Monday, April 09, 2007
On Youth
Every morning, I would take a train to work.
As creatures of habit involuntarily dictated by time and routine, I would always see the same group of four giggling school girls at my train station. They must be no more than seventeen. They exude the confidence of being part of a clique, gossiping and exchanging news about people, the camaraderie typical of girls from an all girls’ school.
Then there is also another Chinese schoolgirl, no more than sixteen in her short checked green school dress and little ankle socks. She would normally be at the train station with her father. A year ago, she used to tie her hair up in a ponytail. These days, she would let her hair down and tie it half way, ornated with a pink ribbon. I noticed too that she has taken a slightly more self-conscious effort towards her own appearance and her father no longer waits with her to board the train together. These days, she would “shoo” her father away and perhaps being well aware of his growing teenage daughter’s need for personal space, the father would exchange a few words of advice, hand over some pocket money and would walk onwards to the far end of the platform where they would board the train separately.
A few metres away, the Korean schoolboy and his friends would sneak glances in the way of this schoolgirl. Sometimes, this particular boy, a standout from his group no doubt, given the volume of his voice would strut past the girl like a peacock, trying to catch her attention. As girls do, she would take care not to notice his presence, flipped her hair light, blink and look away, while having plugged into the earphones of her pink i-pod.
My observations never fail to put a smile on my face or in my heart. I remember my days as a precocious teenager, me in my ugly green girls’ school pinafore, sitting on the railings of the bus stop with some of the other girls. The boys from next door or neighbouring schools would walk past and we would attempt to be cool and worldly, sometimes even having a can of jolly shandy (0.2% alcohol content) in hand. This is like the epitome of the coquetry routine within the Boy-Girl Relationships (BGR) mating ritual.
Age fifteen must be a time of flourishing Boy-Girl relationships (BGR) for many. For some, there were group outings with the neighbouring school boys. I quite remember always operating alone and encounters with boys have often been random and quite sporadic. Then there were also parties thrown at my house where boys from a prestigious boy school were invited as I quickly became acquainted with quite a number of them through an old primary school classmate that I was very fond of for two years between the age of 10 and 12.
Romance in my youth has always been somewhat hapless- me always being played out, like the boyfriend leaves for another girl and often ex-girlfriends or something along the lines. Or the worst incident, boyfriend and his girlfriend (hitherto unknown to me that the “cousin” turns out to be the girlfriend) have both sprung a surprise on me and that fuck ugly bastard got the girl to tell me that it was over between him and me. What a way to experience a first in being “in a relationship” at age thirteen when one is all young and innocent with a zillion romantic view of the world, me pining, thinking of him in bed (then sex or heavy petting wasn’t even on the fantasizing menu yet) with the moonlight shining through my window and onto my dreamy face while I re-enacted the scene where that bastard first held my hand in the dark at the cinema (we watched “Death becomes Her”) while my then best friend Bella sat on my right.
Shortly, I left for holidays in Malaysia and used up all my coins to ring him on his mobile from a public phone, my very first long distance call. Then there was also the time that bastard took a cab after his sports practice all the way to sneak a rendezvous with me during my break at dance camp. We were in a quiet stairway and he put his hand around my waist and I jumped at his touch, my heart raising a million miles per hour. But two weeks after, it was over. Finito! Well, not quite because how was I to know years later that the two evil accomplices were to re-appear in my life separately and continued to haunt or taunt me and the girl, too tried her hands at breaking me up with my then boyfriend. I would imagine that people would move on, even with their victims….
Then there was Elvis- the boy whom I gave my first kiss to. I was fifteen. It was truly beautiful to have happened at the far end of the breakwater at the East Coast Beach near Ford Road (a frequent hangout for gays) on a Friday evening where we cycled from our houses. Except that when it did happened, I didn’t quite anticipate it as a still very innocent schoolgirl and I was hoping to take it real slow. I meant to kiss him lightly on his lips and he stuck his tongue in. I was too shocked, my eyes wide open and he kind off ruined it with his words “You should close your eyes,” which as a very inexperienced and thus self-conscious girl (since Elvis had long before lost his virginity to a girl who looked like my best friend V), I complied and did as I was told.
