And I told him, being alone is better than being in love…
It was always during the intimate moments when we were to part, when the best conversations were exchanged. Like a beacon of light.
There I was, lying in bed with him, with my head on his chest. He needed to leave for the airport soon. Even though we had gone through this process time and again — him coming to Singapore to see me and then flying elsewhere or returning to Hong Kong, and then coming back again — over and over, goodbyes were always so, so damn hard.
“Maybe being alone is better than being in love,” I said as I turned my head to look at him. “Because being in love could bring so much more pain and suffering.”
I could see tiny red lines encroaching the white of his grey-blue eyes.
“But being alone only brings you down with its loneliness, you know, down, down, down,” he replied with some hand gestures. “Being in love brings you down sometimes, but then it brings you up again. Like a rollercoaster.”
“Well, that’s also true…”
“So it goes up and down, and up and down.”
“But the greater the joy, the greater the pain…”
“And I rather have it all, than nothing at all.”
“I guess in life, you need the lows so you will appreciate the highs when they come, right?”
He nodded slowly and smiled… and that made me smile too. At that moment, I was happy. I felt happiness albeit being sad, because of his comforting words. They were all that I needed.
Well, the pain in my chest was still there, but it felt so much more manageable already.
And then it’s time for him to go…
