I really am a fucking hoarder.

Like, woah, what’s wrong with me, man?!

Haven’t been feeling exactly well. Was looking for a piece of paper and opened the first drawer to the desktop table I use every, single day. It is amazing that I found so many things I didn’t know I still hoard.

Like, the casette tape where my buddy and I sang Wo Wu Suo Wei, when we were 16. It was like a torture device where we would play it for others to hear us crooning music-lessly, but that was what sealed our friendship.

Yes, I still have the River Valley writing paper?I used to write more than 10 pages per essay and everyone had to spare me a piece much to their annoyance cos I ran out of them ever so often (yes my long-windedness started young).I had a picture of my teaching colleagues in here, right next to my application form to contract teaching. I miss teaching, and I wonder how they are doing.

And then pictures. Lotsa pictures. Of people who mattered. From my teenage years to 2009. Many held smiles of hope, of youth, of love, of fearlessness. This shallow drawer stood to a standstill since then.

I found some primary school pictures of people who are still in my facebook list of friends.

And the painful sorry notes that reminded us we were many times hurt by others, various cards that hold innocent, laughable unfulfilled promises, naive writings of my once hopefulness (which I could almost imagine I wrote with starry-eyes and a twinkle in them). Words of joy, of peace, of being reminded that we are loved and thought of, which means nothing as time passes.

Pictures. That reminded us that when we were younger, we were much capable of loving.

I cried a little. I teared a little, but I never did manage to smile like the way I did in most of the pictures.

I asked myself as I see pictures of faces almost fading from my memories, and finding myself wondering how they are, are they well..

I even saw a picture of Shubin who had passed away when he was 21. Gee, it has been 10 years.

I opened the 2nd drawer, and there were more.

It was a sign of my coming of age. My first very major decision I took charge in my life. The very first strain of my rebellion showing us a glimpse of the stubbornness that will follow for the rest of my life.

My PSLE school selection slip. I chose everything on my own, without yielding to any influences, without considering anyone’s suggestions.

It was: 1st choice – Fairfiled Methodist, 2nd – Bukit Panjang Government High, 3rd – Nan Hua, Yusof Ishak, Yuan Ching… and I believe Swiss Cottage was somewhere in there, with Yuan Ching being the last choice on my list.

As the story goes, I didn’t get into any one of them.

I opened Pandora’s Box today. Maybe not the best idea of all.