Elvis has always been showy with money. He would woo me with gifts or a good dinner at Tony Roma (bearing in mind I was fifteen and he was sixteen), often bringing $200 in his wallet to take me out each outing. He would pay for my girlfriends and me. He was an Ah Beng who plays the piano and came from an English speaking home. It was the year where I first got into big trouble with the parents and would sometimes come home way past the stipulated time for my youth (alas, what unknown danger I was treading on in those days!). Coming home at 1 a.m (think it was the night he was probably hoping to de-flower me before his O-levels the next day) was the final straw for my parents and I was so grounded and was given strict orders to come home within a reasonable timeframe after tuition class (while another boy waited at the sidelines, visiting me while I had lunch at a nearby coffee shop before tuition hoping to take me to the movies).
Elvis was ever so crass, always needing to let me know how much he had spent on me. I quite remember the time he bought me a gold plated necklace with my name. It was rather popular in those days if you readers who happened to be in your high school teens in the early-mid nineties would remember that these necklaces would sell at Kalms’ for about SGD$16.95 a piece. Elvis, in his ever so boastful manner would emphasize that he paid SGD$48 for it. Again, as one who is old fashioned enough to feel embarrassed for a person’s faux pas (though the crime was committed on me), I let him off, taking care not to dampen his ego. Ironically, the day I wore the chain out on our date, it suddenly broke into half around my neck while we were on the MRT as if it was a sign of our precarious relationship.
The week I left for China for six days, he has got himself a new girl. Of all people, a junior from my school. He went to a party where he had proposed to borrow my funky Storm of London punk rock bag. Coincidently two years after, I met the acquaintance of Harry (whose then girlfriend, Adel is still my very good friend) and for some reason, we were talking and they mentioned they were at this particular party and re-enacted what they recalled of that party and confirmed seeing two people (namely Elvis and Felicity) snogging on the couch on that fateful night. See, no stones have ever been left unturned in my life. I often get the full story, albeit later.
Fast forward to age seventeen and there begin a turning point in my life. I met a boy, Mr. London (which will take me years to go on talking about that significant part of my life as many close friends would attest, which has since have a spill-over effect to my current life and beyond) and was to like him for the next eight years or so. If ever any story could so aptly summed up how I felt for this boy, one needs to go read “Great Expectations” by Charles Dickens. I was obsessed like Pip for Estella and he filled my every waking moment and my mind and we have so many coincidences in the events of our personal lives. We were even born on the same day we found out. It was the day where I skipped school and was thinking so hard of him and his horoscope. I headed for the Far East Plaza in the afternoon before my private tuition class having a gut feeling I might meet someone, he was the first boy that I bumped into. My heart was pumping ever so wildly and then later when we shared a cab to our destinations, I asked for his birthday and realised that we were indeed born on the same day!
I thought I could never get over him for the rest of my life until Mr. London came to visit me in Paris. We were in the most romantic city in the world and have walked along the Champs Elysee for two consecutive nights and it sparked no magic- and half the world over and years on as we have progressed from our teens to being one quarter of a century old. As we sojourned to the Cabaret Club with my close male buddy Gof (who also came to visit and to give me emotional support), I knew that this was it. As Mr. London and us parted, I knew I had to kiss the past behind. I was already twenty five then and it’s been a long time. I have to let go, I told myself. In our semi-tipsy states, I had Gof in my arm and broke down as we walked along the Seine River knowing that this was it and that it was time to really let go. It was further re-affirmed when Gof and I later made that special trip to London to visit Mr. L and all Gof could ever proffer in advice and comfort after was, “Let him go.”
****
A few weeks ago when I was at Lan Kwai Foong, drinking cocktails with my other best friend, B and marvelling about our eleventh year friendship, her making a special trip to Hong Kong to spend time with me, we started talking about our youth. That starry-eyed romantic part of our girlish selves many, many moons ago- all the boys and guys that we have been with or fell so hard for and the silly things we did for them.
Then we were on the topic of lost innocence.
B mentioned about that “in love” innocent spark she quite recalled in my eyes whenever I met up with Mr. London. How he lit up my entire being and I looked like I was floating towards him. I conceded to her that indeed I did felt like I was floating, never felt like that for anyone again after that boy.
“Yeah, the feeling was so pure back then,” was all she ever said.
****
During my first trip back home this year, V and I were too reminiscing as we sat by the front porch of my house. We were on the topic of youth, fashion mistakes, bad hairdos, self-esteem/ confidence and re-calling gossips of old classmates in our high school days. V admitted she was always self-conscious and put on the bravado of worldliness with her cynicism.
“Was I ever a nerd like how some of you felt then?” I asked her.
“Far from one. I know you were someone different when I first saw you.”
Guess it helped when one has more pocket money to spend and a generous mother to preen oneself. I always looked with the times.
