be an extremely long post of course. Ladies, gents, I present you my silly love story...
Chapter 1 - The Cherry Tree
Throughout my university life, I've always felt that God always put me in a box with diff girls every single semester on purpose. I've met a lot of attractive ones, a few potential ones, and complicated ones. All of them have one thing in common, which is eventually we all went our separate ways. The could-haves and all that jazz, you know how it goes.
Now now, I'm not trying to say like I'm desperate for a girlfriend. I'd say I'm a pretty reserved guy, I'm not attracted to girls who's the prettiest of them all, I will never make a move unless if I piqued an interest, I don't date for fun either, until that one fateful day I happened to stumble upon a "cherry tree".
It all started when my right hand ninja Jon (I call him right hand ninja because he always disappears every semester) called me up when I was doing my internship during Feb 2012, we caught up with each other and update ourselves on what has been happening in our lives. The same old same old I said, and to my delight he told me he was coming back to Miri for good since his uncle has offered him a job.
It was also then that he thought of introducing me a girl who happens to be a gamer too, a good friend of his of 5 years, she was also coming to Miri with him too for travelling. At first I didn't think much about it, since she was a total stranger to me so we didn't really talk much about her.
Fast forward until the end of February, when I was finally done with my practical it was only a week left till the new semester. I caught up with Jon again and he asked that if I wanted to have a chat with that gamer chick friend of his, since I was so free I thought..."Hey...why not?". And off we go...
So we got into a FB group chat and started introducing ourselves, and Jon being a ninja disappeared as usual leaving the two of us alone. Luckily there weren't any awkward moments of not knowing what to talk about with each other, since she was a gamer chick we quickly talked about games. And this happened...
We both play StarCraft...and prefer Brood War to SC2.
It's an amazing thing because Brood War is
the most difficult game to play competitively,
and a girl playing that? GTFO
I felt a cupid arrow just struck my heart. Now not only that part was amazing, we continued to talk about our hobbies and other stuff to find out if we have any more things in common. And what do you know...we have tons of similar things that we both enjoy doing. Here's a list.
Methodist (✓)
Linkin Park (fav album Hybrid Theory) (✓)
Rock songs (✓)
Eminem (✓)
Musician (diff instruments though) (✓)
Reading manga (✓)
Watching anime (✓)
Staying at home when there's nothing going on (✓)
Big Bang Theory (✓)
South Park (✓)
How I Met Your Mother (✓)
StarCraft Brood War (Zerg) (✓)
Diablo (✓)
Left 4 Dead (Spitter) (✓)
Pokemon (✓)
Football (though basketball is her preferred sport) (✓)
Jogging (✓)
Similar favourite numbers (17 and 23) (✓)
and many others...
That stranger-zone quickly changed to wow-I-just-met-a-pretty-cool-person! zone, so anything that you guys and girls know what I like, she likes them too. Heck, she was basically my clone...
I felt she was my other half.
After the first conversation with her, I knew then what I had to do. I must have her.
From that day, we would chat with each other almost every night. Heck we already called each other names, she calls me bel bel like how any of my close galfriends (very diff from girlfriends!) and family do, and I call her Cherry (because her name starts with C and to protect her identity, hence the Cherry Tree). Both of us have sacrificed our sleep and chatted till dawn (and now you know why, mum lol), oh did I mention that both Jon and Cherry then were still in New Zealand? That means the hour diff is 5 hours apart.
But Abel, what the heck were you two chatting about every night? Well, you know the basics. Just telling each other about myself and her life too. She even finished reading my whole blog! I thought to myself maybe this time...that she was the one. One more time, one more chance.
Chatting with Cherry always made me excited, the excitement of looking forward to chat with her every single night without fail. A perfect analogy of this, is like I was like a kid waiting for the ice cream man to pass by my house every afternoon. Heck, I even downloaded back some of the classic love songs from the 90's. Backstreet Boys, N Sync, Savage Garden and many others, all because of her.
It's not uncommon for backpackers to know how much of a hassle is to prepare some documents for travelling, especially if it's for staying about a few weeks. And it's also common for government offices to be slow on that, so I was patient. We started chatting less too, mostly because we were kinda busy with our own stuff. Lots of complicated things happened during their travels too, I'm pretty sure you know how it feels like to wait for someone you love to arrive, it was frustrating at times, and this went on for three months.
Furthermore, her birthday was also coming in early May, and like any lovefool would do I knew I had to do something about it. But with all the delays and shit, I was squeezing my brain juice out on what to do. And I decided to do something that I've never done before, play a song acoustic over Skype for her.
