the beginnings of a possible metamorphosis.
written: 5:08 p.m. on Thursday, Jul. 28, 2005

My dad talked to me last night about the whole Clarence thing. He (dad) freaked out the night before when he walked into my room and saw me talking on the phone and finding out - he asked who it was, I said it was a friend, he asked which friend and I just started grinning, like the genuinely awful liar that I am - that it was Clarence.

He couldn't sleep. Woke up at 3 a.m. thinking about it. Now I'm thinking, what's there to think about, really? It's not like I met him in some dark alley behind some dubious club, chain-smoking and speaking in broken Mandarin, horrendously bad English, spewing Hokkien vulgarities every two seconds. I wouldn't go out with anyone who's not worth my while, and I like to pride myself on my pretty good judgement of character. (The first boyfriend does not count.)

But hey, he's Dad. Parents are inherently paranoid. And wait, come to think of it, using the word 'talk' is a bit of a misrepresentation; 'talk' implies a two-way conversation in which both parties are fully engaged in airing their views, but in actuality it was a one-way traffic. He talked and I sat there and listened, and when I got up from the dining table to do the dishes, I had no idea what he was trying to say.

He said, It's not that I don't allow you to date; it's just that you're too young. You're not even in university yet but you're already going out with this guy, whom I don't have a good impression of to boot. That's why I'm upset.

I think, Um, so I can date but you take issues with me going out with this guy purely based on your impression of him, which is, by the way, purely biasness and nothing more, and that I'm not in university yet, nevermind the fact that I'm only a few days away from it? Honestly Dad, I love you and everything, but huh? Confusion is the order of the day.

Will university change anything? I don't know. Parents expect you to go to university and find your "mate". They expect you to hold out for "someone better", to ignore your own (truthfully senseless) feelings "just in case" "someone better" comes along. They see the world through one point of view, and that's graduating safely with honours - with which I fully agree, but it is absolutely preposterous for them to expect me to put my academics before everything else, such that it becomes the one and only thing that I live for. There are people like that out there in the world and I feel such immense sympathy for them that they tempt me to buy all the copies of Before Sunrise/Before Sunset that I can get my hands on and generously distribute them to these unfortunate souls for the good of mankind. How can people live like that? It's like they're sitting back and watching their lives fly right past them; zoom, and then it's all over, and they're holding their doctorate and married to someone they'd eventually grow to hate and that's it, that's the beginning of a very long, tedious road towards the end. Your life speeds right past you and leaves you choking on its dust, and most of the time, you're completely oblivious to how pointless your life truly is. How sad is that?

I don't believe in the perfect person. I can make a list of all the attributes this perfect person will have, read the list every night before I sleep, dream of this person and will him into existence, but ultimately the truth will bite me in the arse: It's a lie. The perfect person didn't exist; doesn't exist; and will never exist. So what do you do? You go with how you genuinely feel, deep in your gut, what makes you smile when you wake up in the morning, what makes you go to bed happy at night. Fuck "what if"s, forget holding out for "someone better", because the present is as good as it gets.

This is how I feel about Clarence. I'm so going to regret this after I post it, but hell, it's nice to be honest for once, to feel like real human being and not a pretty, emotionless android on a perpetual head trip about how love is stupid, it doesn't exist, people who think they're in love are dumb, blah blah crap. I'm still cynical, I'm still expecting things to go wrong, but I think, I kind of have to be; if not, I'd totally cease to be me. It's come to be something that defines who I am, tragic as it may sound; but thankfully, I'm not blinded to the extent of being unable to see what's right in front of me, and to deny what I honestly feel.

I'm turning into a sap. Hmm, interesting. I told Mel today whilst hanging out in her room that I think I'm becoming clingy (which is soooo unattractive and unglam) and she was like, "YOU??? CLINGY????"

Yes, Mel, I concur, but what's to be done about that? Hopefully my insecurities and paranoia will completely stop when I have Law-related things to obsess over. I mean, I don't like clingy guys; they scare me away the minute they open their mouths and go, "Yelen, I absolutely cannot live without you. You're the reason my heart beats, the air that I breathe, the queen of my heart." Blah blah blah. Some girls may find that sweet but I find it fucked up as hell, so suffocating that the guy might as well be carbon dioxide.

And I really don't want to be all, "Oh Clarence, I can't live without you!" Not only is it absolutely out of character, it is also totally abhorrent, purely because I don't like it. I don't know if he's into such things (are you?) but it disturbs me when I find myself tending towards such...trends. I'm a bit of a feminist, though not a stark-raving fanatic, and I believe in my own strength, that I can provide for myself thankyouverymuch, that I don't need a guy in my life to validate it, blah blah blah, and so it's absolutely disturbing when an amazing guy comes along and threatens to derail all of that. I used to laugh at girls who go all nuts when some guy they like/are going out with/whatevever don't call them, don't SMS them, only reply to their SMSes after like three hours, yadayada, but now? I can so totally relate.

Isn't that scary? It freaks me out if you want to know the truth. I don't know if I can successfully partition my brains into two general camps, the Clarence camp and the non-Clarence camp, let alone if I can switch off the Clarence camp at will and focus on sub-camps in the non-Clarence camp - namely, Law-related stuff when school starts. I hope my parents are WRONG. I really do.

Okay, that's it. I'm done talking about this. So much more I want to say, but...not here.

Wait a minute, I was talking about my dad and how I still have no idea where he stands on things. Well, isn't he just weird??!?!?!?! Annoyingly weird. Ugh wish I didn't love him so much.

Oh my god, I spelled refrigerator wrongly yesterday. And I didn't realise it at all until I pasted my entry on MS Word.

I suck.

before sunrise // before sunset


Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010