And always the first to get acquainted with the boys, kiss and tell to the girls about the wonderful world of snogging and all things naughty in precocious teenage heavy petting taken place in dark public spots. I was quite the pioneer amongst my immediate clique of friends.
Ironically though, I was the last to lose my first time amongst my friends and it only happened after many years later. I guarded it ever so fiercely.
When it did happen, I knew that it was the right decision. It felt right and I never looked back.
****
Some days, I still feel a tad like the school girls- still rather child-like and a tad innocent at times (and perhaps the reason why I get into some hapless random carnal involvement with some of the guys).
I almost feel that it was not too long ago where I donned a similar uniform, having a similar demeanour and bravado, basking in youth and a sense of streetsmart-ness and cynicism typical of a rebellious and precocious teenage. Me, not knowing where the dangers and traps lie and like a bold and reckless warrior, I learnt about the ways of the world through charging on fearlessly as my life journey took me on with countless adventures and misadventures where I have fallen and suffered a few bruises or even scars here and there for me to gain some enlightenment on some of Life’s lessons.
Strangely, after all these years, I kind of feel that my life did stopped at twenty, pre-Australia era. Or rather, my mind/ mentality or soul is somewhat trapped at that age. It’s akin to me holding a mirror to see the reflection of my soul and describe it. I would instinctively say I am around eighteen.
In reality, I think I can pass off as being age twenty-four or slightly younger, depending on the dressing, of course.
And when I snapped out of my day dreaming, it would then dawned on me in the utmost reality (as measured by the passing of time) that those uniformed days and sitting on the bus stop railings and all that innocent BGR days, losing that first kiss away, even hoping for that kiss with Mr. London before I die were days of yon and I have since been thirteen years older.
(Recently, I have just turned a year older and heading well into my late twenties. Yet again, a timed reminder of ageing.)
But have I since grown any wiser?
Every morning, I would take a train to work.
As creatures of habit involuntarily dictated by time and routine, I would always see the same group of four giggling school girls at my train station. They must be no more than seventeen. They exude the confidence of being part of a clique, gossiping and exchanging news about people, the camaraderie typical of girls from an all girls’ school.
Then there is also another Chinese schoolgirl, no more than sixteen in her short checked green school dress and little ankle socks. She would normally be at the train station with her father. A year ago, she used to tie her hair up in a ponytail. These days, she would let her hair down and tie it half way, ornated with a pink ribbon. I noticed too that she has taken a slightly more self-conscious effort towards her own appearance and her father no longer waits with her to board the train together. These days, she would “shoo” her father away and perhaps being well aware of his growing teenage daughter’s need for personal space, the father would exchange a few words of advice, hand over some pocket money and would walk onwards to the far end of the platform where they would board the train separately.
A few metres away, the Korean schoolboy and his friends would sneak glances in the way of this schoolgirl. Sometimes, this particular boy, a standout from his group no doubt, given the volume of his voice would strut past the girl like a peacock, trying to catch her attention. As girls do, she would take care not to notice his presence, flipped her hair light, blink and look away, while having plugged into the earphones of her pink i-pod.
My observations never fail to put a smile on my face or in my heart. I remember my days as a precocious teenager, me in my ugly green girls’ school pinafore, sitting on the railings of the bus stop with some of the other girls. The boys from next door or neighbouring schools would walk past and we would attempt to be cool and worldly, sometimes even having a can of jolly shandy (0.2% alcohol content) in hand. This is like the epitome of the coquetry routine within the Boy-Girl Relationships (BGR) mating ritual.
Age fifteen must be a time of flourishing Boy-Girl relationships (BGR) for many. For some, there were group outings with the neighbouring school boys. I quite remember always operating alone and encounters with boys have often been random and quite sporadic. Then there were also parties thrown at my house where boys from a prestigious boy school were invited as I quickly became acquainted with quite a number of them through an old primary school classmate that I was very fond of for two years between the age of 10 and 12.
Romance in my youth has always been somewhat hapless- me always being played out, like the boyfriend leaves for another girl and often ex-girlfriends or something along the lines. Or the worst incident, boyfriend and his girlfriend (hitherto unknown to me that the “cousin” turns out to be the girlfriend) have both sprung a surprise on me and that fuck ugly bastard got the girl to tell me that it was over between him and me. What a way to experience a first in being “in a relationship” at age thirteen when one is all young and innocent with a zillion romantic view of the world, me pining, thinking of him in bed (then sex or heavy petting wasn’t even on the fantasizing menu yet) with the moonlight shining through my window and onto my dreamy face while I re-enacted the scene where that bastard first held my hand in the dark at the cinema (we watched “Death becomes Her”) while my then best friend Bella sat on my right.
