Surprise

Surprise  28 nov

I was confused. Dumbstruck. Suspicious. Too much happening suddenly too unexpectedly and all at the same time.  I went downtown today, even though it was a Sunday, because my friend has been asking me to come help him pack up his things to move away. I sat in the office a while and waited and waited, and suddenly at six in the evening he rang me and asked me to meet him at his apartment.  So I went, and another friend with a car was there too. Instead of packing things and tidying up his apartment, he went to get a Christmas tree from his storage space, and said we needed to be quick, as another friend was waiting for us at my place. Waiting for us? At My place?

To decorate the christmas tree? How come I'm only hearing about this now? I became suspicious and kept asking what was going on, but my friends were vague or elusive in their replies.   Suspicious as I was, I also felt  somewhat 'bad', because my house was a complete mess, as I've just been too busy with my work and the surprise gift for my friend I've been working on. And also because of my still healing thumb, I've not been able to do much housework, especially the dishes (not that normally my house is that clean either...).

And I felt bad also because i've been trying to invite this other friend  to dinner at my place for a while now, but he never had the opportunity. And now suddenly i hear he's waiting at my door, whereas I have not much to offer him on terms of food... We loaded the car and headed to my place. Barely had we unloaded, this friend who was already waiting for us to head back called me and told me to go to the supermarket to meet him. I went to the supermarket, but was so eager to get back. I needed to cook and try to make my house at least half decent to receive guests, but for the next half an hour or so I wandered around the aisles with this friend who kept on looking at various products and telling me how things are cheaper where he lives, or telling me the ingredients of this or that foodstuff. I was very anxious. It took great effort to eventually drag my friend out of that supermarket, and if I weren't rushing home, he would have wanted to go to another store to look at prices...

Anxious I opened the door. My ex was sitting on my couch talking on the phone. I felt a bit hurt, as I assumed he used the time I was away at the supermarket to quickly chat with the guy he is seeing. It was only when I got into the kitchen did I realise everything come together. My dining table had been placed in the centre. On it were various foods and a chocolatey cake, and gathered around the table were my friends.

"Surprise!!!" It sure was one, but I still could not figure out why, until my ex pointed to the cake and drew attention to the fact that written on a piece of chocolate in white icing was my name and "space lawyer". It was all because a few days earlier, after much time spent slaving away, I finally (almost) finished my thesis. I was overwhelmed by the surprise and how so many people made the effort to come to my place (as messy as it is...) to shower me with wellwishes and congratulations.

I kissed my ex on the cheek when I realised what he had done to coordinate and clandestine organise all this. I was very touched,  because just trying to get people to come together and do things clandestinely takes a lot of effort and time. I know that.  "I hope one day I can do something like this for you..." I said. The irony was, I was also busy planning and coordinating a number of surprises for his birthday, and he managed to pull something off before me. The whole evening, we ate and chatted, and my friends wrote me a lovely card with all sorts of touching personal messages inside.

As happy and overwhelmed as I was, I later admitted perhaps it was all a bit premature, as my supervisor had not even reviewed my thesis, and being the oh-so-confident person I am, I wasn't sure whether what I have written was of good (or any!) quality. Together with a number of friends, we did eventually put up the Christmas tree to usher in the holiday season. This year, it will be the first time I'm really putting in effort to celebrate  ever since I  arrived in Canada.

And as the tree became more alive and colourful with lights and tinsels, I began to feel warm deep down inside and was looking forward to celebrate Christmas  in the company of people  I care about and love... At the time, though, seeing the tree also reminded me of how precious and how very fleeting those moments of being together, moments when all of us can gather under one roof, are going to become rarer and rarer as slowly people begin to move on in life, and move away...

That night, my ex stayed the night, as expected when we have gatherings at my place with our common friends. We lay in bed and chatted late into the night. Just friends, who used to be beautiful lovers. Just friends, between whom the intimacy and strong physical and emotional attractions seem to have been waning slowly. By choice, and I respect that choice, even though I cannot fully understand why, even though he tells me it's so hard to resist me. I leaned to one side and told him how lonely I feel at night, and expressed how strange it feels that within a matter of weeks, days all that intimacy has vanished. He told me not to lament what I don't have, but to treasure what I do have. He leaned over and stroked my body, touched my arms and hands, as if to prove the contrary.

True, I have a lot... Wonderful friends who would gather from everywhere to surprise me, I have a loving cat, a warm home and means to sustain myself and pursue my goals and dreams. I have so very much, too much perhaps that I do not always treasure or remember all that I have, or have had...

But I am human too, and I have been too deeply touch by love, spoiled by affection and attention that I yearn for it, that I at times suddenly wake up at night and lie awake for a while because i am afraid of the enptiness next to my bed.

My ex can tell me to treasure what I have, not miss what I don't have. Normally I would and tend to think like that, but coming from him, as well intentioned and genuine as the words were, it sounded strange. Are those the words of someone who has someone, who seems to have it all? Words from someone who has a best friend, a "soul mate" as he calls me now, in whom he can confide, and who also has a special someone he can sleep with and be intimate with at any time?  I should just count my blessings, dispel whatever sadness I may feel looking at the Christmas tree that was put up in my living room, exorcise whatever beautiful memories of the way we were or potential futures of the way we may be...

But for once in my life, close to Christmas time, I feel a little sour and bitter that everything on the outside, all that decoration, all that tinsel, all those beautiful lights, is so wonderful, so magical, and yet on the inside there is a void, an emptiness that echoes deep with yearning and affection. But we can never have it all.

Nothing is ever perfect. The world is just the way it is. And it is, or you must see it as, perfect that way.