elvis ain't dead

The other night I found myself sitting in an old coffee shop at 3 in the morning sharing bowls of bak kut teh and mugs of soya bean with a group of boys who I used to sit with during recess back when I was in school. It’s been a few years, but all of us got along so easily - for a moment, right there and then, I swear I could’ve been 17 years old and wearing a school uniform again. It was so nice to see these boys - they listened to the stories I told about going to university in Edinburgh, and they told me all about army life and bits and pieces of “you’ll never guess what I heard” gossip about the people we all used to go to school with. It was nice. It was so, so nice. I shared a taxi home with one of the boys, and the entire way we had so much to talk about we almost didn’t breathe! I climbed into bed that night feeling surprisingly nostalgic for the old days. 

Last night, my brother, his girlfriend and I sat on a beach in Sentosa and drank potent lychee vodka shots and homemade strawberry margaritas out of a bucket. Lots of people thought that it was a waste of our money because we hung around outside on the beach for a long time instead of going in, but in the short time we were inside, we had an absolutely mental time! We were totally hammered, we were wasted off our faces. The three of us also looked like a walking advertisement for glowsticks.. It was awesome. All of a sudden it started pouring with rain - you know, the kind of rain you only ever get in the tropics. So it started to bucket down, and we started to scream and dance and rave and the crowd went insane! the crowd was having the absolute best time of their lives. Avicii was ridiculous. Hands down, it was the most amazing night. If I could turn back time and relive it all over again, my god!, I’d do it in an instant. You know, I can’t even find the right words to describe just how brilliant, how crazy, how friggin’ out of this world yesterday night was.

As we were leaving the beach, all of us were buzzing, we were going absolutely nuts. All of a sudden, there were you. You smiled awkwardly, and I was torn. It was you. You! My mind felt like a high-speed bullet train going at 240 miles an hour and there you were!, you were like a stainless steel wall right smack in the middle of my tracks and oh, you threw me completely off balance. Of all the people to bump into. Of all the places to bump into you at. It’s weird, but I was tempted to reach out and touch you just to make sure you were real and not a figment of my alcohol-poisoned mind. Later that night I met up with you again, and we sat in an empty outdoor cafe in the east drinking iced milo and smiling at each other. “You’re looking very freckly”, you commented, and when I sighed and blamed the sunshine you laughed and told me you liked it. I could’ve sat there all night and listened to you tell me about your life. When you had to leave, I wanted so badly to grab your hand and tell you not to go. But I smiled and gave you a hug, and you smiled and promised we’d meet soon. As I walked away, I kicked myself in the head for acting exactly how I would’ve acted two years ago. I tell people I’m different; that I’ve grown up. But last night, 21 year old Annabelle did the exact same silly things that 19 year old Annabelle would’ve done. Tell me, what is it about you that I can’t quite forget? What is it about you that makes me want to sit in the middle of nowhere and listen to you talk shit if it meant that I could sit next to you?

A little part of me knows full well that we won’t see each other again, and I don’t know if it should make me feel relieved or sad. Relieved, because last night I was drunk and irrational and I suppose I thought I missed you?, but now I’ll never know for sure. Or maybe I should feel sad, because goddammit!, this part of my life was supposed to have ended two years ago, yet here I am thinking and wishing and wondering about you like no time’s passed at all. 

I think life works like this: you spend a long time wanting something; you spend a long time coming up with the perfect scenarios, the perfect people, the perfect things you’re going to say. And when the perfect scenarios go totally off track, and when the perfect people turn out to be huge disappointments, and when you find that you’re always too drunk to remember the right things to say, you think - one day my life will work out exactly the way I want it to.

For as long as I can remember, there have been two things that I’ve spent my whole life searching for. The first, is to find people who will want to love me in the same terrifying, ferocious mind-numbing way that I want to love them. The second is to feel alive - so alive, that if my heart stopped beating it wouldn’t matter. Needless to say I haven’t been very successful at either, and every single time my heart breaks I think - one day my life will work out exactly the way I want it to.

The other day -and it was almost by chance really- but I was mooching through my facebook inbox when, lo and behold, there you were. I couldn’t believe my eyes - you’d found me. I must’ve read your message through at least, I don’t know, 5 or 6 times. I couldn’t believe it. Here I was in Singapore, thinking that this time last week, I kissed you goodbye at the corner of Leicester Square and never thought I’d see you again. This time last week, I watched the sun rise across Chelsea Embankment and silently hated how cruel life had been to send a person like you my way, then take them away quite abruptly. But there you were, and you wanted to see me again when I was back in London, and all I could think was, my god!, I’ve managed to do it right for once.

Tomorrow evening I’m going to a beach party to get hammered, happy, sweaty, sandy and watch Avicii spin.. Bring out the apple sours! In 3 days, I’m flying to Melbourne for the highly-anticipated and long-awaited reunion with the craziest bumblebee in the entire universe, and even though it’s going to make us pee in our pants, WE’RE GOING TO GO SKY DIVING!! In 16 days, and I still can’t really believe I’m going to be doing this, but in 16 days I’m going to fly to Vietnam for 4 weeks to live life à la backpacker and volunteer with a children’s charity in Ho Chi Minh. Madness!

I think life works like this: the moment you stop waiting for something to happen, something happens. It’s ridiculous, it’s so unfair. But the moment you stop wishing your life was a little more exciting, opportunities you never expected get thrust your way. The moment you stop searching for love in every stranger who passes you on the street, a handful of pretty cool guys suddenly, randomly, “just so happen” to wander in your direction. It’s early days, of course, but for the first time in such a very, very long time, the bleak future is looking awfully bright. Till then X