Unhappy New Year

"人總需要勇敢生存

我還是重新許願

例如學會承受失戀

明年今日別要再失眠

床褥都改變

如果有幸會面

或在同伴新婚的盛宴

徨徨地等待你出現

明年今日未見你一年

誰舍得改變

離開你六十年

但願能認得出你的子女

臨別亦聽得到你講

再見"

明年今日 (2002) by 陈奕迅

This song got me. It got me good.

If we haven't broken up, I would be on my bed right now, eyes closed, talking on the phone with her because that was how I spent every crossing of one year to the next. It's almost tradition. The dull distress of my recalibrated life - now with a hundred percent less girlfriend - is propelled by the inertia of undead habits. I notice that my subconsciousness haven't yet found out I was dumped because in my dreams, we are still together.

My days remained unbleached; you wouldn't suspect that anything is wrong unless you know what songs I have on constant loop on my MP3 player. It's in the nights that I wander the graveyard of my past relationships. Here lies The One which Lasted One Year, Three Years and the Recently-Departed Four. Their headstones stand side by side, testaments to my continuing failure at love. The third time had not proved to be as much of a charm as it was advertised. You can't tell but I err far too frequently on the side of optimism. Bully for me for believing in happy endings. No endings are happy, silly.

I'm no stranger to being alone, of table-for-ones, and one-ticket-pleases. Four years of romance via electronic proxies had seen to that. I've always skated on the low floor of easy contentment, glad that there's someone out there somewhere who loves me and thinks of me often. Now that floor had fallen away, depositing me in a state of solitude I've forgotten is even possible. Suddenly, it's a world of lovers out there, their very existence mocking mine.

I wished we had that conversation where we talk about the destination we have arrived at and how we needn't to - but maybe, she just woke up one day and realised that we are already there. I agonised long and hard over the road behind us, trying to figure out the last detour we could have taken out of this one-way-street and saw none we would have considered. I did not find it, but I did discover a sign I've missed. In anticipation of her visit last month, I wrote about the uncertainty of our destinies and said:

"Next week, for a few days at least, I want to dwell on none of these bothersome things. Instead, I just want to lose myself in the nearness of the one girl I love most out of the seven billion other human beings on this planet. Oh, if only the rest of our lives should be so simple: she and I, and that elusive Here and Now."

She only gave a knowing smile in reply. I comfort myself in believing that she gave me that one last week of Here and Now unfettered to the weight of reality as a Christmas present - y'know, for old times' sake. This, and many other beautiful things she had done for me, is precisely why I was in love with her. In a way, I still am.

I feel guilt-ridden because even when she's all out of love for me, she still granted me my final wish. In return, she asked if we could still be friends and I could not even give her that at a time she needed one most. Maybe I'm just selfish that way. Maybe I don't want her to hear my voice cracked under the pressure of pretending that everything is okay when I am anything but. Perhaps next year. Perhaps on this day next year, I can be the friend she wants.

I'm going back to bed, and let the new year drift silently past. In my dreams, my heart is whole.

Still asleep and dreaming,

k0k s3n w4i