Time is a river…
I just came back from a wedding in Singapore. In total I was there for 24 hours, some of which I spent having lunch with an old friend I hadn’t seen in 7 years (she has two kids with a third on the way, and the last time we met we were traveling carefree through Japanese hotsprings); attending the wedding itself (which was of my project boss at HSBC oh 6 years ago, to a girl who had come into our office to teach us how to use Thomson Financial); and scrounging in my old apartment in Singapore for some missing Hekiru CDs, cloth strips for boxing, and my two foot tall RX-178 MKII Gundam model, all of which I failed to find.
Standing in my old room where I had spent over two years, good times and bad, I looked at the stuff I had accumulated over 10 or so years of existence. Some from my days in Michigan, a hell of a lot from Japan after that, and the rest during my tenure at HSBC in Singapore. I had a ton of magazine cuttings and posters and assorted Hekiru stuff, but I also had hundreds of CDs, old photos, a long outdated desktop, nostalgic books, and clothes I will never wear again.
Failing to find the stuff I was looking for, and feeling quite down especially about the lack of Gundam, I picked up a few good books, stuffed them into my backpack, took one lingering look at the life I used to have, now sporting several holes in the shelves and drawers where I have been removing bits and piece every now and then, before stepping back out of the apartment and locking the door. I mentally noted that I should one day drive a truck down, stuff everything in, and haul it all back up to KL or Penang.
I had forgotten I owned the Utena LDs. I toyed with the idea of bringing a few more CD cases back. I missed my massive bookcase. I felt guilty about not really wanting to deal with my Hekiru posters anymore.
And somewhere I mourned that these 10 years of my life are now little more than old and faded things that only I know of. My friends from Michigan are long gone, my Hekiru friends are mostly estranged, my work colleagues from Singapore I’d probably not see again until Clare Koh gets married. I have my friends in Japan, but the ones from the DreamArts days are also far behind.
Time is a river, and happiness and sorrow are fleeting, and sometimes, you find yourself standing in a dusty room holding a battered old book and feeling a little sorry that you don’t know where the rest of the series is.
Music: M01 from Kara no Kyoukai Chapter 1 Soundtrack by Kajiura Yuki
