Just finished watching "In Her Shoes" on DVD. I'd bought a load of DVDs on Amazon to keep me occupied in my final days in London before I go back to Singapore for what looks to be the final visa trip before I run out of time, visas and use my last life so to speak. Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me. I remember saying that I felt like I'd cheated death the last time I came back to the UK. That was about 11 months ago.
I keep track of numbers a lot of the time, and yet sometimes the days just pass me by and I can't remember a thing that happened. I can remember that I first arrived in the UK on 14 September or rather, I'd left on 14 September and arrived early in the morning on 15 September 2001. That was just after September 11 when the twin towers were attacked. Mummy had seen it on TV and immediately she thought of Zhiying who was still in NYC then. I remember 26 December 2002. That was when Jon and I went to see The Lord of the Rings and that was when we first got together. I remember 14 February 2002 too when Tom, Jon and I drove out in Warwickshire on a random trip because we felt like it. It was in the wee hours of the morning and we got stopped by police asking Tom if he'd had anything for personal use. And I remember kissing Jon on the cheek and then Tom on the cheek as we drove into Campus, past the Science building and the Humanities building back to Jack Martin to wish them Happy Valentine's Day. I remember kissing Jon first on the cheek so that he would have my first kiss albeit a peck on the cheek, ever. I liked him a lot more than I'd realised at that point.
Then there was 14 February 2003, the following year, when I remember standing on Brunswick Road waiting for the bus to Kenilworth. Jon was going to make dinner for me and it was freezing cold. I wore a white top with my Miss Selfridge lilac tweed skirt with the little lace hem and silver heels I'd got from Dolci's, which cost me £6 in the sale and remain to this day, my cheapest pair of shoes ever. I had a coat on but as my legs were bare, I remember it was very cold and I had to get the X17 that came once every hour. It was a terribly precise thing, catching buses in Leamington. Miss one and you're stuck out in the cold for ages.
Jon made lots of yummy food that evening but I can't remember what he made apart from the risotto that failed to cook properly even though we went out to the shop quickly to get something and it was still soaking with stock when we got back. I remember arranging for Stuart to pick up a painting I'd done for Jon's birthday that year too. 23 April 2003. I'd hid the painting in his room while he was working at The Green Man Pub and I'd put the cheese cake that I'd spent 30 minutes stirring in Stuart's room so it was safe out of sight for the surprise. (I didn't have an electric mixer and hadn't read the recipe properly before I started so it was too late by the time I'd started and gosh did I have sore arms after that!) I also remember when Jon ran upstairs to his room to get something and I couldn't think of a good excuse to stop him and he came down and pretended nothing had happened, that he hadn't seen the painting. And I remember the gentlest ever look in his sea blue eyes when I presented him with the cake I'd made. It didn't taste lemony enough (because I hadn't read the recipe properly and sort of guessed it ... I have a problem with retaining information evidently) but he still ate it all and still said it was lovely.
I remember meeting him in London, at Angel, when I was staying at Leng Tuan's place in Barnsbury Square - the flat with the Foxton's Let sign - that was during the December hols in 2002. He was in London for the Raleigh reunion and we'd arranged to meet up. He arrived pretty late though as there were problems with the transportation (as ever, London being London) and by the time we got to Misato it was past 3pm and they'd closed for lunch. So we went to Tokyo Diner instead where I found they didn't have Tempura Udon. Tempura Udon is what I always have at Japanese restaurants. A bit like Pad Thai and Confit de Canard. These are my staples. I don't always set out to order these dishes but I always end up doing so. A bit like peanut butter sandwiches and Charlie Brown.
And then there was 14 October 2005 when he rang up from Cambridge to break up.
Since then I don't remember concrete dates and details, apart from birthdays and work schedules during term time. Everything's been hazy and of late I mustered up enough courage and swallowed enough pride (I didn't want to be the psychotic ex after all) to ask him if he'd ever thought of us again and if he was going out with anyone else.
And on the 1st of August 2007 I got my answers and 6 days later I'm still crying. I sometimes think I must have gotten the whole thing kind of mixed up. One is supposed to cry one's heart out for say, between 6 days to 6 weeks after a break up. One might brood for the next 6 months or so and then one tends to generally move on, or so they say. There are other theories that suggest that one takes half the amount of time one went out with the other half to get over the break up, i.e. if you went out for 2 years, you'd be over it in approximately a year. There are, of course, exceptions to every rule and evidently I happen to fall in this latter category of exceptions. I've spent about 6 months being alternately numb and neurotic, 6 months of anger and determination, 6 months of therapy and 6 months of aimless drifting (in no particular order and no particular accuracy in duration specified) interspersed with extreme hard work applied to my career direction, extreme fantasy and extreme disappointment. All this lurching in various directions and keeping myself together has made me extremely tired and still feeling no better.
So, where do I go from here? I haven't a clue.
This reminds me of a scenario I think about sometimes, pertaining to the climactic scene in "The Little Princess" where Sara is being carried out kicking and screaming for her papa to remember her, remember Maya and India, etc. and the whole scene is dramatic and stormy, there is lightning and thunder ... what if Captain Crewe didn't remember in time? She would have been led away, arrested and thrown into the workhouses. What if he never remembered? She would have stayed in the workhouse or starved on the streets.
He doesn't feel anything anymore. He doesn't remember. All my kicking and screaming in the world would come to nothing. So I'm back to square one. I've come full circle.
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