Being the Last

Today, my 2nd of 3 cousins have left and I’m in the final stretch of my vacation with only 7 days to go. In 5 more days, my last cousin will leave and 2 days afterward, it will be my turn to depart. It seems like on every vacation, I always end up being the last one to leave and thus, I have to see everyone go before me. This is kind of a morbid comparison to the elderly who live long, but have to see all their family and friends go before them, LOL. I have to be the one to watch tears and muffled voices every time since I’m the last to return home. Although I have learned to control my emotions a lot better within the past few years, usually by the time I return home to Ontario, there’s a good period of post-holiday depression – making me wonder whether it’s a good idea to even go on vacation in the first place 😛

This vacation has been fairly ordinary with my family and it’s not to downplay my enjoyment of my family-time and Hong Kong, but I definitely feel the fact bebe came to HK to spend a few days of me has been the highlight of this trip. As I’m flipping through my many digital pictures on my computer, I smile and feel so warm seeing those short, but beautiful days bebe and I had together. I am very grateful to her aunt and uncle who so generously gave her a place to stay and it being particularly important factor whether bebe would come to HK at all. I certainly hope they will come to Ontario one day where I can return the favour. They can certainly rest assured as well that I will do my best to take care of bebe in the future and treat her well.

I’m at over a thousand pictures already and have no consolidated pictures taken on other cameras yet. I am quite satisfied with the numbers of products I have been able to test this trip and have taken pictures and written down notes for my review(s). Perhaps on my next trip, there will be newer products or a chance for me to tackle the more “optional” ones. By the next trip, I hope to visit Taiwan, Beijing and if bebe is available as well, I’d love to visit Malaysia. I hope by then we will also be on better terms and on the road to a flourishing/successful relationship.

Today has been a sad day for one of my cousins on my mom’s side. We met her for dinner tonight as she will be leaving on vacation and won’t be back until the night before we leave (which means she won’t have time to catch us), but I found her in a very sour mood today. As we sat down at the restaurant, she didn’t say much and just watched one of the series that was playing on TV. It was a firefighter series, so this episode, one of the “scenarios” was of a girl trying to commit suicide. After a minute of watching that scenario, she ran out of the restaurant crying and I was thinking to myself, “How shit, the series wasn’t THAT depressing/emotional was it?” Then I held her as she cried and only after the crying/sobbing was over, that I found out just this morning, one of her friends had committed suicide.

Hearing about something like this happen is quite tragic and unfortunate. This particularly hit home because this person died because of love. It isn’t “uncommon” per se to hear about this, but just the other day bebe and I had a conversation about this when I was telling her how serious I felt about her. I’m honestly not sure how rational of a person I am, I mean, when bebe was ignoring me and stuff, I felt like I wanted to die. I’m not going to debate the merits of suicide and whether killing yourself over love is a particularly smart thing to do, but honestly, it is not that I have not thought about it before. The feeling of relationship problems are crushing and even I mentioned to bebe that I would actually feel hurt enough to kill myself if we lost our relationship. Now suffice to say feeling something is different than actually carrying it out. Nevertheless, I was trying to convey to her that my feelings for her are real and strong, that she is certainly is as important as life itself.

Some might feel that killing oneself for the sake of love is foolish, but anyone who has ever been hurt by love know the pain of it. The thought of this was just very interesting given that I had just talked about this a week ago with bebe and how I’m serious about her, not just playing around and that I’d likely contemplate (or have contemplated) killing myself before over her. When you love someone deep enough, it just seems like you can’t imagine the world without them. As I recall from stories of my parent’s past, my dad said the same thing to my mom when they were courting. I think it’s a sure sign of true love when the feelings are so strong that one’s life can be compared with a want of a loved-one. When I sit here and think about how lucky I am and thanks to bebe’s persistence that we were able to meet in HK, I truly feel blessed.

The only thing in the past few years that have made leaving more bearable is the fact I’m returning more often than before. Knowing that I plan to return to home to see my family and friends here every 2 years makes it much easier to leave with a smile and not sorrow. I used to cry every time someone left or I left, but now that I have the financial capacity to return on a regular basis softens the blow. Making small trips here and there or having family/friends come visit me back in Ontario also really helps curb that feeling of loneliness and being far away and heck, the internet with VoIP and Webcam has brought people 20,000 km’s away stay connected and feeling close. Whenever I want to see my cousins or family, I just smack on the webcam, stick on the headset and I feel like I’m sitting right next to them!

It sucks that in a few days, I’ll have to leave the comfort behind, but I think I’ve been spoiled for long enough already! I need to head back to Ontario where my life is normalized and where I’m not spoiled out of my mind by the ease of things being available at my beckon. I find I cherish my family, friends and locations much more when I don’t overdo it. Seeing people one-too-many times lessens the excitement and staying in Hong Kong for a bit too long dries out the “hype” of being here, so the best things in life comes in small, yet enjoyable quantities 😀