Monday, April 27, 2009  11:37 PM
We are one tonight
As I bid 22 farewell, I say goodbye to a year of growth, friendships made, bittersweet miracles, letting go, reflections and the last of my formal education.
It's hard to be completely enthusiastically bouncy happy on birthdays anymore. The feeling has evolved from a day of pure unadulterated fun that I used to look forward to as a child, to a sense of nostalgia and sadness that hits you like a tidal wave every year. Perhaps it's a phase for the twentysomethings, maybe it'll come to a point where you won't even care anymore and the day will eventually pass you by like any other day - but while I turn 23, it's heightened emotion and a rollercoaster of feelings which makes you that bit more emotional than other days. It's intertwined emotions, a poignant mixture of the good and the bad. Who knew?
I took the last exam of my life one week ago, I turn 23 today. Too many changes, and they'll just keep coming, won't they? I have lofty dreams. I want to careen down life in fits of laughter with someone I love, in that oneness which is a rarity, to be understood like how I understand myself. I want to be able to invent the splittable bed someday. I want to live in Hong Kong, in New York, in Spain, and in the secret place I have yet to discover. I want fashion to change the world, to help humanity more than the feeble efforts it generates at present. I want to trust, to live in complete faithfulness with His footprints in the sand.
Happy birthday.
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Thursday, April 23, 2009 12:18 AM
Confetti rainfall
"Well amelia, my former owner also wanted me to give you the following message: that she is thinking about you on your special day and she apologises for not being with you to celebrate it (hmpf... unlike reliable me) cos she is so far away - for 4 years now! She wanted me to hug and kiss you too but I couldn't carry that for her to you. But I think she really treasures you - cos she gave me to you."
I almost cried when I received that in a birthday card in the mail today, after that panic attack that lasted all of five minutes because the sender did not leave a name (mysterious as she wanted to be), sent it with a singapore stamp and wrote the message from the persona of a birthday card. I thought it was a prank or some anthrax scare and my heart raced as I imagined it exploding in front of me. Only when I calmed down and read it again and noticed "printed in britain" at the back did I see things clearer. It was beautifully written, candid and funny at just the right moments with that tinge of warm sweetness like hot caramel at the very end, and I felt like she was right there with me at that moment. I miss her very much, all the way in London - she should just stop being a lawyer there and come back and be poor with me.
I have the best friends in the world. I really think so. I have been very blessed - I have friends that remember, that care, that mail birthday cards, that give away their old clothes to me to sell, that have their mums care about me, that plan my birthday parties for me trying to surprise me, that think of analogies to describe me and write scripts just to remember the points, and they make me want to be a better person to be that same kind of friend back to them. Alot of the time, I don't feel like I deserve any of this, it's truly grace upon me.
And this is the only comfort being a year older - when I saw the candles on my first cake today, I laughed into it and stared incredulously at the number of candles - that I know I'm defined by the people around me, the people I love and choose to have me as a friend, that I'm more certain (more than ever) about these choices that I make in my life, and I couldn't be more thankful for this life I've led thus far.
I'm teary and choked up, and it isn't even my birthday yet.
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