[x] remnants of a past

You usually try to avoid leaving at this time. On some days, the ones where it doesn't matter if you miss the first ten or so minutes of class, you leave later. Those days get you lectures from your mother on how precious time is; most days you just leave earlier to spare yourself from it all. Everything's busy at this time, sounds and images that blur and distort as you make your way down the pavement. The streets are roaring with the engines of cars, buses; if you listen closely you can hear the alarm bells of the trams and the boom gates at the train station. 

Your bag sits heavy on your shoulder, dragging you down on one side both with its weight and the hair that's been trapped underneath the strap. You've been growing it out lately - you don't trust anyone in your family to come near you with scissors (years of uneven cuts and bangs in primary school taught you that, though nobody cared about that back then. It's only looking back at those photos now that has you cringing) and you've never made an appointment at the hairdresser. When you reach to lift the strap and tug the strands free, you stumble off-balance, figures pushing past you on each side of the narrow sidewalk. When you look up again, there are two boys with backpacks so large that you can't even see their torsos behind them racing ahead to the pedestrian lights, desperate to start crossing before the lights change and the traffic starts up again.

They don't make it and there's a brief battle over who pushes the button as you draw up and come to stand behind them. The boys are very young, their voices not yet broken; it makes you smile a little. A pair of sneakers enters your peripheral vision and you take a glance over at the woman in her beige suit. It looks a bit ridiculous, sneakers with a suit, but you can sympathise with that when you spot the top of a black heel peeking out from her handbag. If you were running around all day in high heels, you'd want a pair of comfortable shoes at the start and the end of the day, too. She doesn't notice your glance, she's too busy chattering into her mobile phone. You can't hear anything she's saying, her words blending into the constant drone of sound, but there's a nice timbre to her voice. Before you can turn your attention back to the pedestrian lights another voice cuts into your hears, loud and piercing. 

The voice belongs to a girl whose group of friends are arrayed around her. Her school blazer is unbuttoned, the dress tight across her chest with the first button undone, white socks slouching around skinny ankles. The whole ensemble is dragged slightly off centre by the Country Road bag draped over her shoulder. She drags manicured nails through her hair and continues to talk. She pauses as one of the other girls chimes in and glances around at the crowd of people waiting. Too late, you move to look away but she's already caught you, turning her head to look at you. You avert your eyes quickly, ducking your head to check the time on your watch. 

You can feel her gaze lingering on you, appraising you, and you are suddenly so horribly conscious of your faded school uniform (it was your sister's before it was yours because "it's still got some wear in it left") and your scuffed shoes. You can feel the heat rising in your cheeks, spreading flush down your neck, even as she turns back to her friends. You can hear her make a comment, and as the lights change and the signal starts to beat, all her friends burst into high-pitched giggles. 

You cross the road quickly, weaving between the people, and stride ahead so you can leave behind the girls who are dawdling across the road in a straight line, immersed in their gossip. You feel the prickles of annoyance, hating them for their obvious vacuity, but hating yourself more for envying it. You could never be like them. You have your friends but you could never be like them, exuding such casual indifference, engaging in such mindless conversation. 

But you wish you could. You wish you could be one of those rich private school girls, beautiful and confident and so goddamn sure of your place in the world. 

***


When one has something they really don't want to do, there are suddenly a thousand things that suddenly seem so much more appealing. For me, in this past week, it entailed sorting out a box of books and papers from my high school days that had been haphazardly shoved into my closet.

My mother usually bemoans the fact that I like to hoard. Somehow, I simply cannot bear to get rid of anything. "But what if one day..." I tell myself, as I pack away yet more boxes full of papers and trinkets that I doubt I will ever look at again. Still, sometimes hoarding is not such a bad thing, I think. At the very least, you have the opportunity to stumble across a multitude of goods you had forgotten about. In my case, it was the excerpt from above. Judging from the contents, it's from...2006? or thereabouts. I was thirteen, then.


A lot of things have changed since I wrote this. It's funny how, in some ways, I feel I haven't changed at all.

raise a glass and toast the flame just like the old days

I had a good enough time at both events I attended on Thursday night (SAMA Trivia Night and L's birthday), but looking back, I think I wish that I'd used that time to bash out more kinks from that monster I've been working on on-and-off for the last year or so. In any case, there's not much that I can do about it now but sleep and study a lot in the coming days I still have free. Still, both were interesting experiences for me.

