never let me go

my baby sister hanxin and i, she (then) at two and i fourteen. this was taken at Goldcoast during our family vacation. i even remember that jumper i'm wearing - it's Topman. those days when there was only one in town and that was located at Wisma Atria. i thought it was the absolute bomb then.

anyway. now, nine years later, i sent her off at the airport today; she's flying to Australia once more, only this time we're not accompanying her - it's for a school enrichment course. oh the kids these days.

funny thing is, Ivan revived that photo of the fourteen year old me just today, of all days. oh ivan. he'll always be that boy that the fourteen year old me thought of as a demi-god.

nearly a decade has passed and we've progressed from Friendster to Facebook but he's the only boy i've never met in real life. we talked on the phone for well over a year, hours upon hours, every single day, a nightly ritual neither of us neglected. yet we never officially met. oh he did spot me occasionally, he being from Anglican High, which is all of three minutes' walk from my place. but i was never as lucky to spot him. omnipotent and omnipresent. hence the demi-god thing.

the nightly ritual was shattered when Ryker came into my life. if there was one thing i regretted, it's the loss of a faithful companion on the phone. i really miss that, talking for hours into the wee hours, every night, despite waking up at six am for yet another day of secondary school (the horror.)

now i am so out of touch with something so pleasant and simple that i wonder what we had to talk about at all. i wonder if i can even fill up ten minutes worth of talk time now let alone five hours.

i'm petrified of boring the person at the other end of the line. i crave it though. i crave the connection, the relationship, the person. it occupies my thoughts - no, it would be more accurate to say that it invades and monopolises my thoughts ruthlessly, ceaselessly.

i don't know what to do about it.

"But I still have to face the hours, don't I? I mean, the hours after the party, and the hours after that..."

yes you guessed it. it's The Hours again. always.