read my mind

I lost my NRIC (National Registration Identity Card). Or so my mom thought. Truth is, I knew exactly where it was all along - in my drawer. Okay, maybe there were a few moments where I thought I'd really lost it. I decided today that I'd prove my mom wrong, and finally got down to hunting my IC down. See the thing is, I'm going to Hong Kong in July, and my passport is dreadfully expired (Oct 2003!). So I made an online application for a new one (one of those bio-metric passport with your face actually printed into the cover), and will require my IC to prove I am who I say I am.

But it seems that in searching for this piece of plastic which is supposed to dictate who I am, I took a journey of self-retrospection. See, the drawer it was in contains all the stuff I thought important at some point in life since moving to Bishan at the end of 2002. In it, I found ticket stubs to movies, concerts, musicals and plays, some of which I have absolutely no recollection today. Yes, I am one of those secretly slovenly people who don't show it on their person (unless, horror of horrors, it does show on my person!). Hmm...

It was the cards and notes, however, that spoke to me. These were written to me by the people I was close to then (some I'm still close to now, thankfully). My past, one that I'd somewhat forgotten, came back. Then I realised how much I've changed since junior college, and yet also how much I'm still the same. When I finally laid eyes on that pink rectangle, it was like a revelation. The person in the photo was Ryan How at 15, in the year 2000. It may not be who I am right now, but it is me, at some place in the continuum. I sure hope my future is somewhere good...

I've always believed that a person is formed by everyone they meet, by every little utterance and event that he comes across. In this way, I believe that my friends, past and current, are very much the reason why I am who I am today. This is a thank-you to all of you, who provide the hits to my blog (yes I'm starved for attention), who've sent cards or notes (also including the tags on the tagboard!) letting me feel like I'm not just an invisible presence.

I used to feel that if I made new friends, I'd lose the ones I already have. But time has proven otherwise. These friendships last over time, over distance, still feeling fresh and surprisingly new at times. Maybe I still feel the same way about making new friends. I'm still not the social butterfly you see clicking with just about anybody, but maybe it's time to be more open about it. After all, isn't a friend a stranger you've come to know and love?

posted by Ryan at 11:46:00 pm