I happened to see entering a cinema, an old schoolmate, we were in the same CCA. She was barely recognizable but I recognized her with a shock. She was one of those 'A' class girls, the elite in school who could all make it to whichever JC they chose. Back then they never thought of choosing a poly, the only question was 'which JC', how times have changed. Now the brightest ones choose poly. They were the ones who took Higher Chinese, a foreign concept to me, and some even took something known as 'Chinese Literature' !!! While we not so intelligent beings played basketball after school, watched movies with our 'steads', and sat at taka square exchanging information with similar beings.
Anyways, the most shocking thing was how she looked.
I remember her as quite a pretty girl. She was about the same size, but, oh how horrendous. She was wearing an ill-fitting shapeless white tee, ill fitting jeans, and a severe bob haircut not unlike the ones we had in secondary school. She looked like an auntie from afar and I wouldn't care to be associated within her age range.
I tried to look for something flattering to be honest, but could find none... gosh.
It's funny, the way things pan out for some. We would assume that those elite girls would do well in life, as expected, being smarter, landing better jobs, attracting the same social strata of husbands, making smart choices about their investments and career, etc. But somehow through the years, and as we age, that does not paint a full picture. I remember we all rejoiced for one of our schoolmates who had to repeat a year of school. She became a manager at her early 20s when most of us were still figuring out how to deal with things.
Many who weren't doing so well in their secondary school do become good at some point in their career, take TheBoyfriend for instance. You don't want to know his PSLE score... if you really want to know... well... it's hilarious...
Others seem to do well all through school, but only have a mediocre career and other measures of success would show they are doing only passably well. Hmm.
I just thought that things aren't what we expect after all. We never expect to become friends with so-and-so, and thus when the friendship turns into years-long comfortable as a cup of warm tea and long car rides kind of friendship, it is somehow, always a surprise. For many of my friends, we seem to be strange bedfellows. Our friendship was always met with quizzical eyebrow raising and a wondrous look, like, 'oh really? You are friends with her?' look; because, no one had expected that such a nice thing as a beautiful friendship could come out of a chance encounter. Or maybe I just don't look like the kind who would befriend such. (Sadly, as I later realised, most girls would brand the kind of guys I find fascinating as friends 'boring like a piece of cardboard', 'weird' or 'very weird'. But they always bring me to interesting places and share fascinating facets, eat ice cream happily while chatting, and are ALWAYS generous, so I really can't agree!)
It takes a little bravery of the spirit to open oneself to share with these beings, wondering if anything could come out of it, saying something and hoping for a response that, you know, strikes all the right chords with you. But so frail are the human relationships that seem strong yet crumble at very minor things.
Like in (human) relationships and for 'those whom we dated/crushed/had insatiable feelings for', I've always marveled at those who kept in good humor with their ex-girlfriends, and all of them gals to boot. I've always asked them, 'how do you do that?' I never had such luck and perhaps a big part of the equation is my fault to be honest. On the other hand, I had always wanted to casually chat with "those whom my affection happened to fall upon in past moments", or even just sms-ing to ask them about their latest happenings. The curious side of me wants to know what's happening in their life... have they settled down, maybe what kind of girls they settled down with...
Growing older means we have to deal with these things. In corporate terms, this is called 'conflict management'. It seems the ones who do it really well are rewarded with higher positions and don't we all want that sometime in life? But first we must learn how to deal with our inner child of not wanting to grow up and be in a fairy tale where all seems to work out exactly as what you have hoped for.
Unless, of course, it's a dream come true. =)
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