streetperson

I stare across the road at the dark foliage that hides behind it a massive golf course.  How deceiving.

The occassional car passes, it’s quiet now.

How, in the last two years, much has changed.

It’s funny looking back at the distance that we’ve come. It seemed just yesterday when we made the downpayment for the first property that we would ever buy.  The apartment that was home for 2 years.

The apartment that had both happy and not so happy memories, but all good.  Where friends (and strangers) gathered, in happy camaraderie.  Birthdays, celebrations and festivals.

We’ve moved on — the apartment remains a memory now, it was just two months ago when, after the movers brought the last box down, I locked the door for the last time and handed the keys to the guard to pass to the next owner.

We’ve settled in pretty much, though for now, this place we’ve started getting used to is temporary, until the next place is ready for us.

Home is where friends and family gather.  In retrospect, I realise that I take after my father, who used to almost always have friends hanging out at his house during times when i visited.  I’m at my dad’s age now when i was 12.

Circles complete.  Dad would have been 62 now.  I wonder if he would have seen himself in me.  Never quite got there.

It’s all transient.

How two years ago we thought we’d settle down at the little apartment at the edge of the city and how now, we’re at a part of the world (ok, Singapore) we never thought we’ll live.  We’ve come some way.

Relationships have evolved — I’d like to think that we’ve all grown a little older, a little wiser but yet I know there will always be this part of me that wonders when I will ever grow up.  There were all these discrete stages that I thought would make up chapters of my life, but the lines are getting increasingly blurred.  Nothing is ever linear but everything is a lot simpler than we make it out to be.

Am I making sense?

A wave of cars pass, it’s 2:30 in the morning. I think I like the sound the cars make — it’s city noise — that brings a little bit of life to an otherwise very quiet suburban neighbourhood.

I think about the people who have become family of sorts.  What these friends mean to me and how they’ve come through for me, without question.  Friendship is not a function of time.  When the connection happens, it’s amazing. 

I used to wonder how people become friends.  Why people become friends. But friends are people life throws at us, not something we look for.  If it was meant to be, you don’t have to try very hard at all.  If it wasn’t, it’s damn tough to engage.  I used to have a highly romanticised idea of what it all meant — I’m a little more discerning now, but that still doesn’t stop me from making a fool of myself once in a while. 

For a reason, a season or a lifetime.  I’m lucky — there’ve always been people there at life-changing points.  They will come and go — we just got to make the most of each encounter.

So here we are now.  Hoping for the best of 2008 — for each new day and each new encounter.  In exchange for that little bit of who we are and memories we get in return.

Have a great 2008.

Why do two people stay together? I’m amazed at some older people that I know, who are no longer just in-love but have built such a strong bond that transcends any understanding that we have. It is a silent devotion in difficult times, caring in times of illness, support in the face of adversity and the ability to laugh at themselves, and the circumstances despite the odds.

Being together when things are good is easy. It’s the trials that test the bonds. It’s the ability to continue to love when the infatuation is over, when the sex has faded, when youth has been replaced by laugh lines and yet missing each other when either is away, and looking forward to coming home at the end of each day. It’s amazing. A love that is forged through time.

I’ll like to think that it’s a choice we make, and that one day, someone will look at me and my partner, and say the same thing.

It’s amazing how dots connect. Three weeks ago, through a series of coincidences, I attended a Wealth Management Course — The Wealth Academy, run by the Adam Khoo Learning Technologies Group — that focussed on wealth creation and management, with specific emphasis on investment instruments in the stock market.

It was really a first for me, in a long time, to venture beyond what was familiar, to break routine, to pay for a 3-1/2 day course when i could hardly claim to have been a model student in school, having only attended lectures during the final term in my entire tenure at NTU. So there I was, prepared to pick up a subject that I had brushed off time and time again. What was amazing was the series of events that took place, that led to the group of people who came together, now fondly known as the “Think Different” group. People whom I had met separately under different circumstances during the 3.1/5 days who just naturally came together when the call was made.

So here we are, we had our first informal get-together/excursion to the beach last Sunday. We’ve shared our live-stories and aspirations. And it’s just amazing how we have such a diverse group of people — I have a good feeling about the group, for all the diversity, there is a reason that we have come together. We are 9 members right now, with a possible 10th member, when the recommendation was to not have more than 8. But when pieces of the jigsaw seem to fit so well, if there be ten, there will be ten.

The dots will connect.

Where will we head? I don’t know. I DO know that we each have a lot to offer to each other, richness of our experiences and spirit to forge ahead through unchartered territories.

I started with some healthy level of skepticism (can that be?) — I’m looking forward to a great 18 months ahead, and more beyond that.

Made a major decision last weekend, to sell the Hollandswood Court Apartment. It was time to move on, the signs were all there, the stars were aligned.

It was love at first sight when I first saw the apartment 2 years ago, the first apartment I came to look at when we decided to buy and after 6 weeks of apartment-hunting, I came back to this one. It was a little over our initial budget but there wasn’t another that came so close to what I was looking for to call a home.

