Save The Last Dance

Just finished watching “Save The Last Dance” by Julia Stiles. Man, she was unbelievable. Never knew she could really dance. I was actually in two minds abt watching it, but the show started with a tragedy, and so it got me hooked from the beginning. Now I can see why this show totally beat Tom Hank’s “Cast Away” to be the top movie over two weekends at the box office after they premiered at the same time. A story of a white chick who goes into a black neighbourhood and manages to make something of herself is usually something that is seen by the whites and dissed by the blacks. So I guess it speaks for itself when blacks were thronging to catch the show, and it speaks volumes of the talent that Stiles has. I still don’t think she’s the most subtle of actresses, but she makes it up with something that is very uniquely her, that comes across as being very genuine.

That aside, I got to spend a couple of hours over two nights at the park in the last two days. Have been spending quite a bit of time in prayer, as well as reading the bible. Its been a good start of the year for me… which makes me a little jittery… quiet peaceful moments in my life have always been followed by absolute chaos and trouble. But for now, I’m enjoying what I can.

I got to finally meet up with Magdalene, my JC classmate whom I’ve not met up with for 7 yrs now. But she’s the one who would faithfully send me a birthday card every year all the way from London where she spent the last 5 yrs studying, and she still calls me “angel”, a reference to the angel/mortal game we played at orientation, where she was my “mortal”. I remember what made it memorable was how she was absent from sch for the first 2 weeks cos she had chicken pox, so we only got to do the whole angel/mortal thing after everyone already knew who theirs was.

Was pretty disappointed to learn that after she broke up with her ex, she’s stopped attending church, and hasn’t down so since then. After all, I remember being so pleasantly surprised to hear her talk abt her struggles to keep attending church when she was there in London. It was only then that I learnt she had accepted Christ. So as we were recounting to each other abt how we’ve been since we left SAJC, we realized that all of us have really moved on. We’ve all changed so much. She shared that after 2A4, life has really been pretty lonely for her, with hardly anyone she can trust and confide in. And I shared with her before I left that one of the things that really worked for me was how in church I’ve had the privilege of sharing my life with a group of friends that I call family, who shares the same passions as I do, and who is there for each other despite changes to ours jobs, our ambitions, our partners, our looks… the whole lot.

We also talked abt the same thing Paul and I were just discussing the night before, that we’ve all now reached the “late twenties” category, which is actually really depressing. Never in the first 21 yrs of my life would I have imagined that in my late twenties I’d be without a degree, without a job, and without someone to call my own. Yet here I am now. You know, I’d really feel like the loser from “A Lot Like Love”, if not for the fact that even he managed to graduate, and there was actually someone in his life who loved him.

So there I was in the park, talking to God, asking Him – telling Him, actually, just how I feel abt the ways things have turned out… how time can never be redeemed, how regrets will always be here to stay, how bad things have this uncanny habit of snowballing while good things tend to happen only to be very hard to build upon… I guess I wasn’t looking for an answer from Him… that’s gotta come from me, in how I decide to move on and make something of the remaining years He still has in store for me. But it felt good to be in the park, praying, and somehow feeling that He’s listening… that He’s really listening.

I’m beginning to understand just why so many people live by the cliché that the less time you have to get things done, the more time you need to spend on prayer. Its one of the biggest mysteries in the world, but its really true, and you will never learn how true unless you actually give it a try. Its like how someone can explain the theory of buoyancy to you, so that even tho it instinctively doesn’t make sense that keeping still will help you float you still end up accepting it to be true… but until you go into the water and then force yourself to keep still so that you come up, it remains something you believe in, but never experienced.

I’m looking forward to the Bangkok trip. A couple of days away from Singapore means a couple of days away from the things that I can’t let go of.