Going back to reality

5 January 2008
4:10pm California local time

On board flight SQ11 going to Singapore from Los Angeles via Tokyo (Narita).

A gaily Sesame street Christmas song is playing from my earphones and yet I am holding back an impending sob. A happy French movie (Odette Toulemonde) and an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond made me temporarily amused for 3 hours but now, as more hours pass by, more and more I am becoming nearer to the reality I left three weeks ago. I am trying to make it start to sink in, for I have to accept now that in about 12 hours I will be back to the life where I only have myself to look after me, where I have to be back to playing the game of Monopoly.

(I could not hold back my tears anymore, I am sure I look like I've gone nuts -- laughing a while ago as I watched on the inflight entertainment system and then now sobbing uncontrollably)

When I started my own life by standing on my own two feet three years ago, I opened a gateway leading to different roads. I knew where I wanted to go but I didn't know for certain how to get there. So I had to take different routes, taking my chance on every road that opened. Like a trickle of water, I flowed to where the cracks in the road lead me to.
In that circumstance, it was a sort of letting go of a dream, for I didn't want to get hurt if I would not be able to go to the direction I wanted to go. And for a moment I just stood there, waiting for someone to tell me where to go, to tell me what is my purpose. I was too scared of failing that I denied to myself that dream. Although, it was indeed almost inevitable to be on that phase, for we know that achieving a dream requires not only personal effort, but also that stars would connive, when it coincides to the great plan the Big Guy has for you.

The scare does not even end there. As when you finally start to feel we could be getting to our destination, the anticipation takes your breath away, for your hopes are up. This is where I am now, a point where I am so near yet so far from getting there...when things are contingent and beyond my control. And so as I look back to where I started three years ago, I pray that it will be the indication of the beginning of a new reality -- the one that I've been dreaming of all along.