As I ride my bike back from campus at midnight, I see the incoming freshmen - guys with baseball caps walking with a swagger trying to play it cool, girls dressed up strutting in heels. What hopes and dreams do they have? What fears, What expectations? How will they have changed, four years from now? Will they still be as fresh-faced, as eager to socialize and meet new people, as optimistic and energetic as they are now? What will they have learned?
Three years ago, I was just like them. It wasn't just the thrill of going to college. It was the excitement of coming to the States for the first time, living on my own, oceans apart from my family back in Singapore. It was a new life, in a new place, with new people, and almost no familiar faces. Back then, I wasn't afraid. I was excited. I tried to meet as many new people as possible, each time wondering if the chance encounter would blossom into friendship. I went to parties, I drank -a little bit too much, in hindsight. I joined many clubs - Sailing, Penn Outdoors, Penn Running Club, Penn Latin & Ballroom Dance... I was idealistic. I took chances. I thought I was living it - maybe at that time I was.
And over the months, the years, I got hurt. Hurt by people, hurt by my own naivete, hurt by my expectations and ideals, hurt by taking chances. And I grew older. I stopped going to parties, I stopped drinking as much (only the occasional drink in social settings). I stopped taking chances, at least where people are concerned. I stopped trying to actively reach out - most of the time, it was just a half-hearted effort. If I sensed that someone wasn't that interested in getting to know me, I stopped trying to get to know him or her. I'd brush that voice saying "What if he was interested" off by thinking that if it was meant to be, it would happen.
Meant to be? There's no such thing as "meant to be". Nothing is ever "meant to be" in life. We chart the course of our lives. Our actions, our initiatives, are responsible for the people now in our lives. But the fear of loss and rejection, and the thought of being not good enough, results in my using this excuse to not pursue what I want.
Is this part of maturing - the loss of undying optimism and ideals, and the increasing reservation? I hope not. In a way I sort of want my old self back - the carefree, hopeful, bubbly social butterfly who loved meeting people and to whom going to a place full of strangers was almost second nature. But at the same time, I'm thankful, in a way, for becoming who I am today. I know what I really want, I know what's meaningful to me (though I know my life right now is not very meaningful), and I'm thankful for the opportunities I've had, and the friends and family in my life. And I know what I lack - a loved one. But in the mean time, I'm happy (or know I can be happy) being on my own.
If there is one thing I've learned all these years at college, perhaps it's that, the world as it is, is very different from the world you expect. And if you keep looking at the world through rose-tinted shades, when you eventually take off those shades you'll be blinded by what you see, and darkness will follow. But eventually, you'll see again, and learn the appreciate the beauty in the world as it is.
Hopefully.
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I've stopped writing for such a long time. Perhaps there was just so much sadness and pain that I couldn't bring myself to pen it all down, to acknowledge that sadness and pain in my life. Perhaps there was just so much hurt and disappointment that I wanted to deny it by just not writing about it and not admitting to it.
The pain is still there sometimes. Everytime I look at my painting of Mom, I think of how much she loved me, and how I should have shown more love to her, how I should have spent more time with her, how I should have put up with her nagging instead of telling her to stop nagging. If I have one big regret in my life, it's that I didn't show my love to her more.
And now there's just this emptiness within me, which was once filled with the knowledge that there was someone who loved me very, very much.
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