Remember a time when fights were easy to resolve? Like the Chinese New Year of 1990 when your sister teased you endlessly about losing all your money in the Fish Prawn Crab Dice Game, making you cry in front of all the relatives? You were furious, ready to disown her, but by day's end, all was forgiven. Well, maybe not forgotten.
Or when you were in 3rd grade and your best friend was absent, and the girl with the elastic rope excluded you. Your other friends chose the rope over you, leaving you to wander the playground, wishing for your best friend's return or your own elastic rope to fit in. The next day, your best friend was back, and suddenly, none of it mattered as handball became the new trend.
Remember 8th grade, when you had a fallout with a friend and vowed never to speak again? Yet a year later, you slowly made up, and it felt like she had never left your side.
Or when you broke up with your first boyfriend and he dated someone else the very next day. You told him, "Go out with that skinny goat, I don't care!" But when he did, it hurt deeply. You ignored him for years, and now, you just smile when you see him, completely over it.
And that time when someone you were infatuated with decided he didn't want you in his life anymore. You obsessed over him for two years, only to become friends again and he has become a good friend who will likely be in your life for a long time.
How about when you thought your boyfriend's ex could be a friend, only to find out she had you on her ICQ invisible list? You confronted her childishly, but unpredictably, she became one of your dearest friends, and now you go to her to complain about your present love life.
Remember your massive crush on that new friend? You were sure he was equally smitten. But after a blow-up post-year 12 Formal, you thought the friendship was done for, but he eventually came around and started chatting again. Now, he doesn’t even recall why he was mad, and when you ask why he tolerates your nonsense, he just shrugs and says, "I don't know." It’s the perfect answer because he doesn’t need a reason to care for you.
Those moments felt like the end of the world, but now they're the threads that weave the fabric of your life.
And then there's the time you lost your first love. Months apart, you feel like you haven't recovered, even regressing to square zero, wishing to go back to when you were together. You're scared of being stuck in this limbo, trying to fix things but making them worse, trying to hold him close but pushing him further away. Moving on feels impossible because every new guy has something wrong: too desperate, too short, too old, too young, too dull, too nice.
So here you are, sitting at work, wondering when you'll finally say, "Remember when everything went wrong with that boy, but now I know I'm still special to him."