As a kid, when you're happy, happiness is all you feel.
Layers and layers of happiness that at times you feel like you'll burst. But as you grow older, every time you're happy, it'll always be laced with a little bit of sadness and regret.
Sadness over the things that could've been and regret over the things that had been.
You know those moments, when you realize that you've passed a milestone from childhood to adulthood?
People experience those moments in different ways. For me, it's when I outgrow a book. When rereading a book, a passage or a scene that had seemed so big and wondrous for me suddenly seemed ordinary. Or when that really wonderful thing happened, when I suddenly understood something that years before I didn't, that a phrase that didn't mean anything suddenly did. That I could relate to something I couldn't before.
That for me is a sign that, yes, I have experienced things, have lived through events in my life that added to and made me to who I am now and because of it, I could understand this book, this character like I couldn't before.
Those moments makes me sad and wistful but also bittersweetly happy.
I had an interesting conversation yesterday with a friend. This is the same friend that I've mentioned before, the musician, the one who has known me for a very long time.
Our relationship is very interesting in the way that we've known each other since childhood. But unlike most people who were childhood friends, we had a 'break' for a couple of years and reconnected when we were both a little more jaded, harder, wary of...I want to say relationships but that's not really the correct word, I guess I should just say of people in general.
Now for those who don't have childhood friends, let me explain to you how it feels to have one: childhood friends are like time travelling machines, you can be 100 years old but once you see them, you are 6, 10, 14, 17 years old again. They are a part of you, they are what makes you, they are yours and you are theirs in a way that a child will call a toy theirs and only theirs. And for better or worse, you can't stop feeling like that child you were when you are with them.
--because of the 'break' we had, we see each other, at least I do as before and after. I still remember the boy who grew up with me...but meeting him again, I see a different side to him; the man. So, it's like meeting this person who is a familiar stranger, if you know what I mean.
Now he has a wife and kid.
I'm still single and yes, no kid (do pets count?).
But surprisingly we're still walking on the same path; trying to make our dreams come true and trying to overcome the problems and consequences that comes from doing that.
Anyway, I was talking to him about this song that I could seriously relate to. A song that pretty much conveys what I feel when I sit down with my friends who are successful in their jobs, making big bucks, having their own families...people who are living lives in a completely different way from me.
A life, that I know, is just not for me.
Usually, when I say this, my friends get all in my face, either sympathetic, disbelief, or in pity. It pisses me off, of course.
But then, this friend, this old friend pointed out some things that make me think. He is good for that. Sometimes, we serve as either a trashcan or a sounding board for each other.
And then he said something, said that I taught him how to look at both sides of the argument.
And that made me feel good, that I, being myself, taught him something that he actually applied to his life--and mine. That I had a part of making him to the person that he is now; someone who is smart, generous, conscientious, caring and insightful.
This is why you need to surround yourself with good people, 'cause when you are down, they will remind you of the good in you.
That when you can't see the good qualities in yourself, you will find it in your friends.
Although this song can actually work with most of my ships since I LOVE the bestfriend turned more (in fiction and not in RL) but this song is pure GabexLeah. Because although KaixLei is also almost the same thing, Kai has the burden of his ties with the Pack and his position within the Pack, and also ties to his family.
But Gabe, for Gabe the world would burn and he wouldn't care as long as Leah is with him. Like the Triplets said, some people have just so much love to spare and they tend to focus on just a few people but they give those people their all...just as long as they earned it. And for Gabe, Leah is all, Leah is everything.
The Narrative-Eyes Closed
And this dormant love you've built
Inside your stubborn ways
Well its begging now for air
Of the sudden breath of change
Oh this can work for every one of the OTPs in my stories.
The Perishers-Nothing Like You and I
We spent some time
Together crying
Spent some time just trying
To let each other go
I held your hand so
Very tightly
And told you what I would be
Dreaming of
There's nothing like you and I
So why do I even try?
There's nothing like you and I
Very much a Kai and Lei song.
