Blink

Wednesday 27th January 2010, 10:30am

Dear brother

Yesterday was the decisive turning point for my project. We were working almost 72 hours straight with little sleep to try to push it through, to make it "Go live" (be used by users nationwide). It did not make it.

When our program director (to whom I look up to with utmost respect) announced the decision, his voice almost trembling, that moment, I saw efforts crashed and burned, and many more months of this nightmare prolonged. It's almost like hearing a friend just passed away.

So they shut down the project for 2 days for re-planning and restore. Suddenly I have all the time in the world. So I decided to do something typically Pacey, I packed my camera, took a LONG bus ride, and went to Singapore coastal park. I haven't much such impulsive decisions for a while.

While riding a rented bicycle around the long coast, snapping picture, it occurred to me what I would do in the next 5 years. I want to go around Europe and take pictures. No baggage. Just my eyes and my Cyclop.

When riding down the remote tree-covered path of ECP, screaming aloud the completely flat version of "I'm alive" (Next to Normal Musical), I realized I was happy, as if I haven't been so alive in a looong time.

After the park I went to dinner, alone of course. I guess this is how my life gonna be for a while. One person dinners (with the portion of 2). I saw a family having dinner. The 2 little girls were playing rock paper scissor in the noisy restaurant. Their mom looked at them and smiled. She was just a typical young Asian mother you can find almost anywhere, but I swear to god her smile is the greatest smile I have ever seen. In that blink, I realized what happiness, whole, and contentment looks like. In 10 years time, I want to have that smile. Maybe when I get old enough and rich enough I'll just adopt. Bypass the whole courtship, dating, and heartache thing. Maybe in 20 years I'll build an orphanage, or a school (not me teaching of course).

I thought letting go would be a gradual process, but it's not. It's in the instance you realized it's over, and you have no other option but to move on. I guess I'm ready to move on. In a blink, I could see the people that hurt me happy, in another, I can see myself happy too.

I just need to wait in this statics for those moments to happen.

I guess, unlike others who think life is a progress, I think Life is made up with moments. Perhaps got to do with me being into photography. However, everyday life won't change or make you grow, it's the sudden (sometimes tragic) moments. There are planned moments, like a wedding photoshoot, a gathering. There are unplanned ones, like when you realized you are in love. Or when you realized your heart is forever broken because she would never feel the same way.

You just need to take a mental picture of it, keep it in a shoebox somewhere, and move on. So you will never have to miss the next important moments of your life to come.

In a blink of an eye, I'll be home.

With love