Too bad the line reception was terrible (Miri and Melbourne lol), but that didn't stop me. So I went ahead and did a video recording on myself playing "You and Me" by Lifehouse for her on YouTube (it's set to private, haha). It was an all or nothing situation, I didn't really have anything to lose. And according to Jon, it was the best birthday gift that anyone has given her (that time). Boo yah, totally worth it :3
When they finally reached KL in mid May, that was also the most busiest month in the semester for Curtin students. Like any romance movie, things seems to get worse when time goes by. Because Cherry was carrying a Myanmar passport (haha, you thought she was Malaysian didn't you?), her stay in the country was only two months until she can find an internship for dentistry; only when she can find one then only her live can be extended to two years. Time was running out for both her and I.
In the month of May-hem (see what I did there? hehe), when they were supposed to come to Miri but amazingly, for two times in row their flights were delayed because of Cherry. The first delay was because of her sudden out of nowhere job interview request so she had to stay back (last min checking), this action has affected both Jon and I, for Jon because he was already late for his job and had to delay it again to look after Cherry, for me...all my plans to bring her out, the short holiday to KK and the confession day were all ruined.
The second delay was more jaw-dropping, because she was carrying a Myanmar passport she wasn't allowed to simply to fly anywhere as she wished, as Myanmar is not recognized as a commonwealth country by Malaysia. This problem would have been solved if she carried a NZ passport, but she didn't change it due to her parents' wishes. So she has to apply the visa visitation to come to the east, but...knowing the gov working habit..the process could take weeks.
I was losing it then, never in my life that a girl like her made me this angry. I was really feeling on the edge, I even had some small arguments with Jon of his slow reply regarding Cherry's status (since she was so busy with the interviews and reports, oh and of course, her almost daily girls night out with Jon's ex gf). I felt that at that time...God has really been pushing me to my limits as far as possible, I know God was indeed testing me and nurturing my willpower and patience. But the anger...the darkness clouded my understanding, got pretty emo and wrote a poem about it haha.
The time was around June then, since I was already on my holiday, I decided that I could just fly to KL and have some short holiday. I wanted to show her how committed I am and show her that I was really serious about her, so it was then Jon and I planned out the blueprint. It took us about a week to get ready, and I had to do was wait for Jon to come to Miri to start working on his job and me flying over to KL to look after her. It's like a switch you see, since he offered my flight tix, I can only wait on him to get ready to go back to Miri to work.
"It's time" Jon said. Finally, I thought, the day has come for me to meet her. It was on Monday night then before they went out for dinner at approximately 8-9pm, and Jon told me he would tell me the flight details later. So I did my thing, played the whole Diablo 3 campaign the whole night till early dawn. I was able to finish the game because I was waiting for him to return for details, but he never showed up. I thought like ..."hmm maybe they're tired" and so I went to bed too.
And then finally...finally...FINALLY...oh wait, he never showed up for months.
For the first few days after his "disappearance", I was actually worried of what might have happened to them. My scumbag brain was playing all the possible scenarios on what could have happened to them, you know the paranoia that I'm talking about right? Jon just literally disappeared like a true ninja from going online, FB, Whatsapp, Hamachi, Skype...basically, I tried all kinds of communication tools to contact him but to no avail. I also couldn't see him online at all in Whatsapp after a few days (I didn't know that it meant that he was blocking me then).Then thx to my awesome superb memory, I remembered that he used to call me by using his ex's bro's phone and I still have it in my memory phone card. So I quickly gave a call...
Du... du...
du... duu...
duu... du...
"Hello?"
"Hi, is jon there?"
"Jon? Oh he's still in NZ"
I thought I heard it wrongly, and I asked again, and again he confirmed it with me twice. What the heck was going on?
I took the investigation further, and the bro was kind enough to give me his sister's number. I dialed and send SMSs to her number and there were no responses...
Now think of this scenario, imagine I was on a tree. And I was on a branch that was going to break, and if it breaks, I'm gonna get hurt really, really, bad.
When I got her msg from Whatsapp, shockingly, she told me a different story which was Jon was already back in Miri a few days ago and just landed in KL.
...really?
Much like Jon disappearing, she also disappeared when I asked about Cherry. Never again to hear from them until today...
Until I saw Jon online in Skype after a week or so, I messaged him again asking him what was going on and where was he, I waited for his reply for a few minutes...then he went offline ignoring me again.
*snap*
So back to the tree scenario, I suddenly saw myself sky-diving down through the branches and leaves, with the thorns scratching through my skin and a berzillion questions ran through my mind, why, how, when, what, why, why, why, why, why, why, why...my thoughts ran so deep that even after I fell hard on the ground, I didn't feel anything.
I became numb...
....
.....
......
.......
........
.........
..........
...........