Since then it had evolved, the plants have grown, the koi are huge and we have all settled in nicely. Nice little routines each day, sending G to work, walking the dogs, feeding the fish, watering the plants and then settling down to work. It’s a nice little hole in the sky to call our own.

The apartment has been really good to us, for all the things that it’s not, it’s everything that it needs to be, a place to come back to, a place to have friends over, for dinner, drinks or simply a game of mahjong. A sanctuary, just at the edge of the city, close enough to be convenient, far enough to be away from the crowd.

The time has come to move on, all happy banquets must come to an end. The market is right, the timing written in the stars. For the short 1.5 years that we’ve been here, we’ve had fantastic memories. Already strangers are coming into our home, and one day it will be a great home to one of them. Already I’m starting my hunt again, for the next place for friends and kin — and it will present itself, just as this one did and it will be a love affair all over again.

I think I am a naturally gregarious person. Outwardly rather reserved in nature but I absolutely love to meet people. It’s always amazing when we discover others and how their lives have been, in the exchanges that take place in the process of becoming friends. The similarities that are discovered and the differences that make us the unique individuals that we are.

I like being with people, being around people or interacting with them. Everyone has a story to tell. Personal accounts and experiences. Of laughter and tears, of celebration, of sorrow.

Over the years I guess I have made my share of friends, met hundreds of people, some of whom have endured and gone beyond being mere acquiantances to soulmates and friends who have been there for me, who have stood by me when the going was tough. People who know my deepest darkest secrets and yet accept every single bit of me. Makes life really a less lonely journey to take.

At the end of the day, when I look back, I think it will be nice to remember the lives and people whom I have touched and hopefully made a positive difference to, but most of all, I think I will appreciate the people who have touched mine and made it all so worthwhile. Friendship should be a continuing celebration, for the immense value that we fail to see or take for granted most of the time.

So I want to say thank you.

Thank you to friends who have been there. With their quiet smiles and unspoken support.

Thank you to critics and nay-sayers who’ve told me the many many things that cannot be done, that gave me that extra push to prove them wrong.

To friends who didn’t know how to be nice but were brutally honest instead. Who showed me the stupid things I did, and congratulated me on the right choices I made, without judgement.

To people who are friends for a reason, and to those who will be just here for a season. There’s a purpose in everything, for all the we do not see or understand. Thank you.

There are and will always be not-so-nice things that happen that we don’t like, but often though these are things that we have to deal with on our own, it helps that we’ve got people who care about us enough us to stand with us first to help us get through them. We all have our demons to exorcise
and that we’ve got to decide to do ourselves. Too often we make homes for these demons. Extremely stupid, but we so willingly do so. Maybe it helps us feel that our lives are real coz anything that’s just too good, is too good to be true. So a demon here and there to make it more real.

But these demons that we keep inadvertently also affects our relationships with other people, especially the people we call our friends, who sometimes stand by and feel helpless because we don’t take the hands that they offer, and worst when we detach ourselves.

We need to learn to let go of these demons. That life can be good and is as good as we make it to be and we have to believe in such. Life is real enough, and there will be new demons coming our way, so we have to throw away the old ones. And stop adopting demons.

Observations for the day:
1. We live really noisy lives.
2. There is no perfect situation.
3. We cannot run away from pain, though we try our hardest to avoid it.

Thoughts:
A very good friend said this to me, “We will stop living when we no longer have hopes and dreams”.

It’s possible to lose hope, when we are tired. It’s possible to stop dreaming, because we become disillusioned.

It’s also possible to decide otherwise. Everything happens for a reason. We just don’t see it most of the time because we are too busy thinking about ourselves.

Things that matter:
But at the end of the day, it’s deciding what matters most to us. What the important things are, and what the small stuff are, that we shouldn’t sweat. Things we should place value on, and things we should not worry about.

Conclusions:
It’s the difference between being able to make a positive difference with our lives, than just being nameless statistics. At the end of the day, it’s about knowing who we are, what’s really important to us and what we stand for. It’s making the things that count, count for something.

Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes not.

Sometimes it fits. Often it doesn’t.

Sometimes friends happen. But deep connections are not always easy to make.

Sometimes we fight. But it’s good because you only fight with people you are close to. It’s a matter of knowing what’s important and what are small stuff that you shouldn’t sweat.

Sometimes we cry. It’s ok, as long as we know how to laugh again.

Sometimes we have deep conversations. Sometimes we just have fun. Sometimes it’s all nonsense. Sometimes it all falls in place. We shouldn’t have to try too hard.

Sometimes you wonder where everything is leading to, if there’s a bigger picture, a higher plan. Sometimes just going along is all that matters.

Sometimes you want to forget. Sometimes you don’t.

Sometimes everything seems just perfect. Perfection is hard work and constant effort, it’s relative anyway. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It’s something you cannot take for granted either.

Sometimes you wish for the moon and the stars. You know that’s not for you to have, it’s all wishful thinking. But you are glad for all that you’ve got, maybe not close to what you think you want but usually a lot more than what you need.