past

I have been reflecting on the past recently. It has been weaving itself, constantly, through my flow of thought. Almost to the point where I feel like I'm at that moment just before I'm about to die and I'm re-living everything.

I was talking to Lambie and Vanni last night on skype. I kept thinking back to all the days we spent together. The planned and the unplanned. The chinese classes I had with Lamb and how in every single lesson our laoshi (teacher) asked him "have you done your gongke? (homework)" and he'd wear this face of shame as he answered, "no..."

My high school days at the European school seem to all be in this period of time where I grew a lot - in that I learnt more about myself and I learnt to love myself more.

I remember spending so many days in the art room. The thursday nights we spent slaving over canvases, but enjoying it so much. Eating pizza with each other and getting constantly criticized Mr. Hill. I think in a way that room a safe place for me. I think Mr. Hill was the first adult figure that told me I was different, who said they believed in me and who I felt truly meant it. I remember the moment so clearly. I had to tell him, "... I just need to get something out of the other room." and I just ran to the other side of the art room and began crying my eyes out.

I remember when we had final exams and there was an art curator who came to look at our pieces. We had a one on one talk with her. She told me, "You're paintings all have pathways. They all have doors. You haven't gone through the doors yet, in the future you will find the right one." She was some crazy psychic I think. She made a statement about one of my friend's family life and my friend said that she was spot on. Made me wonder how much my art said about my life.

The final night of the graduation trips will always be one of my favourite nights. It wasn't an exciting night. It was just peaceful. A few of us walked along the beach until the sun rose. I remember it being cold. I remember looking out into the darkness of the ocean and feeling nothing and everything at the same time. I remember Judy didn't come along because she was scared of looking out at the ocean at night. She said it was too vast and made her feel so small... but I really loved to look at the ocean and feel small. I remember for a while we lay on the road. It was early in the morning and there were no cars. I always love to lie on roads. I haven't done that in so long.

Also one of my favourite accumulation of moments was when I took a taxi back home with Ann. We did that quite often for some reason cus we lived pretty close to each other and we were too lazy to catch the train/it was too late to catch the train. Ann always tells it to me straight. When I first befriended her it felt almost as if she was stabbing me in the face every time she spoke to me because she was just so blunt about things. I grew to really appreciate that quality. We would sleepily talk about the things that had been happening in our lives. We did this over a period of 2 years and it was funny because we reflected our past taxi conversations. I would say to her, "two months ago you said Christian was childish and silly and now you like him HEHEHEHE." It seemed to us that our life would go in cycles. We'd talk about the same thing each time we got into the taxi.

I love a lot of things from that time. Even though things were bad for about half a year or more, I think I left it thinking "well at least I experienced that."

The class trip to Cambodia. Singing songs with Sarah as we walked under the heat of the sun. Sharing ipods and taking silly photos with our cameras. Falling asleep soundly at night and waking up and saying to each other, "wow that's amazing we slept so well!!!" The last night of the trip when the boys came and insisted on staying. Staying up so late that night that I became a "grumpy" sleepy person and collapsing on my bed only to be woken up by Vanni 2 hours later asking if he could sleep on my bed cus Sarah's bed was too full of humans. I think my reply was, "mmmeeeeuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg g. zzzzzzz"

I spent a lot of time with Vanni out of school. I never really even considered that he liked me then. I think I was (and continue to be) very vague when it comes to that subject. I am glad that I was vague though. I truly loved the days I spent with him, even though to me they were completely plutonic. I remember one time we went to the beach really spontaneously. Just packed our swimmers and took a long train ride and a bus ride there. We were eating chips on the bus and all the people were looking at us and then we realised we weren't meant to eat on the bus. When we left we had to wait an hour for the last bus. I was so afraid we'd be stuck in the middle of nowhere.

And then there was Sam. It's kind of nice how I only really remember the good times... If I really think hard I can remember the sad things but I don't really want to. They were significant though.

Oh man didn't even mean to write this much.

Sometimes I think my past was so much better than my present. I used to get lost in memories. I wanted to just sleep because I missed all the moments and the comfort.

But I know there is much more out there to feel. There is much more to experience. So no matter how shitty shit shit things seem to be, they will get better.