I woke up bright and sprightly and completely itchless thanks to the anti-histamine pills I took. Thank you all for your advice and your company in some way or other whether it is on my fb wall, msn or just happy gossip that keeps me occupied and unitchy! Seeing how the skies are a lovely carolina blue outside complete  with a sinfully delicious dose of chick -fil-a has cheered me up exceedingly, I shall blog about my long overdued post of how Patrick and I met.

Brace yourselves for a bit of a scrolljob 🙂

Before Patrick, I never really endeavored to commit in relationships nor was approved to have any by my parents who insisted that I focus my attention parameter on my education. Needless to say, most were superfluous flings and insecure flirtations perhaps a couple of boyfriends scattered around without any long term commitment. At the risk of bragging, my track record includes 2 jewish law students one from Harvard and the other from Wash U, a hotass Japanese guy from Kyoto University law school and perhaps less impressively so, a pastor’s son.

Believe it or not there was no deliberately attempt at dating law guys, au contraire as with most trivialities in life I didn’t give half a rat’s ass. I immensely enjoyed our intellectual conversations and the company was most refreshing as was the social networkng between our peers but it was difficult for two students to have a long distance relationship. Law students with wealthy yakuza/jewish parents or not, one thing remained. They had their school schedules and I had mine, regretfully these clashed and once seeing each other became a herculean task tempers flared and patience were lost, tears were shed and we had to break it off.

The world was too big to sustain our appetite for each other.

Curiously in the fall of 2005, I met Patrick on myspace a social networking site akin to facebook. Not unlike now I was just as obsessed with embellishing my profile and checking out the whos and whats online. Funny enough I decided to check out the NUS network to see if I knew anyone on it to add to my growing friend’s list. See. Inconsequential rubbish like that irk me. Like many impressionable women ( and girls ) out there, I found a random girl’s profile and clicked on it only because I thought she was hot.  So scrolling through her profile I saw a guy on her top 10 friend’s list thingy and hey ho he is hot!  Shrugging, I clicked on his profile and sad to my utmost disgust that he was a sailor. And an old one at that!

I’ve always had bad impressions of military men; their reputation of sleeping with women at the ports they pull into or tall tales of them having illegitimate kids running around they dont know of reinforced by plays like Miss Saigon. As a student of political science specializing in military studies in the far east I was only too aware of young, hot blooded ( handsome nonetheless)  marines running amok in Okinawa, murdering the innocent populace and raping their female offspring. NOT the most flattering picture of them huh. Obviously there was always the exception of the rule but its hard to take your chances when faced with the challenge of pessimism and a paranoid media.

Suffice to say, I never mustered up enough courage to talk to any just because I am reserved when talking to strange men nevermind rowdy sailors, intimidating enough with their brashness and big group of friends. I’ve always secretly thought that I am somewhat of a social inept, awkward at social gathering and too impatient for small talk. To be fair, I did do a fair bit of oggling and girlish giggling with my girlfriends but rarely did we try to spark anything. I was also tired of this long distance bs and was not about to begin another.

In my voyeuristic exploit I also saw that he lived in texas. As few of you may know , my college football allegiance belong to the USC Trojans. Forever and always. That year was a fluke win for the Longhorns who won the Trojans at the very last second damning me to the pits of football angst for the next couple of days. I hated Texas. And I still harbor a deep suspicion of the denizens of the lone star state that teeters on the border of dislike most days. Anyway I also saw that he was a smoker. I’ve sworn never to date anyone to smoke because I hate the smell of cigarettes to the fricking core. My momma told me once to never harbor such strong dislikes because fate will play a mean trick on you and you will fall in love with a man like that. Yep that came true although he later quit for me.

In spite of myself he was cute so I chatted him up and we started talking all through winter and Spring. This was about the same time as my application for the work and travel program. When I got selected to participate I chose to work at Dulles airport in Virginia, a cheerful coincidence that Pat’s house is about an hour’s commute from. Thus began our courtship every weekend I’d stay at his place and the poor devil would drive a total of 2 hours on thursdays and sunday nights. Our fletching love took flight literally with me flying to and fro Singapore, Maryland every time there was some sort of break be it december for a month, march for a week, summer, or 2 weeks in fall. We’ve spent a whopping 15 grand on air tickets so far, the cost of our mini cooper.