Shortly, I left for holidays in Malaysia and used up all my coins to ring him on his mobile from a public phone, my very first long distance call. Then there was also the time that bastard took a cab after his sports practice all the way to sneak a rendezvous with me during my break at dance camp. We were in a quiet stairway and he put his hand around my waist and I jumped at his touch, my heart raising a million miles per hour. But two weeks after, it was over. Finito! Well, not quite because how was I to know years later that the two evil accomplices were to re-appear in my life separately and continued to haunt or taunt me and the girl, too tried her hands at breaking me up with my then boyfriend. I would imagine that people would move on, even with their victims….
Then there was Elvis- the boy whom I gave my first kiss to. I was fifteen. It was truly beautiful to have happened at the far end of the breakwater at the East Coast Beach near Ford Road (a frequent hangout for gays) on a Friday evening where we cycled from our houses. Except that when it did happened, I didn’t quite anticipate it as a still very innocent schoolgirl and I was hoping to take it real slow. I meant to kiss him lightly on his lips and he stuck his tongue in. I was too shocked, my eyes wide open and he kind off ruined it with his words “You should close your eyes,” which as a very inexperienced and thus self-conscious girl (since Elvis had long before lost his virginity to a girl who looked like my best friend V), I complied and did as I was told.
Elvis has always been showy with money. He would woo me with gifts or a good dinner at Tony Roma (bearing in mind I was fifteen and he was sixteen), often bringing $200 in his wallet to take me out each outing. He would pay for my girlfriends and me. He was an Ah Beng who plays the piano and came from an English speaking home. It was the year where I first got into big trouble with the parents and would sometimes come home way past the stipulated time for my youth (alas, what unknown danger I was treading on in those days!). Coming home at 1 a.m (think it was the night he was probably hoping to de-flower me before his O-levels the next day) was the final straw for my parents and I was so grounded and was given strict orders to come home within a reasonable timeframe after tuition class (while another boy waited at the sidelines, visiting me while I had lunch at a nearby coffee shop before tuition hoping to take me to the movies).
Elvis was ever so crass, always needing to let me know how much he had spent on me. I quite remember the time he bought me a gold plated necklace with my name. It was rather popular in those days if you readers who happened to be in your high school teens in the early-mid nineties would remember that these necklaces would sell at Kalms’ for about SGD$16.95 a piece. Elvis, in his ever so boastful manner would emphasize that he paid SGD$48 for it. Again, as one who is old fashioned enough to feel embarrassed for a person’s faux pas (though the crime was committed on me), I let him off, taking care not to dampen his ego. Ironically, the day I wore the chain out on our date, it suddenly broke into half around my neck while we were on the MRT as if it was a sign of our precarious relationship.
The week I left for China for six days, he has got himself a new girl. Of all people, a junior from my school. He went to a party where he had proposed to borrow my funky Storm of London punk rock bag. Coincidently two years after, I met the acquaintance of Harry (whose then girlfriend, Adel is still my very good friend) and for some reason, we were talking and they mentioned they were at this particular party and re-enacted what they recalled of that party and confirmed seeing two people (namely Elvis and Felicity) snogging on the couch on that fateful night. See, no stones have ever been left unturned in my life. I often get the full story, albeit later.
Fast forward to age seventeen and there begin a turning point in my life. I met a boy, Mr. London (which will take me years to go on talking about that significant part of my life as many close friends would attest, which has since have a spill-over effect to my current life and beyond) and was to like him for the next eight years or so. If ever any story could so aptly summed up how I felt for this boy, one needs to go read “Great Expectations” by Charles Dickens. I was obsessed like Pip for Estella and he filled my every waking moment and my mind and we have so many coincidences in the events of our personal lives. We were even born on the same day we found out. It was the day where I skipped school and was thinking so hard of him and his horoscope. I headed for the Far East Plaza in the afternoon before my private tuition class having a gut feeling I might meet someone, he was the first boy that I bumped into. My heart was pumping ever so wildly and then later when we shared a cab to our destinations, I asked for his birthday and realised that we were indeed born on the same day!
