Help

I need someone to talk to. Someone who doesn't need to understand everything but who is willing to just listen. Someone who doesn't judge and offers no advice. Someone who is still gonna be a friend after knowing my brokenness and inadequacy.

Flowers

What do you do when you really miss someone?



I don't quite know what to do, just yet. Sometimes i will distance myself away from the crowd, instead, i will watch people from a corner, hoping to fill myself up with the blissfulness and happiness of those around me, so that i will feel loved enough to chase away the emptiness that is slowly building up in me. Sometimes i will go to sleep, hoping that i will dream about the times we shared together. Sometimes i will immerse myself in the routine of work, freezing the part of my brain which has you in it.



But most times, i do what i know best - look high up into the sky, into the clouds, and send a prayer way up high. So no matter how far you are or which part of the world you are in, you will always be able to see it. We are always under the same sky, aren't we?



So many people walk in and out of our lives, staying only for a brief moment. We are delighted to bring someone in, and yet reluctant to let go when needed. So many tiny, insignificant encounters keep happening to bring some closer together, and others apart. In a world of such confusion, we are spun into the whirlpool of relationships. We dance along the coastline, leap in the softeness of sandy beaches, never quite knowing when the next wave will crash in, sometimes screaming and yelling in joy, but others in exasperation. We are thrown into a zone of uncertainties.



That day when i was walking pass a florist. I saw a young kid carefully selecting flowers, stalk by stalk. The fact that he was wearing a primary school uniform already caught my attention, but guess what, he was choosing the flowers using his nose - he was blind. The receiver of those flowers must mean a lot to him, i thought.



Some say buying flowers is a waste of money, because they all wilt and die. It's the most maddening fact of all that once conspicuous and beautiful, they all will eventually end up in the waste busket. Still, we buy them. Still, we give them. Still, we receive these lovely gifts, with love and gratitude, because of the memory, because we want to keep happy moments as part of our memory. We keep those memories in a part of our hearts, along with other blessed encounters, to prolong the freshness of love and sincerity, even if they last only just a brief moment.



I envied that young buyer. Of all the physical disabilities that could bound him into a sorrowful outcaste, he is strong enough to care for his loved ones - love of the brave and daring kind, the kind that has overcome the fear of getting hurt, the fear of giving too much, too soon.



Flowers are just like our relationships. Most last for seasons which end. Yet, nothing stops us from loving, from daring to love, from daring to invest, from daring to put ourselves on the line - and getting hurt. Just like the way nothing, nothing stops the budding, the shining glory when it's at full bloom and their eventual incandescent. We love, in the way flowers bloom - daringly, abandonedly.



Even though we know everything would come to an end.



We lost people along the way. Few friendships and relationships last for life. Flowers wilt, lives change, and all we are left we are just memories that we store in the deepest corner of our hearts, that these memories we cherish so much are no more than a remembrance of who we were and where we used to be, and that we don't have much choice but to hold on to those memories.



That day, i was just thinking about things, the way i often do - thinking about what had happened, why we stopped being around each other, why it always felt like i had lost someone close whenever people come and go. It sort of came to my mind that maybe, just maybe i put too much faith into believing people that i lost myself along the way.



I mean sometimes you do lose the sense of direction of where you are heading to, right? That despite the clarity of you dreams, despite your determination to get to them, despite your supportive friends and families, your mentality about things change, no? That sometimes you feel like you are running in a circle, that you could feel happy everyday but still you could feel something is missing in your life.



Life is precious, isn't it? That no mistakes, no crimes, no disappointments, no rejections, no difficulties, no problems would be so great to sacrifice your will to live and make all your dreams come true, right?



Or could it be that after so much, after so much of struggling and learning, you realise that you cannot find a meaning to life?



I remember you. We were not very close but you''re just like a big brother to me. We used to talk about life. About my dreams, and yours. We sort of concluded that it's best to have the least expectations of things. But how ignorant i was. It was the last time i saw you.



It just sets me thinking. What are meaningful relationships to you, in a world of constant uncertainties and regular irregularrities?



It's a loss to lose the once-known familiar closeness. A lot of times, i have yet to overcome the hurt of the first loss before another person walks in or walks out. I realise, the key to a meaningful life lies in us, ourselves. It's easy to love Strangers, hard to love friends, harder still to love family members and even harder to love yourself.



But do we stop buying, giving, receiveing flowers, stop loving, daringly and unabashedly because of the possibility of change, the possibility of death?



You have your answer to that.