I don't often bare my soul on Facebook as I think it gets tiresome - I really don't want to hear about most people's flu, or headaches or whatever and thus would spare my friends the same - and I'd really like to always look on the bright side of life as it were, anyway.
I do realise and understand intimately however, that life isn't always rosy situations and happy times and that there are moments when we go through a dark patch, no matter how positive we may attempt to be. So, as I emerge from a (to borrow and adulterate a Douglas Adams title) Brief, Dark Tea-time of the Sole, the issues I grappled with, and are finally coming to terms with, demand that I write a short note on this matter.
I came across this Maya Angelou saying a long time ago and though it skimmed my intellectual consciousness, it never really sank in beyond that. Until now.
“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
I've spent much of the last month being somewhat out-of-sorts. My 'sole' time - therein lies one adulteration of the title - has also been a 'soul' time filled with some retro- and much intro-spection. Having so much time on my own in a new home and new surroundings and with new friends, the issues have been clearly magnified and laid open for me to think and ponder. Yes, I analyse. Then analyse again. Then over-analyse things. That is my nature, as my closest family and friends know only too well.
And despite the fact I do rely on the intellectual side of me too much and much as I tried to engage the more spiritual side during this time, it wasn't until recently that I finally began to succeed. The resultant insights have been moving and powerful and though the process has been painful and, indeed, still continues to play out, I am grateful that I am finally seeing - with both my mind and my soul - some truly life-changing things.
In the last few years I have made many new friends. Indeed, these last years have been about establishing new friendships, renewing some old ones, evolving some, and also ending a few.
Every single event has been a beautiful - though sometimes painfully so - chapter and as I sit here contemplating my new friends, my old ones, the ones with whom my relationship is changing and evolving, I can only marvel at how perfectly true Maya's saying is.
So, to all the friends who have been, and some who continue to be, so very important to me, thank you for being you and thank you for the way you have, or continue to make me feel. I will never forget that.
Oh, and errr...don't you go worrying if I'm standing close to the railing on a high balcony, yah? I'm happily typing away in a low-rise-hotel room, looking forward to a dinner with a new good friend tonight and with 60+ old friends tomorrow night. Oh and puhlease don't wonder why your name isn't on this list. It's my list. And my reasons. Go analyse that.
Thinking of Clifford Tan, Patsy Kam, Teresita Jose, Gan Cheong Soon, Mark Cheong, SV Singam, Nigel Tan, Kael Foo, Choy Yoong Cheong, Adelin Laura Goh, Joe Nathan Lourdes, Hannes Steiner, Steven Heong, Julie Ho, Philip Phang, Lam Wei Mei, Evelyn Reyes, Deborah Nonis.
This was first posted on my Facebook timeline on 25 February 2015.
