One fine day, on the MRT, I heard a little voice calling out inside my mind.
It was all too familiar - My imagination was pleading with me to let it out, my mind was asking me to think about good times again before I slip into another monotonous routine of fiddling with my cell phone or pulling out a novel to read.
At first I resisted, knowing how it ended the last time. But after a while, I acquiesced to their requests.
The images pop up, the memories came up, and instantly I regretted being so compliant once again.
Yes, those were happy memories, happy thoughts. Things that were nice and warm and fuzzy. In fact, one of them was the very first thing that got me going and gave me plenty of hope.
However, all those were in the past. The very first vivid dream of bliss I ever had.....
.....Probably forever shattered unless He wants it otherwise.
The memories? I was happy, alright, but the nagging question was...Were the other persons in those moments happy as well? Was I simply being a fool by feeling great by myself?
And I regretted allowing my imagination to go loose again, even though not letting it free might be detrimental to my other endeavor. Sometimes one starts thinking what could have been if one did not make those stupid mistakes. If one actually had the brains and time to improve quickly enough. If one had not rushed things and been overly friendly...
This is when I realise that hurt and disappointment can run more deeper than we think.
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Sometimes we think ourselves to be fine, to be all right. We put on a cheery mask and smile and laugh and joke with others while hiding the hurt from them all.
Nothing wrong with hiding. After all, every single person has things you don't want to say to certain people because of various reasons.
But when you hide it for a long, long time, the adverse effects will overflow into other areas of one's life. Your friendships start to get affected. Your behavior doesn't match in one social context to another. You start to get particularly sensitive about your own boundaries and find it extremely difficult to trust others, choosing instead to believe in the misunderstandings that arise, always choosing to rely on yourself mainly.
Speaking from experience, that I am. Not just from my own, but from other friends I've seen. More than once, I've seen dreams shattered because of people being too guarded. Friendships nearly severed, then repaired but with a seemingly permanent wall between them.
Nothing wrong with protecting ourselves and having a certain boundary, but putting on armor and covering yourself with spikes and weapons are two very, very different things.
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I hate misunderstandings.
And in the same sense, I hate not knowing what the hell is going on when a friend suddenly refuses to talk, reply or has a sudden cold attitude towards you.
A few people close to me often say, "It's like that one. Nothing much you can do about it but just hope for the best." or "Let God resolve it."
They are right, of course, but it is still so very irksome when you don't know WHAT YOU HAVE DONE WRONG and absolutely no one else can tell you what it is clearly except the person, or people who have a 180-degree change of attitude towards you.
The catch is, there's absolutely no way they will tell you.
Screw "Hope for the best." Screw "Try to find out one way or another." Screw "Be a little more confrontational."
I think I'll let God tell me what went wrong in due time while I try to change the bad stuff about myself.
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