Teen Angst Playlist

It is never easy to trust one’s intuition, especially when the best way you can describe it is by saying that “it is exactly like that scene from those romance movies or mangas where there is an intermission with a more illuminated scenery that just makes your heart feel light”.

A long-standing belief of mine was that I would never find love. This was simply because I thought my previously undeniable inability to withhold a substantial conversation; let alone a relationship, would permanently hold me hostage from possibly experiencing the high school heartthrob dilemma that I had valued and put on the highest pedestal...ever since I was able to grasp a faint idea of the complex concept of ‘love’. Albeit, time will always keep moving forward and subsequently, unravel a sequence of events that one could not possibly predict beforehand when there are infinite combinations of possible outcomes. The thoughts that passed through my head would usually revolve around society’s expectations on associations and self-image which would inevitably make me start to overthink to a clinically concerning level, yet deep down, I could not ignore the strings that were pulling on my already strained serving of hope that I had kept aside for love. The moment it all changed was when I had barely a month left in the school I was doing an exchange programme in.

Ever since I knew of the exchange programme, the so-called ‘heart warming’ feeling plagued my emotions, day and night, and all I could say was that I knew there would be someone entering my life; someone that would shift my life unforgettably. I had put a face to the feeling and even though I did not know his name, I was sure that he was the reason I kept on playing ‘Naked’ by Ella Mai on repeat. The social anxiety that I had developed over the years wouldn’t let me walk up to him and say “Hi”, until the fear my best friend chose to instil with her threat of she herself going to him to talk of how I had been staring at him ever since we had arrived, pushed me out of the comfort zone I was desperately tucking myself into. It was then that I pulled out the chair and sat next to him: my first love.

We talked for hours, starting with my basic, go-to, “What is your favourite colour, and why?”, then built up to how we imagine our life would be like in 10 years. I wanted to get a flat in downtown Tokyo, and he wanted to live somewhere in Europe. We had our own paths. I accepted that, and yet we both loved to travel and wanted to see as much of the world as we could before we settled down somewhere.

Was it too delusional for me to hold on to the fleeting thought I had in that moment – the thought that maybe, just maybe, we could live out our dream together?

I was not a pessimist; still not, but I also accept that sometimes, life tends to take its own route and whatever you do can not alter the natural course it was meant to take. It was how he would stay by me even when I told him that his leaving would not offend me, how him being quiet (which I personally liked, a lot) was not a problem since I never let the conversations die down (which he personally liked, a lot), and how he would sit outside with me when I went on my nightly stargazing hour while ‘Naked’ played in the background, even though the relentless cold of February’s winter pained his ankle which he sprained not too long ago while playing basketball. It was because of these small things, and many more, that I could not help falling in love with him.