I feel like I've lived many life times in my short lived 23 years. And I've come to realize that some memories just stick with you throughout the years, out lasting the polaroid moments that seem to flicker in and out of my memories. I once read a quote that went along the lines of memories are like a child walking along the beach, you never know which seashell he'll pick up and keep forever.
There was the time that I stole my mothers car when I was 11, I drove 10 miles to my boyfriends house and she threatened to kick me out. Or the day I met my high school sweetheart on the school bus we shared for the next for years. The time I cut his penis with my braces (accidentally of course). I blame his hormones and the lack of light in the back of that cinema, I was 15. There was the day I prayed for my period to come, I was two weeks late and I reasoned with the purities of my beliefs to grant me my wish in return for 20 years of not eating beef. Or the day my mother decided I would go back to England after having lived in Malaysia for 10 years, to start college. Usually a very liberal woman who always let me make my own decisions, but this was "not up for discussion". I was 17.
Then when I was 18 I was gutsy enough to call the police on my housemate from China because he wouldn't clean the house. And I'll tell you, it worked, the fear of being deported secured me my bond money back from our landlord. And lets not forget the day I got my first taste of how it felt to be really (really) skinny, I'd been on a drug binge for a week with my best friend. Cooped up in his room we put nothing in our bodies but water while we smoked poison. I was stupid and just 19. Of course it was spurred on my some man (by this I mean boy) who I loved (I think it was infatuation) who said he would break up with his girlfriend for me but of course he didn't and I just couldn't handle the rejection which is really tough when you've allowed yourself to be consumed with obsession .
So that's my excuse for falling into a cave of dark nights and unauthorized mental space travel. Third star to the left and straight on till morning said the boy who never grew up. At that point, I didn't care about ever growing up just as long as I could swim in the ocean of my imagination for the rest of my days I'd be content to just waste away.Some call it denial, though I could swear I was just selective of the reality I chose to accept. But like all princesses lost in their fairy tales, I was saved by my prince charming. He helped me up, brushed off the dirt covering my lying eyes, ruffled my hair and straightened me out. For my birthday that year, we went to Hawaii. I turned 20. Of course I'll never forget the day we chose Mylo our dog or the day my ex and I decided we'd get married. No lavish proposal, no ring for my bare finger, but a promise that we believed would be our forever.
Of course with all my history, it didn't come as a surprise to me that once again I'd jumped the gun before I could catch up with my own imagination.
I was now a few months shy of my 22nd birthday. And on my way to call it off with my fiance when I met a guy on the airplane, his doesn't deserve a name in this equation, though by the end of the flight we were holding hands. It was this random and simply unbelievable encounter with him that reinforced my assertion of being way too young to be bound by the covenant of forever love. Of course I continued seeing him while I was axing my way out of all the commitments my ex and I had signed up for, like our apartment lease, bills that were in both our names, joint bank account, even Mylo had my ex's surname. Mylo Tan, that's what they called my little puppy at the local vet. My life was a living Sims simulation. How better to play house than with reality itself? After all, who doesn't like going to Ikea and bringing to life a dreamed up fantasy that you could have with just the swipe of a credit card?
But of course I could never forget the day I cried while driving home from the airport with my mum. I'd left my fiance, Mylo Tan, the life I'd built for the last 2 years, my Ikea showroom apartment, all my hopes, dreams and myself. Who had I become? There was absolutely zero connection between the meteor shooting through my head and the fizzled lump of organ that kept me breathing. I wished it would just stop beating because with each beat I just got more and more lost in my imagination that had become a living nightmare. Most of all, I couldn't live with myself. And that's when the tears rolled down my cheeks as my vision blurred as I heard the words that I would come to learn that were the beginning of a very long but edifying journey ahead of me.
"Why don't you take a year off? You've already got your degree and have no real responsibilities yet and there's really no point rushing into a life you're uncertain of."
It was as if someone had just opened a sliding peep shutter in my pitch-black confinement room of mental torture and emotional pain, someone was here to save me. And as I held my hand up to block the ray of light glaring into my deep lost eyes, I replied in the most humble and kitty eyed tone, "Really mum? You'd really let me do that?"
This wasn't something getting another boyfriend would fix. I couldn't go on a rebound rampage and bounce back from this, no more replacing one with another and there was no amount of weed I could smoke to make it all go away. And that sudden leap of faith people often talk about (but you never really know what they're talking about till you experience it?) started to rush through my veins consuming my entire being and before I knew it, I was packing my bags for Europe.
