Impromptu

[An old post - June '09]

I'm in my reminiscing best - resulting in my need to speak out, to look for an avenue for "verbal diarrhea". So, here I am.

I feel you should know how my reminiscing came about, to keep you informed that it's not something I intended for, but more often than not, something that just happens without any rhyme or reason. Perhaps there's a psychological or scientific explanation for the state I'm in, some sort of subconscious mind-play creating and providing the impetus for the invisible hand which directs my thoughts and actions into and ultimately leading me to this reminiscing state that I'm in. I digress.

So...where was I? Ah yes, how did my reminiscing come about? I had a pretty eventful afternoon. I was at Urbanscapes 2009, a Malaysian (Kuala Lumpur) annual (I think) creative arts festival. I arrived home after spending 4 solid hours watching people, people at work and peoples' works. I didn't have any plans for the evening; was just flipping channels on the teevo while surfing the web - the kind of things one would do if there wasn't any plans for a Saturday night. I was bored after a short while and so I logged on to Live Messenger to find out who'd be online; whom I could have a chat with. And as you'd know, as you log on, there would be a pop-up which would inform you of the number of new emails in your inbox. Since there were some new emails (and also because I've not logged in to my hotmail account for the past 2-3 months), I decided to log in.

There weren't any important new emails, just forwarded ones from those I don't really keep in touch with (hence they do not know hotmail is no longer my primary email account, for the past 4 years or so). I figured I'd "spring clean" my hotmail account while I'm at it. Who knows when I'll log in again, right? I was organising emails, deleting some, forwarding some and going through some of the folders in the account. There's a "Friends" folder, "Family", "General", "School" and the last folder, a folder containing all old emails from my first girlfriend. To be honest, sometimes I don't even remember I have a hotmail account, let alone the contents in my account. So there it was, the folder, and I opened it.

I randomly clicked on a few emails and read them. Picture this; you're reading old emails (old as in 2002-2005) from an old flame and as you read the emails word by word, line by line...you naturally bring yourself back to the time the emails were written - you think of how young you were back then, how you've grown into a different person, smile when you think of the better times, shrug when thoughts of the not so good times flood in - its almost like you're Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future in the many scenes where's he's watching himself in his past, as a third person (of course you're not in any urgent mission to change your past so you're not as psyched as MJF). There I was, in this bubble, zone if you will, reminiscing...

I just thought to myself, wow! The things a couple would say to each other when so in love - the dreams, goals, ambitions, promises, sacrifices, compromises - to be carried out and achieved together, and how time and circumstances can throw a curve ball so severe that they just remain what they are...unfulfilled dreams, unachieved goals and ambitions, and promises, sacrifices and compromises devoid of any meaningful substance. On top of that, the loving and romantic messages, the euphoria of being in love, and the belief that love alone will keep us together...the ever cliched "love conquers all". Oh! Such innocence and naivety, gullibility and ignorance.

Don't get me wrong here, there are no regrets, no what ifs, nothing of that sort. I'm way, way past those. Things happen for a reason and we just have to live with it. Its just pure reminiscing, imagination and memory working simultaneously to bring me back to an utopia once so ingrained within my very own existence that I knew no other...but all that remain are now particles of a distant memory on the verge of being vapourised.