I didn't participate in Trivia, and I don't regret that. I am horrible at knowing anything outside of that which I am interested in; my general knowledge, and possibly common sense, is awful, as those who have known me for years can attest to. On top of that, the event was attended largely by people I wasn't aquainted with and whom I wasn't at all interested in being grouped together with.

I think a lot of people don't believe me when I say to them that I'm not interested in making new friends. It's true though; for the most part I'm more than happy with the people that I have in my life now, however close we are or however often I see them. This is, in part, aided by the fact that I seem to have surrounded myself with people who I have either grown up with, or am comfortable enough with that I can handle their occasional bouts of stupidity. I look at a lot of people now and my innate reaction is to avoid them and their apparent immaturity. I think to myself, how can they possibly be so stupid and foolish? though I know I must have been just as, if not worse, than they were when I was at that age too. On one hand, it gives me hope that they'll mature and grow past certain things, but mostly it just makes me despair.

E mentioned, when I was recounting the night's events to her, that it seemed like a waste of time to attend. It's true, I'm usually a pretty solitary person. Perhaps it has something to do with the difficulty that I had in making friends with others post-moving. Still, I like being around people, even if I'm not engaging with them. Perhaps that part has to do with the writer in me - past observation is always the best tool when you want to create later.

L's birthday was interesting in a different way and inspired a lot of thoughts about friendship in me. I've known L for about six years now; we were at school together and she's one of the few that I'm still in well, fairly regular contact with. We see each other a handful of times a year; I think that's well enough for us now even though it's not often. It was nice to see her, since we last caught up in December? last year.

I ran into three of my other school friends (G, G and N) who were also on their way in to her house on the train from the city which was a pleasant surprise. Part of my original hesitation in attending, even though it was the pretty celebrated age of 21, stemmed from my reluctance to be around so many people I didn't know. There's only so much small talk you can make, and it's not as if you can monopolise the time of the birthday girl, after all.

When we arrived, we found that P had arrived earlier than us, and since all five of us barely knew anyone else, ended up camping out in the shed at the back of the garden. There was a lengthy conversation wherein a possibility of a T.S class reunion was discussed. I am still not convinced that it'll happen, but that's for another time. Later on, another whole group of school friends/associates showed up too (A, A, A, N, H, I, J) so it was pretty nice to catch up with them all. I don't remember the last time I saw them.

I was at school with most of these people for at least 5 years; it's been so long that I've known them, so long since we first made friends, so long since we went our separate ways. We've all grown so much and changed in so many ways that there are a lot of moments where I don't recognise them anymore, when I see them in person, and the glimpses of their lives I get through Facebook. But they are still essentially them, still with those parts of them that I once knew, just grown up.

It made me wonder what I looked like to them now. I wonder what they think they know about my life now. Just as there are so many facets to them that I don't recognise, there must be as many facets of myself that they don't recognise. I know I've changed a lot, even just in the few months that were the summer holidays. Uni changed me dramatically from high school in certain ways.

I'm not particularly afraid of any judgement from that group; chances are that it'll be at least a good six months before I see them again, anyway. Not to mention, we've drifted to the extent that I have no fear of finding out anything by accident. That we can still be good acquaintances and be civil, friendly, when we see each other is more than enough for me. They've gone through a lot that I wouldn't understand, even if they explained. I've probably been through a lot that they wouldn't understand either. There are plenty of times where we might not be able to empathise, though we can still sympathise.

I agree with what Becky says, "If you liked someone once, doesn't it remain similar even after a long time has passed?" Honestly speaking, once I've decided I like you, it takes quite a lot for me to decide that I dislike you and want to cut ties with you. I see people from high school so sporadically, and I see the girls from primary school even less, but those factors don't detract from our friendship or the fact that they will always remain dear to me.

The thoughts contained here apply not just to the friends I've mentioned, but to anyone who's known me since I was in year nine, or earlier, or later. What do you see when you look at me now? Maybe you don't understand the person that I am anymore.

It's unfair to think that all of you will understand how I ended up here, what happened to make me who I am, or what I've done and accomplished and achieved, become and failed and lost. And it's okay that you don't.

It's enough if you can understand and accept that maybe you can't understand. That even if I could explain it, show you it all, it wouldn't make it clearer who and what has helped to shape me into the person that I am now. It's enough if you can embrace that and love me anyway, and I'll do the same for you.

an exercise in writing

For the longest time I shied away from the idea of blogging. Not because I thought it was stupid or anything like that, but rather, because I was afraid that I would be unable to transcribe my thoughts a) into anything resembling coherent and b) in a way that would be interesting for other people to read if they happened to stumble across my posts.

This is an attempt.