Avalanche City-Sunset
The sun set too soon tonight
Now we are in the last of light
Far gone is the golden hour
The dark could never dim your eyes
We'll tip toe through the streets,
And creep over the eaves
And run across the roofs,
And hide like common thieves
We'll go until the stars expire
So here is where the culprit lies
Oh we'll steal love songs tonight
Oh we'll steal love songs tonight
Oh we'll steal love songs tonight; it's only you and I
This song is very the Lyall boys and Lei, how they just enjoy each other's company and have fun with each other.
The Paper Kites-Bloom
Can I take it to a morning
Where the fields are painted gold
And the trees are filled with memories
Of the feelings never told?
When the evening pulls the sun down,
And the day is almost through,
Oh, the whole world it is sleeping,
But my world is you.
Can I be close to you?
DreamWalkers, a Firdaus and Medea song. It's more a song from Firdaus' POV.
Avalanche City-Love Don't Leave
Her cheeks were red and cold and I held her hand in mine
She squeezed it tight and I felt the warmth escape my bones inside
We saw a storm from far away and we laughed as it wandered by
Then it turned around to hunt us down
So we ran away to hide and she said:
Love don’t leave me now
Love don’t leave me now
Her heart was beating fast and I hoped that we could stay
In our hiding place where it was warm snd cold could not invade
We laughed aloud and talked of things that happened yesterday
But the storm could hear our voices clear
So it came on its way and she said:
Love don’t leave me now
Love don’t leave me now
Well, lives and love won’t last if they won’t face the day
Will you answer this, she said and I hoped it was just a game
But I saw her skin change before me and cold became her face
So I took my hand from hers and began to walk away
Love don’t leave me now
At first I thought oh hey, another sweetly depressing song for Gabe and Leah but then wait, I am wrong. It's actually a sweetly depressing song for Kai and Lei. Ha. Take that, Muse.
Marble Sounds-The Time to Sleep
You're falling in a lower gear
A little rest is what you need
You're rolled up on the seat
Your arms around your knees
We met by chance, talked on the phone
We kept in touch
I took you home
Sure, it proves we get along
And it will only get better from now on
We found a place to which we drive
And I offer you the time
To sleep - to dream
To wake up when we arrive
A Yohan and Medea from my other book DreamWalkers, in how Yohan's music lulls her to sleep and chases her nightmares away.
In Bokura Ga Ita, one of my favorite angsty mangas there is a line that I both feel for and hate with the burning hatred of a thousand suns,
"When you are met with two people who are drowning. Who would you choose? I choose the one who can't swim"
The main male character Yano gives this question to explain his choices about the two woman in his life, one who he thinks of as strong and the other who is in a weaker state of mind.
Guess who he chose.
What kills me is, he chooses whatshername solely for guilt and misguided repsonsibility, and he justifies his choice in abandoning the girl that he actually love by saying, "She's strong. She's stronger than her, even stronger than me."
As if being strong means that one will just get over the hurt and carry on.
And to further the hurt is that his misunderstanding of the word strong. It's not that the strong are impenetrable to hurt or pain, they feel it, but they just don't show it.
Admittedly, Yano is twisted by his mother and his cheating dead ex-girlfriend, and that one of the qualities that he loved from Takashashi is her strength that enables her to be so giving, so compassionate and so cheerful despite the odds and to his thoughts, despite the kind of person that he is.
But what Yano doesn't understand is that kind of strength doesn't come from thin air; it comes from practice, from keeping up a smile in the hopes that for just one second that smile will be genuine. That kind of courage comes from having to face one's trouble head on and living through the wounds. That kind of compassion comes from having injuries and hurts that once gaped bloody and are now scars.
And that killed me, it killed me that Yano doesn't understand that and left Takahashi who, yes admittedly, was able to move on without him, at least on the surface.
But inside, inside she is still that seventeen year old girl, waving her boyfriend goodbye at the train station with only a promise to hold onto.