Crazy.

But it had to be this way. Surely there are couples out there who elope for more noble reasons but we are not all alike for our circumstances and desires differ greatly. Ambitiously, I felt I could ride it out and I was sure our relationship was sturdy enough to see through this. I took a chance on my relationship but it was neither flippant nor callous.I did not want to short change ourselves or my parents by running away from home leaving a trail of angry tears, broken hearts and sheer disappointment.

Neither did I want them to blame my prospective husband for my actions that I had full prerogative over. Thankfully he was as supportive and adamant about me staying in college , so we resolve that I would complete my education before anything. I refuse to let all that I’ve worked hard for go to waste and I loved what I was doing in school, I enjoyed the mental stimulation of our discussions,  the university scholars program also provided ample opportunities that I did not want to miss out on.

For sure there were moments I was ready to fling it all behind and catch the next plane out to Baltimore and get married. But I wanted to start off our marriage right with the blessing of my parents, and also earn my degree that I had invested much time and money into. Indeed the parentals were quite unhappy that I was engaged to a sailor of all things, and white and so much older although they were supportive enough to come for the wedding. Happily my mom and dad eventually realized this chinese new year how much Patrick truly cares for me.

Then his iraq deployment came and I was hysterical for about 3 hours in the USP lounge room surrounded by amazing friends who talked me out of my self pity. My ISM professor, Matthias also helped a lot in talking sense in me bless his heart. So I got back on my feet and trooped on even though the stress was unbelievable. It was the stress of doing 6 modules, one of them a mini thesis of 6,000 words and another a language module ( french ) while planning a wedding overseas. I was also the stage manager for our usp drama production, saving grace and also a participant of the EU-ASEAN conference, and aside from all that I also planned a short trip to Siem Reap, Cambodia with my Norwegian friend ( hello Tanya! ).

My final semester came and went, then for 3 weeks we had to embark on our conference to Jakarta, Bangkok, Brussels and then to Paris. Incredibly tiring made even more exasperating but the lack of communication because for some reason the european network didnt hold up long distance well enough ( their workers are perpetually on strike maybe thats why) . Of course I was still charged for the shitty phone calls from Pat that will hang up most unpleasantly in the middle of a conversation. The bill came up to a whopping $900 half of which was forked out from my dad after waging a tirade at a very repentant me, and the other was paid by Patrick.

Anyway all this while I’ve been liasing with my mother in law, Patty in Portland who did a lot of the wedding planning and spent a lot of money on our one day celebratory affair. The stress of planning a wedding was unlike anything because this is my special day and like most, if not all hope to do this once and for all. Of course if we didnt have a wedding, my stress load would be severely ridden but Pat and I wanted a wedding even though I often talk about marriage being an institution ( which it is! ). We felt that after all the shit we’ve been through we deserve one other , and also to thank everyone who has been so supportive and as a signal of how much we value the commitment of marriage, a sacred promise to ourselves.

Thankfully everything fell into place when I got to Portland, it helped that Patty is illustrious and quite diligent in her appointments and organization skills. We were able to finalize everything down to the minute details of table decorations in about the 3 weeks I was in Portland before flying over to Baltimore in the advent of my fiance’s return from Iraq.

Its been a hell of a 3 years since Pat and I met but I would not trade any moment of it for an alternative. Except for the a smattering of fights and quarrels, we have been happy, relishing the moments of muted joys in our domestic idle. Needless to say I miss my friends and family in Singapore more than I can ever say because these people were there in the toughest of times and I am not one to forget my loyalties and familial allegiances. Sadly, our time in Maryland is whittling by the days. In pursuit for military classes he leaves for florida in about 1 and a half weeks. Faced with the emptiness of a house that was our lives intertwined from the moment we started us and as the hollowness of the house echoes deep into my night I shall be desolate, and lonelier so in my new bed of a futon.

But a new beginning in Japan beckons with the prospect of a better life ahead so I will take heart.

Its easy to read all this like a novel but to actually be living it or grappling with the sheer temerity of possibly messing up your wedding and wondering if things will turn out good is another thing altogether. Id like to quote Philip Roth aptly on that:

« terror of the unforeseen is what the science of history hides, turning a disaster into an epic ».

I love you, Patrick.