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Can't believe it's the third time
I have fallen from such a high spot.
............
...........
.........
Looking up from below, I then realize there is actually another
Everyone has something that haunts them. It comes in various forms, maybe it can be your past failures, or the break-up, or someone abusive to you. I've never really understood the feeling of being haunted by your past, despite the many movies portrayal of it.
But I think I kinda understand it now, this was after a few months after her disappearance.
At this point, you guise are probably saying that I actually got trolled or scammed for 3 months or she was just a fake. Maybe, yes, no, I don't know. But I don't believe my best friend would actually do such a cruel thing for so long; because that'd be too far (his disappearance was immature but forgiven nonetheless), I didn't lose any money too nor was I introduced to some fishy websites. I believed that our feelings for each other were genuine and real, regardless of what you think. Besides, the last time I checked, she blocked me in FB too.
So anyway one night, she conveniently appeared online in MSN and started asking me about what was going on and stuff, being confused and all that jazz. Why? Well, you see. The thing is I posted this very same blog post calling them out after one month, what you're reading now is a revised version as mentioned at the very top.
We argued, of course, she said a lot of mean things to me, which hurt me a lot. But seriously, to be left out in the dark just like that without any explanation, how am I suppose to know what happened? I'm not the type of person who sits by and do nothing. So after that heated conversation, we just stopped contacting each other. She would appear online from time to time, but I didn't bother with her anymore. Everything was damaged, my heart and soul.
Fast forward until Malaysia's National Day, she actually started a conversation with me again. We started off casually, she finally found an internship in Penang and kinda lost contact with Jon too. Then we started arguing again (lol) when she mentioned about the situation between he and I. The ridiculous part was, even though she said she was not on anyone's side she still called me mean names and defending him. Even promising him not to tell me what actually happened. Gosh, not sure that she realized that by doing so that makes him more suspicious.
You know how it feels like right? The rage and anger, just wanting to punch through the computer screen. Luckily I suggested that we stop or else things could have gotten worst, so we did and cooled down. We changed the topic to something out of the blue. Well, actually about the both us.
"I do liked you belbel." she said.
At that moment, I did a victory fist pump pose. But I wasn't sure if she meant back then or still do. I mean c'mon, read that sentence. It's past tense. Or...just bad grammar, which I never corrected her.
"Lets start over again, without him being the third person." she added.
My heart was happy, anyone would have been happy to read that from their love interest. But my mind screamed "No! It's a trap!". Ah, the conflicting moment when the heart is against the mind.
And I couldn't resist, starting over was promising. How many times do we get a second chance like this? We continued to chat for the next 3 days although it wasn't the same as we did like before, the fire just wasn't burning passionately anymore. It has been extinguished for too long, and so has she.
When I said so has she, I mean that she frigging disappeared again (although she did say her line was poor to begin with). I would login to MSN every single day for a month in hope just for her to online even if it was just a minute, but alas...she never appeared online again until maybe around November I think. And during that quiet period, being the imperfect impatient person that I was at the breaking point (again), I decided that I had enough of it. So I stopped going to MSN, and deleted her picture. I thought for sure, maybe this way I could get rid of being haunted.
I thought.
Another month went by, I finished my university life. After I walked out of the exam room. For some reason, I felt like walking around the campus (it was night time then). I plugged in my earphones and walked around, reminiscing the memories I had then. Smiling to myself like an idiot haha. And then when I reached to my ending walking point. I looked up at the black sky and said...
I've never felt so lonely and haunted before in my life.
That was also when I realize, the only reason why people continue to get haunted by their past is not because it is always knocking on their door. But rather because they're still clinging to it and refusing it to let go. To quote Harley from Paramore, "Why do we like to hurt so much?"
And deleting her picture didn't mean that I have let her go, not even the slightest. It actually meant that I couldn't accept the reality and pain that was sitting on my shoulders. I talked about this with a friend too, and he said something profound.
"Keep it ba." he said.
"It's a lesson, face it and let the pain vanish itself." he added.
At that moment, I quickly shuffled through my media file. I thought I had deleted all traces of her, and I found them from my social app history. I slowly retrieved them one by one and kept it in my digital pandora box. I also got back to MSN occasionally too, although it seems kinda useless now with Facebook and social apps around lol
Until she came back online again, that is. And she finally told me the truth of the disappearance.
The truth was when Jon told me to get ready to fly to KL, she pleaded him from doing so. Why? Because she was afraid of disappointing me if I made a trip there, as she was not ready for a relationship. Jon didn't know what to do either, so they did what they do best, running away. And he actually thought it was ok. Ha!
