Q

Sometimes life throws at you some lemons; other times you lucky, and get fun-sized chocolate-caramel coated nutty multi-layered candy goodness with a hint of zest. Debbie, you are to me that unexpected surprise in the lemon field of Hwachong. I cannot, cannot imagine surviving JC without you.

Isn’t it amazing, on hindsight, how we were classmates for 3 years in secondary school without significantly crossing paths? I knew you as Puppy – fiesty and adorable and talented. It wasn’t until Hwach that made me realize you were that – but so much more.

You may not even know this yourself, but you have such presence, in any social context. You’re pint-sized but formidable. I can’t quite put it into words, but it’s somewhat a cross between spunk and sophistication: people naturally are drawn to, and respect, you.

Most of all though, you’re a fiercely loyal friend. No matter what antics I sprung at you – all the crazy projects, partial break-downs, weird phases that i much regret now – you stood by me. You had your fair share of woes too, especially in the latter half of J1 (omg we were so drama srsly): thank you for trusting me, for sharing all your fears and doubts and giving me the chance to share your tears and bouts of madness.

Weird as it might sound, i needed that. I needed, in the strange, unfamiliar place with strange, unfamiliar faces who knew each other, someone to share things with – even if those things were dark, angry and messy at that point of time.

Of course that wasn’t all we shared. There was a flip-side to all that craziness. We’ve spent so many after-school hours hitting highs: trading in-jokes private to just us, judging everything and everyone, or just being silly (this emerges often if Laupok was within the vicinity haha). All the mugging together, not mugging together, dinner treats along Bukit Timah Rd, fruitare on hot days along 6th Avenue… Those times are missed most sorely in my dash sessions between classes in Uni. :’-(

In that mere 2 years we became one of each other’s closest. I told you probably everything about my life. I’m so thankful for meeting someone I could (and can!) trust so deeply and easily. Of course it helps that despite our apparent differences (I can’t sing, you sing beautifully; you conduct yourself well in public, i have no qualms when it comes to public disturbance), we are fundamentally very similar. Can you really count the number of times where it took just a millisecond of swapped glances for us to get what each other were thinking?

So often, once we found ourselves alone, we would start spilling what we really felt or thought and were surprised by how identical our opinions were. This is probably why we never got sick of hanging out, we just couldn’t run out of things to agree on.

Thank God for putting us in HC, if only for the chance to have you as a friend. Thank God for all the meet-ups we still have, for how important we still are to each other despite the former’s unfortunately infrequency. Thank God for all the ways we’ve grown these years – and for each other’s contribution to this growth.

Now you’re 21, more beautiful than ever, doing well in University, finding your place in the world, attached (I claim partial credit for this happy status), and still one of the most valued friend I have. Continue to blossom, and know just how loved and incredible you are! LOVE YOU DEEBS, HAPPY 21st!!!

xoxox

those days were vacuous and fluid.

at an odd enough mid-afternoon hour my thumbs paused between apps with nowhere else to go. in reflex they found the familiar curve of your digits around my keypad.

“wanna hang?”

“yeah ok.”

in retrospect the dynamics of our friendship is weird. most of the time we’re shunted into an afterthought; we go months without a word between us. but at our lowest and neediest we were each other’s default go-to.

i was neither low nor needy then, but i knew somehow you’d pick up.

–

at your place we tuck outgrown legs around a clutter of novels and cable lines. you didn’t bother to sweep away your collection of Nature Valley wrappers – each one a thoughtless half twist. i thought of our conversations in mosaic. the ones that begun at the middle and the ones without ends; the way we left and picked up the time between us.

we didn’t do much that afternoon. you showed me on your guitar what you’ve been working on.

“this is pretty much all i’ve been doing recently. you know… taking things easy.”

i note with a jolt that your voice was not the voice that first sounded out my name years ago, and was surprised by my surprise. had i expected us to remain spindly limbed and giggly in ice-cream parlors through everything?

all the conversations grief pressed so tight against my throat i couldn’t cry but made you listen anyway, when you almost dropped off the face of the earth, hour long midnight mistaken bus rides where i ditch you for sleep, a lot of silence, all of each other’s trials we’ve taken as our own.

at that moment, though, i was contented with the uneventful quiet. just two of us, almost adults but not quite done with life.

Where do I even begin?

For more than a decade i’ve had the privilege of your friendship – your wacky ways, your unconventional wisdom, your unwavering loyalty, and your ever tireless ability to be there as a friend whenever, whatever. 

We’ve been through pretty much the highest and lowest of each other’s lives, and i can say this without being metaphorical. You’re really, truly, one of the biggest blessings i have. Just as fate/God/predestination dictated our collision last month at Bugis (when we could have been there at any other time, or been any where else), i believe it was by the same cosmic grace that we were made to sit together in Primary 2.

All the days we spent buried deep in our otaku geeky nonsense, sharing our roots in literary ventures with co-novels, or else conjuring up the most ridiculous stories during table tennis (i need to confess that you were the only reason why i loved going for CCA hur).

I don’t think people tell you this enough, Cel, but you are an amazing human being. Not just the best friend i could ever have wished for, but pretty much close to the best person the world deserves. Talented (in so many fields), insanely introspective, sensitive (in both the good and bad way lawl), and much as you deny it – a genuinely huge-hearted person. And most of the time you have no idea how much of a star you are.

You just have it, you know. For all your insecurities, you’ve got that innate furnace of charisma that never exhausts itself. You often mention how much you admire this or that person, when really you are just about the brightest shade in so many of our lives. You’ve got this way with people that makes them love you and trust you, and deservedly so because you’re that great a person.

Even your most iconic faults – the perpetual lateness, being a generally unaware mu-tou-ren, your sometimes bumbling and fumbling and getting bones wedged into the floor – are endearing. They are part of you and because the overall part of your is so beautiful, they become that too. That’s the only theory i can accept for why everyone lets you get away with being an hour late for everything.

Now that we’ve both traversed through the pains and plains of youth into the platform of adulthood, i’m more than convinced – having seen you through all you’ve been through and knowing you to your very core – that you’d make it big in life. Big not necessarily in the Lady Gaga book-out concert sense, but big how accomplished you’d feel about your life. I know you’ll get there, and when you do, I’d still be here cheering you on!

So proud of you for all you’ve done already and all I imagine you’d go on to do, Cel. HAPPY 21st and I love you!

xoxoxo

nights like these.

quite often we come across, sailing across the currents of social media, plaints of not having held closer the time we had with best friends. i don’t make this lament often, maybe because even back then i knew how dynamic my life was – a polychromatic, restless rush of days crashing into each other. i also knew it wouldn’t last.

my one consolation is that we still have these moments in concentrated dosages. again our words find a known rhythm and weave themselves into the braid we’ve kept through the years. we note that our laughter sparks off at the end of the same sentences. our hands find snug fit over the crooks of familiar elbows. i find myself falling into a cubby hole suspended from life moving, both timeless but so much in the present. it makes me happy.

our central concerns have changed, yes. we hear ourselves discussing politics, about careers – things beyond the immediate us (age has shed for us egocentrism) and are somewhat surprised by ourselves. all else remains constant – the yelled snark over 2-for-1 ice-cream and live music, the illegal escapades venturing to windy places unknown and the inevitable injuries/mishaps, anti-climatic wind-downs with a round of hot green tea.

i hoard these moments in words online for us.