It’s been 4 years.
It is extremely scary to have your mind lose track of things that you feel so certain of. In fact, it’s even scarier (and embarrassing) when the person you were dead sure would forget proves you wrong.
This year’s Valentine’s has been the best in my life thus far. And when I say best, I don’t mean the most expensive or extravagant effort (although it did cost quite a bit because it involved flowers. and flowers during Valentine’s = evil.)
And then, I look back at my past (failed) relationships, on top of my persistent (and regular) interrogation to dig out all of his ex-girlfriends, I realised how funny love can be. Because I never expected myself to fall in love with this man at the beginning. I wasn’t even sure whether to reciprocate when he said his first “I Love You” some donkey years back. And I learnt that, the more you start getting neurotic over whether you love someone or not, delving deep into your heart and brains to find proof and semblances of love, the more you become unsure. When we reached out 1 year mark, I began asking myself a thousand questions. Everytime we hit our yearly marks since then, I start getting edgy and frustrated. Do I love this guy enough? Is “I don’t mind” good enough an answer or must it be “Yes I’m sure” before we head on to anything else.
I know. I’m a bitch for needing to ask myself this 3 years and 3 months into the relationship. But it’s my internal mechanism to start questioning myself on things because I’m just programmed this way. At the end of the day, I think about all the pain and tears we’ve gone through when my lies exploded right in front of my face, and when he became insecure about me coming into contact with other male homosapiens. We’ve come a long way, and our relationship is a testimonial of sorts to degree of our dedication (and desperation) to stick together through thick and thin.
Sometimes he frustrates me. He does silly things or silly-ly yell at me for doing silly things. Basically, we’re the same. We have so much pride, we hate being criticised. We both yell at each other when we think there’s a better and faster way of doing something compared to the current method that is playing out in front of us. We blabber our frustrations very openly. We call each other stupid. We stare at each other and start laughing when we quarrel.
And then I look at the relationships around us. There are newbies in this realm of “long term relationships” who are exhibiting so much mushyness, it’s as if they’re trying to make up for the years before that they’ve not been doing it, there are oldies (bwahaha) who have been together longer than us, who I feel both a sense of admiration and fatigue for, there are people still breaking up, even though we’re already in our twenties, still looking for love, still wanting love. When I look back into my own love life, I realised all the breakups and deception prior to this relationship were destined to make me cherish this person more. That all the pain I went through as an adolescent has set the stage for me to become someone who would not nullify my boyfriend’s efforts to please me. I’ve not been the luckiest girl around. I’ve not been treated well for the longest time. And even though he is still not as crazily doting as some of the people I have heard of, I’m content. Because I treasure his honesty. And his respect for my personal time. His understanding of my crazy work schedule, even though it comes with a good amount of grumbling and raised decibels.
And at 23 (going 24 this june), I’m telling myself I don’t have the time and energy to go through all this laying the cards on the table, setting the rules, and going through teething stages for a relationship to finally operate on mutual understanding and respect. I know this sounds really irresponsible and lazy, but, trust me.l If this current guy doesn’t make the cut, he wouldn’t have lasted 3 years.
This Valentine’s Day, my conviction was strengthened when flowers arrived at my office that morning (Yes I work on Saturdays. And I hate it.). Totally surprised, I was glad he decided to bring me to Waraku instead of accepting my proposition to cook at home. I was finally brought on a decent date on Valentine’s Day. Something I was deprived from because I was always let down during Valentine’s Day or made aware of the plans. This year was just perfect. I’m not someone who asks for alot of things. But what I was most moved by was his attention to all the things I have been grumbling about that I thought he’s been turning a deaf ear to. Like the flowers. I’ve always wished for someone to send flowers to my workplace. I don’t know. It’s just this little fixation. And I was brought for Japanese and anything involving Udon, Tempura, Sashimi, Kaminabe and Chawanmushi is much much loved.
So, Sugar, I just want to say. I thoroughly enjoyed this year’s Valentine’s. So now, you either raise the benchmark next year. Or this will be our last.
HAHAHAHA. Just kidding.
Valentine's at Clarke Quay
Thank you.
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