After hearing the truth, though, I forgave them for their immature decision. I couldn't stay mad at them forever. I also asked her who was I to her, to which she promptly replied that I was a dear friend to her (something like that). And I hated that word. "Friend". I wanted to be more than that, it's just a different meaning in a guy's perspective ya know?
At that point, I might have prolly screwed up as well. What? Me? Screwing up? Yes I did, because during her absence, another girl came along and boy does she has a bright smile. I got charmed by her like many guys did, but of course, it was just a silly puppy crush. And yes, I told Cherry about the girl which made her quite upset (I could tell lol) and that made her avoid me more than ever. By the time I realized the mistake, it was already too late. And hell broke lose between me, Jon and her again.
The dreams and dates in the poem didn't happen on the same day, but the dates held significant occasions. And the dreams...I will always remember them, they have already been implanted into the core of my memories. As for the poem that I wrote above, it was something I experienced for 6 months or so, it all started somewhere at the first quarter of the new year and we somehow got in contact again. She had finished her internship and just started travelling around Malaysia too, together with her (overprotective) brother and his gf.
By then, Jon and I have already patched up our friendship again. At that time, I also withheld myself from falling for her and just treated her as a friend (since she saw me as one too). I closed myself as much as I could, but she pushed herself into my heart. For the first time, she actually had the courage to face her fear of getting hurt (she said I was too perfect for her, ha!). Eventually winning me over again by being honest with me, it was sort of a dream come true. There were a lot of moments, I even saved the chats and read them once in a blue moon.
It was magic every single day, I can still fondly remember like it was yesterday. Our past early mornings till the late evenings, the way we used to tell each other everything. We had our cheesy moments and stings, but that was what strengthen our bond and feelings. Despite a black wind took you away without letting me knowing why; I just want to thank you for everything we went through even though there were no goodbyes. I learn a lot about myself much better, I went through hell again to pick myself up again stronger. I learn to love again with you, and thank you for the love you returned too. You were the closest to heaven that I'll ever be, a painful blessing is what you were to me.
I was actually kinda depressed after you were gone, or rather enervated. I have already come to accept the fact and fate that I will probably never be able to meet the girl of my dreams ever again. I didn't eat well, I didn't sleep well, I didn't even have any motivation to game, I felt...powerless. It was a heavy blow to me and uncalled for, and a really destructive one too. I even banned my friends from speaking anything of her ever again for two months. Even after that two months, being able to say her name again back then was not even the beginning of recovering; it was only after two years that I was able to listen to Lifehouse's You and Me song comfortably again.
Question - Have you ever wondered what would happen to a person if one's religion
(like…say Christianity) was proven to be a big fat lie all along?
Faithless? Stumble? Broken? I leave that to your pondering.
For one to believe there's a God that can't be seen and heard easily, it really takes an extremely high level of faith to do so. I had the faith of she and I will be together, and I know it's not fair to compare the both of them in such context. But the concept is there.
She was my inspiration and strength to look forward to a new day every day without fail. She brought the best out of me. She made me believe that I can do anything. She made me believe that I can rule the world, as long as She was by my side.
Even her imperfect human nature and flaws, I learned to embrace them too.
Like any ex, I used to occasionally scroll through her FB wall, there were some mixed feelings. Anger, confusion, but also happy at the same time. I also actually planned to burn the Orange Project (her favourite colour, now you know why); because I just wanted to see the "world" burn. But the moment I dug out the notebook…I just stared at it.
I couldn't do it.
I couldn't do it because I knew like before, deleting every trace of her won't work. I was so close to set my most priceless gift on fire, which carries my utmost sincere feelings. So…I put it back.
Thinking back of one of the nights in Chapter 1, when you asked me if I liked you or not. That was the very same night that I played "Wish You Were Here" cover by Avril on Skype. When you asked me that, I really really wanted to tell you how I felt. But I didn't. I didn't because I wanted to do it sincerely in person instead of doing it online. Online confession is for pussies.
I don't know if you still remember this, but I hope you do. When I asked you about what was your favourite song, you said you have none. I asked you that question because I wanted to have a song to hum about when I go home and think about you. Since you didn't have any favourite song, I decided to use my favourite song then. Actually, my favourite song used to be Goo Goo Dolls - Iris, but I changed it because 99% of the lyrics is exactly how I felt about you.
I was going to tell you all this during the confession night, in City Fan by the lake and had some fireworks (well...ok I thought about it lol) ready to make it meaningful and memorable for you.
I honestly wish this post have a happier ending, I really do. Anyway, as promised, I have fulfilled your wish of writing a post about you. So "Cherry" Y., I truly wish you all the best in what God has in stored for you in this life, and I hope you've learned to conquer your fear of attachment too. All I ever wanted was your happiness, even if I'm not part of it.
