China Tea'S Pot

There's only one gift in all the world that can be given by me alone.
That is the gift of my memories, of what I have lived, what I have experienced
what I have loved and learned... - Emilie Barnes

I remember friends, from oh, so many times and places. Their faces, a little blurred from the years of neglect and disconnect. When the present is not so bright, I tend to peer into their darken silhouettes, and try, difficult it maybe, to inject some flesh into those dear faces and make them stand out from the mix of intersecting images.

I am sad tonight, not so much that I failed to bring those faces up from the sea of abandoned memories and failed connections but I did not even try.

Days just go by so fast . . .

We are at the last days of September . . . September . . . September? The song I'll see you in September comes to mind. I used to associate this song with my puppy love , "B" during those months after the summer breaks from school. It is simply amazing how first impressions, first "loves" do not really die or go away. I know it's NOT going anywhere because I am happy where I am right now and he is happy where he is right now but somehow I still relish and actually enjoy recalling all the "growing pains" I had as a young girl who had this bigger than life "fairytale romance" (in her mind, that is) with "B".

I did not really know him, nor did he know me at all. And yet, even now, strangely enough, I do feel as if I knew him and him, me. I guess these puppy loves do grow with you and go with you whatever heights (or lows) you find yourself later in life. "B" or again, my bigger than life idea of him, has been with me all those years I was on a trial and error journey with life, and has found a resting place somehere in my heart (or my head?) and there it has stayed all these years.

It's a comfortable place - "his" place (in my heart). I go there and re-live my young and carefree days whenever I get overwhelmed or bored (as the case maybe) with the realities of life.

I saw him again this September. He was with his realities and I with mine. It was good and fun and puppy-like. And maybe we'll meet again September next year -- when summer's gone.

I knew how he would look like after all these years of not seeing him. I have seen some of last year's photos. I was hoping the bubble of a young infatuation would burst. . . No it did not.

When I saw him and talked to him and danced with him - I was again a young girl of sixteen . . . And it was deja vu.

With the bubble happily flying over head, came the realization that he has his life and I have mine and they are separate and unalterable.

So the bubble lives and stays a bubble . . . a lasting dream of all the good things in a young and carefree world . . . never to be forgotten, always re-lived and re-visited . . . and will never stop being just that --- a beautiful dream.

What matters is we share this dream . . . or so it seems.

I found recent photos of my highschool crush while googling his name - "B" - my puppy love. My, he certainly looks older now - he has lost some hair. . . he has gained some pounds . . . and really, he has grown much older than the mental image I kept of him in my heart all these years. Has the bubble of infatuation burst for me? As I stared at that reunion photo of him to try to find the young man I so dreamed of since I was in highschool . . . I again saw the same genteel qualities that I so adoringly saw in him so many moons ago. (I did not know for sure then - but those photos reaasured me that yes, my judgment as a child was not wrong afterall. I still see the same gentleness in his demeanor - he has aged but he is still basically knightly and genteel. If you have been reading my previous posts about him, I actually did not know him well. All I knew was that blown-up idea of the man I thought he would be if only him and I had more than exchanges of glances, one slow dance, one one-on-one conversation (of which he did most of the talking to fill in the silence)and some group activities that we both attended then. And that idea of that man was romanticized and treasured in my young head all these years. Growing up and growing older, those were memories that I went back to all the time when I am sad and beaten with the ways of the world.

I am looking forward to attend this year's town reunion which he has attended last year. Hmmm . . . That's in August . . . One thing is certain now. I will go with my loved one and I am sure he will be with his.

Labels: Puppy Love

Poeple at work often ask me why I seem to wake up always happy . . . I guess it's because I do not really make a conscious resolve to be happy. Does that make sense?

I think people who try too much to be happy tend to become unhappy. Hmmm . . . I really am not much of a philosopher or someone who comtemplates too much on life. What I do is just live each day as if it was a new day, a new beginning. I am not much of a believer of living your life as if it were your last. I believe that living life that way invites excess and waste.

I always start the day as a fresh new day . . . of doing things differently --- maybe better, maybe slower, maybe faster, maybe not at all. What's important to me is, the newness of everything . . . and maybe I find happiness in seeing everyday as a new beginning, a fresh start for new things, new experiences, new feelings.

Believe it or not, it was not like that in my younger days. . . But then I had less of the fresh starts because I had lived less in years then . . . Go figure. . .

It is the first day of October. Time does fly. And what have I been doing before today?

That is a profound question. Simply asked, I would answer . . . living each day as I lived the day before today. Then I would think that that seems so boring and routinary. Am I not supposed to live a day as if it was my last?

That has not happened yet, as far as I can recall. I think that days are lived to their fullest when one was younger and had a lot to dream about. Now, this thought is not that attractive either. It can mean that there are no more dreams to live for when one is older. . .

Really . . . life is so difficult to live. And I have yet to find the formula for living. What, my dear reader, are your thooughts on this matter. Pray, tell me, so that, I, too, can live.