Saturday, September 23, 2006 // 3:05 AM

What I Think

I don't know what I think. It is strange to sit here at the end of the day and wonder about whether or not I had a good time. Or rather, I did have a good time, because I did so many good-time things, but. But I don't know, I feel out of place, or I feel like something is missing, a hole in an important place, at the end of the day, in the centre of me. Just because I can do these things, just because they are options to me; You know some part of me is thankful that I have friends with whom to ever so happily pass the time. And I have nothing to complain about, but. But there's still a but at the end of the sentence, there's still a but in the aftermath of all this carefree conversation.

Fundamentally, I am a serious person. I don't think there's any way to run away from that, despite that I honestly do believe in fun. But right now (and not Thursday when prelims ended) I want to be quiet, right now I want to watch a quiet sort of movie, want to take a long bus ride with my music for company, want to go driving (be driven) at 3 am in the morning down long and empty roads with the windows down, want to talk to one person instead of ten. Even five is too many when I feel like things are only half said; it is not that I grudge your company, it is just: how hollow I feel right now, how very unknown, anonymous. The smaller groups are the ones I want, the ones I crave for, the ones where we don't feel the need to be constantly entertained or laughing at something. Though that much may come. The closest thing I had to that sort of honesty today was three minutes on the bus with Terence. And an sms that I've yet to send to Grace.

I feel like I have grown older, in the last few months. Having ambitions that bring me beyond all this, have responsibilities and a very real sort of consequence that I cannot run away from, having to make my own decisions and take an active control of my life; instead of feeling things slip by like the days are nothing but ordinary singular days. I don't know, I'm not sure if I can live like that anymore, maybe next year, when there really is no more consequence, that I am held accountable to. The things I have learnt, these last few months, I don't want to let go of them, I want to remember so that they will not be lessons I have to learn again. Things like being responsible, things like being steady, sensible, sane, less motivated by insecurity or insanity. On average, I get more sleep during the exam week than I do during the heady social high that follows it, and I don't know if this is a good or bad thing. I am just tired, right now, a little too tired to live up to the bright colours I still wear, a little too tired to be the friendly and the funny and the enthusiastic that I might normally be. More than anything right now I want to be mellow; I want to sit in my concentration cell in church with the lights off and my soft music playing; I want to sit someone down across me, to talk to me; Someone who can be honest, someone who wouldn't feel the need to say something, all the time, fill the air with a copious conversation. Terence, Marcus; Marvin, Nick Wong, Sebbie, sometimes; Most other people, in that once in a blue moon, because I just don't think people would want to have these conversations, with me. It's the way I feel after service when the lights have gone off and I creep up to the piano and play, song after song, while everyone else is socialising. In so many ways I've grown older, and mellowed, and all I want is an undramatic slice of peace and quiet.

So I came home in a cloud of cigarette smoke and shivering from the night, and I'm confronted by the mess that needs to be sorted out, the one that I literally step all over every morning groggy with sleep, dragging myself to the bathroom to wake myself up. Spiders have spun their webs in the corners of my sink, I stare at them while I'm brushing my teeth; There are endless loads of laundry to do, things to clean and organizing that has to be done. Here is a piece of news that I will not forget: I need to study for my A levels, and desperately, because I know very well how much I have not done, how little I have cared for this bout of exams, after the initial weekly panic attacks after the first decision to study. I know Xinyi will think I am crazy and tell me to take a break after the prelims, but this is really not what I think, anymore; we are not on the same page, and our yardsticks are different, right now. And breaks, the kind I want, are not the sort that leave me feeling empty, at the end of the day. This entire process has left me more tired than you know.

What I want to do, I want to wake up tomorrow morning and just lie there, listening to Sufjan Stevens, or KOC, or Sting. I want to eat something nice for lunch with someone who might understand, or who would at least not make me feel like I had to say so many things. I want to watch a good movie. And I can think of a few, right now. I want to watch a seriously good movie, not just something good enough to pay eight dollars for, not just something you'd watch as a sort of social event. Another time, maybe, when I have time to spare, another time when I can afford the peace of mind that fun forfeits, but I think right now I really do need a break, I need to relax in a way that would be relaxing, for me. Which inevitably means therapeutic, slow, quiet, soundless.

I think I should spend my Monday entirely alone, or at least quietly.