I thought I could never get over him for the rest of my life until Mr. London came to visit me in Paris. We were in the most romantic city in the world and have walked along the Champs Elysee for two consecutive nights and it sparked no magic- and half the world over and years on as we have progressed from our teens to being one quarter of a century old. As we sojourned to the Cabaret Club with my close male buddy Gof (who also came to visit and to give me emotional support), I knew that this was it. As Mr. London and us parted, I knew I had to kiss the past behind. I was already twenty five then and it’s been a long time. I have to let go, I told myself. In our semi-tipsy states, I had Gof in my arm and broke down as we walked along the Seine River knowing that this was it and that it was time to really let go. It was further re-affirmed when Gof and I later made that special trip to London to visit Mr. L and all Gof could ever proffer in advice and comfort after was, “Let him go.”
****
A few weeks ago when I was at Lan Kwai Foong, drinking cocktails with my other best friend, B and marvelling about our eleventh year friendship, her making a special trip to Hong Kong to spend time with me, we started talking about our youth. That starry-eyed romantic part of our girlish selves many, many moons ago- all the boys and guys that we have been with or fell so hard for and the silly things we did for them.
Then we were on the topic of lost innocence.
B mentioned about that “in love” innocent spark she quite recalled in my eyes whenever I met up with Mr. London. How he lit up my entire being and I looked like I was floating towards him. I conceded to her that indeed I did felt like I was floating, never felt like that for anyone again after that boy.
“Yeah, the feeling was so pure back then,” was all she ever said.
****
During my first trip back home this year, V and I were too reminiscing as we sat by the front porch of my house. We were on the topic of youth, fashion mistakes, bad hairdos, self-esteem/ confidence and re-calling gossips of old classmates in our high school days. V admitted she was always self-conscious and put on the bravado of worldliness with her cynicism.
“Was I ever a nerd like how some of you felt then?” I asked her.
“Far from one. I know you were someone different when I first saw you.”
Guess it helped when one has more pocket money to spend and a generous mother to preen oneself. I always looked with the times.
And always the first to get acquainted with the boys, kiss and tell to the girls about the wonderful world of snogging and all things naughty in precocious teenage heavy petting taken place in dark public spots. I was quite the pioneer amongst my immediate clique of friends.
Ironically though, I was the last to lose my first time amongst my friends and it only happened after many years later. I guarded it ever so fiercely.
When it did happen, I knew that it was the right decision. It felt right and I never looked back.
****
Some days, I still feel a tad like the school girls- still rather child-like and a tad innocent at times (and perhaps the reason why I get into some hapless random carnal involvement with some of the guys).
I almost feel that it was not too long ago where I donned a similar uniform, having a similar demeanour and bravado, basking in youth and a sense of streetsmart-ness and cynicism typical of a rebellious and precocious teenage. Me, not knowing where the dangers and traps lie and like a bold and reckless warrior, I learnt about the ways of the world through charging on fearlessly as my life journey took me on with countless adventures and misadventures where I have fallen and suffered a few bruises or even scars here and there for me to gain some enlightenment on some of Life’s lessons.
Strangely, after all these years, I kind of feel that my life did stopped at twenty, pre-Australia era. Or rather, my mind/ mentality or soul is somewhat trapped at that age. It’s akin to me holding a mirror to see the reflection of my soul and describe it. I would instinctively say I am around eighteen.
In reality, I think I can pass off as being age twenty-four or slightly younger, depending on the dressing, of course.
And when I snapped out of my day dreaming, it would then dawned on me in the utmost reality (as measured by the passing of time) that those uniformed days and sitting on the bus stop railings and all that innocent BGR days, losing that first kiss away, even hoping for that kiss with Mr. London before I die were days of yon and I have since been thirteen years older.
(Recently, I have just turned a year older and heading well into my late twenties. Yet again, a timed reminder of ageing.)
But have I since grown any wiser?
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Thanks Sicko- but you've known me for a while, haven't you?
Albeit not as intimately as you hoped to initially...;)
Albeit not as intimately as you hoped to initially...;)
I feel like home is a light year and a half away, even though a Causeway stands between us. Ah...when we were young, Life was brilliant and the World an eggshell.
I did the same retrospective as you recently, and I'm glad we were together those formative years. We don't just grow up, P, we grow heavier... from all the burdens of our words and deeds. Can't go back, can't forget, I guess the best way is to stand on the train platform each day: get on the train, don't fall off and don't look back.
V
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I did the same retrospective as you recently, and I'm glad we were together those formative years. We don't just grow up, P, we grow heavier... from all the burdens of our words and deeds. Can't go back, can't forget, I guess the best way is to stand on the train platform each day: get on the train, don't fall off and don't look back.
V
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