Looking Back in Anger

I think, deep inside, all of us know this: at the end of the day, the most precious thing in life is not fulfilling one's grandest ambitions, achieving wild popularity, or even doing great works of charity. The most precious thing is to be comfortable in your own skin; to be at peace with yourself, the people around you and the general scheme of things.

Even though I am a passionate person by nature and covet many things, in my quieter moments I recognise that the drama and spectacle of life is very much in my mind. And in such moments, I like to think that I am ultimately content with who I am and what I've gotten out of life.

Yet, it only takes the smallest reality check to realise that there is still a great deal of unhappiness buried within; that there are wounds that haven't healed and things I will never come to terms with. To some extent, I will always be on the run from people I once knew. Not because of any closet skeletons--there are none--but simply because many of these people only knew the work-in-progress I once was, and assumed it was the finished product.

Well, this product is still far from finished, and that doesn't make things any easier. Last week at lunch, I self-consciously avoided two previous acquaintances. One waved to me from a distance; I waved back and walked in the opposite direction. Another happened to sit down right across table I was eating at, but I kept my head buried in my bowl of noodles, pretending not to notice. A few days ago, I was forced by circumstance to acknowledge a large group of ex-schoolmates. Until that incident, I looked back on the years I spent with them with some fondness. But the sheer discomfort and indignity that raced through my skin as I answered them made me realise that any fondness was an illusion caused by time and distance.

Some might say that it's my own fault that things have come to this. Others might say that I'm merely imagining the antagonism and awkwardness in these encounters. To some extent, both these conjectures are true. But there are some dynamics in social relationships that are just unfortunate, unfair and irreconciliable. Some people experience this acutely; some never do and blame the people who suffer for causing their own misery. Life is just capricious in that way.