Bitter.

Bitter would entirely encapsulate everything that has happened in 2012. I'd just be one of those pathetic losers who want nothing but sympathy if I were to say that nothing good has happened in the year. Sure, I've met two wonderful girlfriends, I've kept two other amazing friends (although one moved overseas) even though we're all busy in our own ways, I've got to travel three times this year to wonderful places, picking up experiences along the way that brought along memories that I now hold so close to my heart. I've had good times but the bad times have thoroughly obliterated any fragment of sporadic joy that I had encountered. I was apprehended by pain, anger, sadness, confusion and darkness. I was so lost in a jungle crawling with predatory carnivores biding for any chance to swallow you whole. I was chewed up and spit out many times over, never learning my lesson. Each time, I served myself up to be tread upon and walked over again. It has turned me bitter. Bitter, twisted and full of hate. 
The girl that started 2012 was so full of drive. Excitement encapsulates her. She looked forward to finally being able to break out of her shell, to kick start her life with all her grandiose plans. She anticipated a chance to meet strangers whom she would turn to friends. She foresaw a second go at things that she had messed up back when secondary school just started. She embraced new experiences with her arms as wide as they could get. She was so sure everything was going to work out they way that she had wanted to. She was so certain that she would only be handed great experiences, wonderful friends, positive lessons, a handful of admirers to pick out someone that she had always yearned for and a wonderful life ahead. She was happy, confident, self-dependent, loving and a lady.

Her first new, exciting experience was having to work. Being a pampered child, everything was so new to her. Having to wash dishes, having to deal with unreasonable customers, having to take on the role of serving others was on the complete other side of the spectrum that she had always been on. She took everything in her stride. Some days she'd be so worn out from working that she just wanted to just give up. However, on most days, she was enjoying herself, having something useful to do with her life as opposed to wasting her life away. I would go as far to that she almost became a workaholic at some point, taking on 12 hours shifts but she was loving every second of it. Very soon, a new school term was starting and she had to leave that place. She couldn't bear to leave and so she tried to stay on as much as she could, juggling school and work. It was tough but she got by.
What if she had left when her time was up? She could have avoided that one person that would be the first of an onslaught of events to completely flip her world the wrong way around.
Ultimately, she decided that she would stop working for now and concentrate on her studies, with high hopes of returning during her holidays. For all that, a dapper young man walked in one night while she was cleaning up the shop. He was here for an interview. Days later, he started work as an assistant manager. He was a young man blessed with boyish good looks, a lean figure that was subconsciously slouched most of the time, too fair-skinned to be a Malay yet too dark-skinned to be a Chinese. Whenever he smiles, crinkles appeared at the corner of his eyes as they seem to almost disappear. She admired him from afar for a while, often gushing about how good-looking he is with her co-worker.

One night, they worked a closing shift together. It was a relatively slow night at the night with barely any customers patronising the shop. She striked up a conversation with this young man and without warning, she let slip on how she thought he was really cute. He covered his face and turned away, which she later would find out that it was out of embarrassment. To pass the slow night, they started fooling around with the tongs on the counter, clipping each others arms, untying each others aprons, poking at each others' tummy. It was safe to assume it was just harmless flirting. After all, if you had seen an attractive boy, you would do the same wouldn't you? When the momentary dumb fun wore off, he took out his iPhone and started scrolling through his Facebook feeds. She peeked over at his phone and took a quick glance as well.

He asked, "Do you have Facebook?".

She took his phone, searched herself on Facebook and added herself via his account. In her heart was that little wave of happiness brought about by the novelty of having an attractive guy on Facebook, and the thought of being able to look through his pictures. But in that moment, butterflies also started to flutter around in the pits of her being. Young, restless souls they were and soon, boredom filled the air again. This time, the mischievous her took his iPhone and started to disable it. Once, twice, thrice. Soon, it became disabled for over an hour, way past the time she was supposed to knock-off. As a playful punishment, he made her stay with him until his phone was abled again even though it was past the time she was supposed to get off work. She refused and he took her belongings as hostage and locked it up in his locker. She was left with no choice but to stay. Soon, it was time to close the shop up and they both got on with their own work. He kept mentioning how he was hungry as they tidied up the shop.

"Why don't you go get something to eat now? There's still food left in the kitchen", she said.

He kept brushing it off, saying he'll eat later. When they were finally done and he finally returned her belongings so that she could go home, he offered to ride her home on his motorcycle. She kindly obliged. As they were riding home, he mentioned that he was hungry. She asked if he wanted a dinner date. He said he didn't mind and so they rode past her house and on to a late dinner.

It was just a normal dinner between two people. They talked. Well, he did most of the talking. He told her about his rather eventful life. He asked about her life but, well, her life was safe and boring so she had nothing much to contribute. I'm going to roughly assume this was when she fell for him. She admired him for being so strong after all that he had gone through in his life at such a tender age. She looked up to him as someone who was courageous; a fighter. She held him in high regard because he was everything she wanted to be: strong.

He was a Malay (sidenote: I have nothing against Malays), a secondary school dropout, a smoker, 6 years her senior and working as an assistant manager in a bakery. She was a church girl who just graduated from secondary school with exceedingly good results and had her whole life laid out for her. This is going to sound really cliche and over-dramatic, but its almost like the story of Aladdin, I guess.

Labels: 2012, Life