Memories persist. They can stay low for a while, stay quiet and away from your horizon, until the sun sets, and then they sprawl at you like a shadow that suddenly consumes you whole. This moment happened to me during the long weekend just passed. I was driving back to Brisbane from Sunshine Coast. It was really late at night and we needed our high beam to pierce our way through the thick darkness. Our mood was at sky high though, we had had a great time that day and we were singing at the top of our lungs all along the way. Joking, laughing and shouting out loud - that was until I took a look at the starry sky.
Away from the city lights, the stars shone brighter than I had ever seen them before. Their subtle brilliance collectively painted celestial impressionism on the velvet sky. To our own imagination, there was the Kangaroo constellation, the Kookaburra constellation and the Sore-billed Platypus constellation. As we amused ourselves in this astronomical charade, 2 falling stars shot across the sky and just like that I was taken from it all back to my past.
Twice in my life I felt very vulnerable, twice in my life I wished upon a shooting star - both times I was wishing so badly that my love be returned. The first one was with a girl called J. We were good friends then and she was very much interested in D. Despite my feelings for her, I gave D the leads he needed to get closer to J. D is the cool guy and J is the pretty chick, they are right for each other I thought – I was the ugly duckling. They got together and they broke up not long after. I told her about my feelings, she told me hers, I wished upon a falling star.
My second wish came years after my first one. It was a guy this time, M. We met at the gym, he noticed me, I noticed him noticing me, we chatted, we became friends and feelings grew – but M already has a partner. Despite my best effort to keep things platonic, M became someone whom I see almost every morning. I rose up every morning to see him, I shared my days with him and he shared his with me. Nothing physical happened during our shared times together, but the feelings I have reached beyond that. Even as I write this blog entry my heart seemingly halts as I remember that one year of early mornings together. I told him about my feelings, I left to Brisbane, I wished upon a falling star.
I have been very unlucky in love. It always takes me a lot to fall for someone, but whenever I do, it is always with the wrong person or at the wrong time. Yes, I may have unintentionally broken some hearts in the past but it is not the feel good that I am after. And it doesn’t matter how well I do in other things, the memory that stops me on my track is neither the memory of buying my dream car nor the memory of buying my first apartment – it is that the memory of when I feel I needed love the most.
After I had stayed silent for what must had been good 20 minutes, my friends asked if I was tired. And to that I said, “Nah… I just counted 2 shooting stars. Wondering when the third one is gonna come.”
Calling out to all Brisbane bloggers (or aspiring to be)!
