I went home yesterday. I do feel guilty about not being home as often as I should be.

I miss my Dad, but sometimes it’s hard to tell him and it takes effort to keep any relationship going; even kinship. So I always take the easy way out, by shoving the guilt into a small corner of my brain and try not to think about it. I wish I could make my parents happier.

Last night was a night of self-discovery. I took my old diaries out and I started reading them again.

It started from a little exercise book where I’d write the Buddha names repeatedly. My parents weren’t always with me when I was growing up. And in my most impressionable years, I spent most time with my grandparents, aunties and uncles.

I remember a beautiful story my aunt once told me.
From the moment we were born, a new lotus flower also appears in heaven. Each flower represents a person on earth. In our short lifetime in this world, we need to do good. And every single time we do a good deed, a drop of water gets dropped into your own lotus flower. And if, by the time you pass, your lotus flower is big enough for you to sit in it, you can go to heaven.

I think it’s her way of teaching the 5, 6 year old me the importance of being kind, and the concept of Cause and Effect. It left a deep impression. And till today, I still believe that we all have a space in heaven, as long as we do good, and it is regardless of religion.

The first time I celebrated my birthday with my friends in Primary 6. Isn’t it funny how 50 bucks can make a 12-year-old so happy? I swear I felt like I was the richest person in the world. Back in those days when a packet of Mamee was only 30 cents, I could throw a HUGE junk food and soft drinks party with my classmates with 50 dollars. :p

It was really weird travelling back in time. In diaries, there were no self-censorship. And for a while, I forgot that it is already 2016. And I could really relive every moment I described so vividly in those books. How I was afraid to go out alone with a boy when I was in secondary school, how that boy waited for me after cross-country run and asked me out but I chickened out. The first time I kissed, and I even described what it tasted like and what the air smelled like while it happened. (I was at my secondary school “boyfriend’s” house and his grandmother was cooking dinner, so my first kiss smelled pretty much like fried vegetables.) For a while, I felt like that same 15 year old Peggy.

My first serious boyfriend who is also my second-cousin. My parent were not very happy that we got together because I was still quite young and he is family afterall. But the feelings we had were so pure and so innocent.

It was pretty simple back then, and I really do miss that easily contented person that I was. There weren’t much expectations and small things made us happy. There were movie stubs that were already all faded out (I could still see that the movie was Dark Waters though). 21st December.

It was really strange how reading things that I wrote more than a decade back can actually momentarily bring me back in time. And it’s amazing seeing how every event has shaped me into the me today. The different people I was close at at different points in my life.They all had an effect on me.

I think it will be strange reading my blogs again 20 years down the road.

So much could have changed and my life would have been totally different if I had made different choices back then. Do you ever wonder how different your life would be if you walked down a different path in the past?

It was an interesting night spent taking a walk down memory lane. And I can’t believe how fast time flew by. I realised that fundamentally, I am still the same person. I’d also like to believe that every single relationship I’ve been has taught me a lesson, and made me a better person for the next. Since 17 years old, I have always been afraid of being alone. As much as there are things one wants to change, if you are born like that, you’re probably never going to be able to change it. All you can do is just suppress it, and be unhappy while you’re doing it.

The One is probably just an urban legend. And romance is always fleeting. It has to be something beyond love. Just like the movie stub cycle, we just have to learn to appreciate what we have, and hopefully as we all constantly grow and change, our loved ones are also changing and evolving in a way that is still compatible with us.

This was what falling in love felt like.