it’s kind of sad if you don’t know the meaning…

We went out last weekend. Although the participants of this Saturday night bar hopping are usually variated, I still call it:

‘the usual program’ :

When everyone is slightly loaded with cash, we’d go to a typical Japanese restaurant slash bar (izakaya ) for dinner. If not, we just eat at home and then  hang out by the river and watch street performances until it gets cold.

After river, if the mood is right, we’d go dancing, usually at the two-story discotheque called Sam&Dave.

If they are not the dancing type, we’d go karaoke, simply because the karaoke here is amazing, with stages, mirrors, and cute waiters.

But for whatever mood we are in, we’ll always end up at ING rock bar, the small-stingy-yet-oh-great-music bar.

so, to sum up, the schemes are:

a. izakaya - river - ING

b. eat at home - river-ING-dance-ING

c. eat at home - river-ING-Karaoke - ING

d. ING - ING - ING - Ramen at 3 am because we are starving.

Last weekend was scheme b, plus a conversation with a cancer survivor.

He is in his late twenties, but just a year ago he was so close to death. Six months ago he did not have any hair from the chemo effect and I am delighted to see him back with short but thick brown hair all over his head.

You know, it is funny how when you talk to a cancer survivor or survivors from any serious illness, they would never share in a way you thought they would. You would expect a cancer survivor to tell you ‘don’t smoke’ or ‘eat fibers’ or ‘get regular check-ups’ or any of those sorts.

But no, he did not.

He sat on the bar stool next to me, still with his wet t-shirt from dancing. with his wide smile and intimidatingly optimistic eyes.

“You see, a year ago I was engaged and was buying a house together with my fiancee. After the cancer diagnose, she broke up with me” He started sharing.

I gasped. My eyes wide open, some lovely curse words are at the tip of my tongue.

He knew it was coming and stopped me.

“But we are not here to judge her, eh? She is her own person. Sure, it broke me and that sucks, but ey, life goes on, eh. She can do whatever she pleases. Seriously, no regrets whatsoever.”

I said “Sure”

“My point is, for as long as I can remember, I lived for others. I had a great job in UK and always busy thinking what was best for the job, for the company, which house to buy with her, took care of her, get family insurance, plan ahead, plan ahead. and then what happened? snap. in one night my life changed. How the hell do we know, right?”

I nodded. I haven’t stopped nodding for like 3 minutes, actually.

“I mean, you should take time for yourself. Every day, even just for 5 minutes, do something just for YOU”

He grinned widely and started jumping around the bar again.

The “usual program” was not so usual anymore.

If we look around and see what people do to feel alive, to feel complete, to feel that they are not wasting their precious life, we’ll find how different and how similar we all are. Like the Japanese who goes bananas to feel they are keeping their body shape (read: Japan goes bananas),

or maybe we are the kinds who feel the need to do brand new things every single day to feel alive. So you come up with a daily special to-do-lists like : ‘go ride an elephant’ or ‘go join karate club’

Or maybe you are more like me who thinks ‘learning’ new thing each day is more fulfilling than ‘doing’. So you have at your browser, the daily vocabulary, daily newsfeed, daily ‘how to’, and you’d listen to every ‘did you know’ stories. Therefore, you never mind the same usual weekend programs as long as you learn something new.

Or maybe we are the kind who does not even know what makes us feel safe and complete anymore?

Well, hold tight, lift that chin up. Because after all, it is not like we have to fight cancer.

~ by dhanio on October 23, 2008.