so, here we are into the 2nd week of 2010. still trying to stay afloat mondays to fridays. where did the time go? how did we keep going growing going growing so fast. feeling a little pensive as always, 2010 doesn't seem any different, feels like an overspill of 2009, 2008, 2007, 1996, 1998, 2001, really holly.
sometime this week, i went to see cat power live in esplanade. and i think i will never ever forget how magical it was that hot humid wednesday night. how can i explain it all? to see chan on stage, in this life time. i didn't think i'd ever get to do that, really. now when i think about the whole experience, to see her walking out onto the stage, her awkward antics, little sways, big smiles, it genuinely moves me beyond words. so, how can i explain it all? when i was 17, a big part of my life was in a mess. i had just came back to singapore from boston, feeling like my whole life was a big injustice. my father's business was failing and could no longer support my overseas education and i had to leave the new life i was getting accustomed to, back to the grind, back to a life i was ever so ready to leave. so i stayed home or escaped to various malls and parks most days even when i had school, staring at the walls, watching people whisking past purposefully while listening to the soft sounds of chan- whom i discovered oceans away.
and i kept going and growing . through the heartbreaks, the struggles, the ups and the downs, the days and the nights. still listening to chan. still feeling the void and wanting to quit it all. it did get better though, this funny thing that's life. and i stopped turning to chan, slowly. from time to time, it felt like a betrayal but.. whenever i miss, i know i can blow off the dust and put the cd on and everything that didn't feel right won't be fine but, it just magically didn't matter anymore.and some days this life, it still feels hard. to embrace this happiness. i don't know if i'm innately mellow, innately sad or just innately incapable to allow myself to truly be happy. but i think i'm fine with this now, really i am, comfortable in this skin. feeling happy and humming the tune of colors and the kids. thinking of days ahead and yet always remaining mesmerized with the misty fog of the faraway places.
and on wednesday night, seeing chan marshall, even when she's not singing those songs that'd accompanied me through my mostly alone and solititude-full days, is and always will be a triumphant moment of my underachieving life.
so yes, i really still can't explain it all.
