If you're looking for a review for food, travel, item, movie or event then maybe you should be warned that this isn't one. In fact, this is probably one of the most unsure posts I've ever written in my life. Truth is before hitting the publish button, I must admit that it has been sitting in my draft box for the longest of times. It wasn't because I was afraid and neither was it because I can't handle the backlash but mostly because I want to believe on how time will erase things off. And today I decided that it's almost the end of 2013, why not just...go on with it? New year, new life, right?

Let me start in a better way to explain what this is all about. About 2 and a half years ago, I started college. I enrolled myself into a Diploma in Mass Communications course in IACT College not just because it was one of the more "renowned" colleges for courses like these but much more on the fact that it was affordable. And they didn't make me sit in classes to study like 24/7 although half the time I'm complaining about having to do that.

I met friends - some that stuck and some that didn't. One particularly stood out - and he is needless to say; Wai Kin. It wasn't like people explained how love would have felt. I didn't get sparks, I didn't get rainbows and I sure as hell didn't feel "fuzzy inside". In fact, I hated him down to the core. That smelly guy with a black jacket who didn't talk during orientation and ran out as soon as we got a break for a cigarette. I was 19 and I had a standard of "5 rules to have before I would date you" kind of thing. Again, I was 19.

Two months went by and I realized that he wasn't just a smelly, cigarette freak and I began to feel "warmer inside". By that time, I had already began to see certain things in certain people - things I have never seen back in high school. I realized this was the difference that my mother would always babble about when I was driving. People are different wherever you go. It was later on when I fell sick did Wai Kin feel like the "right one" with the amount of care he poured me. "Drink more water," he said. "Take your medicine," he reminded. It sounds like a story book, but this is the real deal. It was also when he stayed up from 5 A.M. till about 10-ish when I traveled with my family back to Penang that I began to feel for this weird looking person. Top it off with his persistent grovels to get Skype so we could video call and I was fairly smitten.

Then he asked me out to lunch on Valentines Day. I was a klutz, I toppled a glass of iced lemon tea AND broke the glass at Frontera only to get him laughing at me. But he didn't ask for anything and I assumed for it to be a casual lunch. Nothing great. Until 3 days later when I needed a ride from him to get to Amcorp Mall. And that was when we got together. In fact, he never even asked. He simply took my hand and smiled at me; probably hoping I wouldn't slap him for touching me. I smiled back - not sure if out of love or that I was sitting in his car trying to get back to my mum's shop back then in Amcorp Mall. But we were a couple and that mattered. I wouldn't forget, it's the same day as my dad's birthday...which makes remembering our anniversary that much easier.

I remember when we hid from my parents because they would have killed me for getting a boyfriend in college and also because I once had something with a boy from National Service called Daniel and my mum wasn't very happy about it. Either way, it wasn't a good idea for my parents to know. We did however open up about 4 months later and my parents were okay with it. That or they just figured I'm already in a relationship and there's no point in breaking us up now. I'm in college, I'm grown up and I should know better. That aside, I'm also young (although seriously clashing with the grown up point) and rash so if they broke us up now, we'd find a way to get back together; secretly.

Time passed quick and as everyone says, the first 2 years of every relationship is nothing but the tip of the iceberg. As you go on, you tend to know more of your other half. You understand their habits - the good and the bad. You learn about their lifestyles, you hear of their past and you talk about the future. It's normal, it's a cycle. And that's when everything crumbles. People take in the good and throw away the bad. We expect change in lifestyles, we ignore the past and we demand a different pathway to the future. We work things out but we find our differences anyway. So you leave.

I remember the first week of the break up when I felt empty inside. It wasn't a real fight between us; just a meltdown of how I could no longer take what he kept pushing onto me. I stood up and left only to find myself being sad. The second week felt easier but I still missed the calls and texts. And the weeks just went on. No kisses, no hugs and no touches. The sorrow and stress of assignments were stacked on me. The joy and relief of them were on me too. I didn't share them; I couldn't share them. But it taught me to be much stronger and to be much more independent. I realized the things I never did when I was with him but I also thought of the things I did when I was. We had great times, we had bad times. Either way, we had the time of our lives.

Lengthy and boring as this blog post may be, it's an expression of my heart. Bear with it. You may just hit exit and I really wouldn't blame you but it's just something I really think deserves recognition in my life. 

I've lived every other day thinking back about things we did together or what we've promised each other we would do. Go ice-skating. Go mini golfing. Go to a beach and throw each other into the sea (Although I doubt I can carry him that far). Go to Penang and get fat together. Go to Hatyai and back because we can. Let him sing me another song. Or sing the same old one again. Climb a mountain and watch the sunrise. Go to a beach and watch the sunset. Watch him quit smoking. Watch him stop playing with his car. Dance together. Grow old together. All these things lingered.

There were also days I thought of how we picked our first couple rings together. Places we've been, the words we've shared and the things we've done. I guess in 2 and a half years, a lot of these just gets embedded into your mind and nothing goes away. I still walk past the shop of which we bought our rings and laugh at a figment of our imaginary selves inside having a tough time. I still think about the times we fought for Moo Cow or Baskin Robbins because...NOBODY EATS ELIE LAM'S ICE CREAM! Got death wish is it?

So yes, you don't just forget little things that matters. You don't just erase your memories at the touch of a delete button. I remember when I was angry to find pictures of him and his ex-girlfriend in his hard disk back then but I realized from this break up that I was wrong. I finally understood what it meant to him to have kept those pictures there. You can't just throw them away. You keep them, locked inside a folder you hope no one would open but yourself. And that's what I did. I put up a password to our pictures. I placed my ring and the photographs I've printed in a box. I've left the soft toys he has given me to chill with me in bed. They haven't gone anywhere, just like the memories we shared.

Today is the 5th month since the day I told him I wanted a break up. It is also the 5th month of the very day we took a new bite to life, a closed chapter to a finished book we wrote together. The book was without a doubt a wonderful one as I believe in making pretty memories than bad ones. It's a belief, deal with it. I mean, come on. How much of anger and sadness can you bottle into your life? Why not just walk on and think of the better days, right? So here's a message to him; regardless if he reads it or not considering how he has removed me from all forms of social media recently.

Thanks for the book we've written together, the memories we've created and the trips we've walked. Thanks for the art we've drawn in sand - though much like our love it has been washed by the sea. We were once the couple that everyone would ask, "Where's Wai Kin?" or "Where's Elie?" to. We were once the couple that people find odd and possibly never expected to last longer than a month. We did. We didn't last an eternity, but we had 2 and a half years of amazing days - for better or worse. And I thank you, every step of the way. I really wish you would one day find the girl you would protect with all your heart just as you did with me, 2 and a half years ago.


And as for us, we're just a memory of togetherness.

Love, me.

I've realized how I can't seem to have put this issue down at all and someone once sent me a link that writing things down will help. I must agree, this blog post has indeed aided me in some ways to look back in my days with a man I once loved. It has helped me to think about the people who will come and go in your life and the memories you will create along the way. Sure, we will all hit a boulder some time and then get hurt but it doesn't mean we shouldn't stand and walk again, right? Here's to growing up from a broken heart. Cheers.