It's beautiful beach weather today - and I'm back earlier than I thought I would be as Zhiying didn't go for her interview in the end, having overslept and so she'd only just woken up when I rang her at 3pm, just as LT was going to head to Dhoby Ghaut and then to the office for a meeting. So I came home instead of meeting up with Zhiying. LT's supposed to be having a day off but then work's quite hard-going as she's doing broadcast journalism and it's a more complicated and time-consuming than simply writing for the paper.
I had a nice chat over a long-ish lunch with LT at the food court. Big news - she's getting married next December! How wonderful. I'm really happy that she and JY made it through and I think YX and ZT are going to pull through their long distance relationship too though apparently they had some hiccups along the way. It's lovely that college sweethearts get married in the end. That's a great start as they have memories to share and build upon as they mature in their relationship. It will be the first wedding I'll be able to attend since I missed Charisse's wedding to Charlie last year when I was in Singapore while she was getting married in the UK and then I missed Shiying's wedding to Will this June when I was in the UK and the wedding was held in Singapore. It's quite exciting and I am going to make LT her wedding shoes too. How absolutely lovely to be able to get involved - I was quite excited about that over lunch. JY proposed last year and now they've even bought a flat already ... one's very own place.
Amidst the excitement and reminiscing about school days, LT said that school/uni days were much better than working the 12-14 hour days that she does now. It used to be a lot more carefree but now work is her life - such is the asian work ethic! I guess as long as you enjoy what you are doing, it makes it much easier to accept. Also as everyone gets married and gets busier with work, I'll be glad if I have a good job. Work will banish the emptiness and loneliness or at least tire me out so that I wouldn't brood about it so much. LT says that one never knows what can happen in the future with regard to relationships and I held back saying any more than the admission that I'm probably making it a self-fulfilling prophecy by not wishing to get involved. Yes perhaps I am not trying hard enough. Yet again, I don't want to be looking for someone as a means of escape. And thinking about relationships just makes me think about jon, how that came about and how much that meant to me, and still means to me ... but I didn't want to say what I meant because I guess I felt a little stupid to actually say, well I can't get over him and no one compares not only because of him as a person but the times we shared together, the memories we had, the experiences we went through. We feel because we are alive.
I watched "Paris, Je T'aime" on the plane and here is an extract from the final segment by Alexander Payne, "14th Arrondissement" which is probably my favourite ...
"Sometimes I think it would be nice to have someone with whom to share this life. For example, when I was looking down on Paris from atop a skyscraper, I wanted to say to someone, "It's beautiful isn't it?". But there isn't anyone. I thought about my ex-boyfriend, Dave, and whether he'd like this trip. But I felt a little stupid, because it had been 11 years since we last talked. He's now married and has three children.
And I found a very pretty little park. I sat down on a bench and ate the sandwich I had bought. It was very tasty. And then something happened, something that is hard to describe. Sitting there, alone in a foreign country, far from my job, and all the people I knew, a feeling came over me. As if I recalled something, something that I had never known and for which I had been waiting. But I didn't know what it was. Maybe it was something I had forgotten. Or something I had missed my whole life. I can only tell you that at the same time I felt joy and sadness. But not a great sadness. Because I felt alive. Yes. Alive.
That was the moment when I fell in love with Paris. And the moment when I felt that Paris had fallen in love with me. "
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