The Pursuit of Capital Letters

I want long road trips in a rickety, bashed-up chunk of moving metal. I want to be surrounded by golden meadows and silvery brooks that go on for miles and miles. I want to follow the white arrow that points and stretches far ahead into the unknown, unknown lands filled with intrigue and oily hamburgers and neon signboard motels. I want to listen to songs over and over again with that other thirds or fourths who make me whole until we can head-bang to every odd beat and croon along lovingly in gruesome falsettos. I want to be stranded in heavy thunderstorms with them and worry about how we may never survive it, but awake to a rainbow shooting out from the middle of cornfields. I want adventures by driving into the dirtpaths and making a U-turn after an hour, because there are reasons why certain dirtpaths remain only dirtpaths. I want stories to tell for a lifetime, like the beer-guzzling competition that led us to be thrown out, because alcohol awakes so-and-so's superhuman strength and violently unpredictable mood-swings. I want the stuff of Hollywood coming-of-age movies, with the misunderstandings and the solutions and the new-found respect for each other's lifestyle and background and hope-burning-bright-as-we-look-distantly-into-the-horizon. I want LEGEN-wait for it-DARY!s and True Stories about how AWESOME things were and lickings of the Liberty Bell. But what I want most is to not want so many wants. It is unhealthy, it is unproductive, it is useless. I really did want to post about Away We Go, Precious and After Shock and how university life has been, but with a darned twitching under a right eye and a lecture in five hours, another day would be best, hehe.

No matter how much you struggle, there will always be people entering and exiting your life. They are fleeting; they are temporal; they are the ghosts in the attic. You are one yourself, and there is nothing you can do about it. That is the reason why I started getting used to eating alone, shopping alone, watching movies alone, attending concerts alone, doing things alone. Because in the limited number of years you have on this planet, you are the only constant in your life. Why get yourself so involved when the ties between people can be broken so easily? Easy come easy go, pull yourself away when things get too sticky for comfort, roll with the punches and dust off the dirt from your shoulders, no man is an island but hey, why do people splash out so much just to own one?, being alone does not equate to loneliness; these disparate and disjointed sentences are like mini-pumps, puffing up my sense of self-importance. And it all seems justified and reflective of the uncaring and uncouth world out there...

... until I heard Lucky by Kat Edmonsen. The simple chords, the angelic voice, the carefree whistling, the crayon-and-glitter stick illustrations. Oh, the song reminded me of how fun it is to say "whaaazaapp!!?" in escalating volumes on the escalator just to make the man in jewelry store turn around. How funny it is to parrot "Can I? Can I?" with crazy-eyes in a Darell-pronounced-as-DERAIL tones with a chaotah dragon. How normal it is to stare at the crazy bunch (or the crazies) and guffaw at absolutely nothing. How embarrassing it is to crumple to the ground after two hours of street soccer because of bad calve cramps and having the rest huddled around, concerned but tickled. How delightful it is to catch up with a good friend over good food and good dessert. :) How natural it is to make fun of the raucuous table next to ours while making a racket ourselves about sausages, beer and potatoes. How comfortable it is to listen to and sing to sad songs while maintaining a big grin on our faces. How hilarious it is to laugh at each other's bad pronounciation and predictable actions. How heartening it is to have someone say you are funny and that you are nice to talk to. How amusing it is to text someone something absurd and branch into random funny banter after that. It is impossible to have friends with you every step of the way. But for every step that they keep abreast with you, it feels like walking on cotton candy and rainbows. And sometimes, that is enough.

The fourth of July was Independence Day in USA, as well as the day my good friend flew off to further her studies in Australia, which was also an Independence Day of sorts haha. While preparing her farewell gift, I was looking through my pictures, all the way from 2005 to the present. And whoa, did we have many memories together. Seven years of solid friendship: from the days when we were awkward adolescents in revealing sky blue, to the times when we were awkward teenagers in drab, fireproof and waterproof grey, to the recent months when we were awkward young adults in whatever permutations of colours and patterns we could fathom. We have both grown up and learnt so much, but I'm glad that the nexus between the both of us has not changed. So dear dear friend, please give Australia a chance. Don't be too afraid, don't be too homesick, because the best years are ahead of you and you have the best people behind you. (ME! ME! ME! HAHA) You are going to be bloody awesome. :)