Here's an old song called Say Something Sweet To Your Sweetheart by The Inkspots. I imagine this is the type of song they would sing and play at those old piano bars where people dine in candlelight with their sweethearts.
"Say something sweet to your sweetheart
(Your sugar will be sweeter depends on how you treat her)
Tell her how much you care
(Take her in your arms and while you're thrilling to her charms, be sure to)
Say something sentimental, it won't cost a thing
(And before you know it)
You'll find what happiness a gentle word can bring
You can't hide those love words inside you
(Lock 'em up within ya and your love will be agin ya)
And still keep the one you adore
(Forever more)
So say something sweet to your sweetheart
And you'll be sweethearts forever more
Say something sweet to your sweetheart
(Roses are red, Violets are blue
Sugar is sweet, and so are you!)
Tell her how much you care
(Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall
He never got any lovin' at all!)
Say something sentimental, it won't cost a thing
(Not a single cent)
You'll find what happiness a gentle word can bring
You can't hide those love words inside you
And still keep the one you adore
So say something sweet to your sweetheart~~~
And you'll be sweethearts forever more~~~
(Sweethearts, you and I)"
So... say something sweet to your sweetheart today. It could be anything! "You smell good." "You have beautiful eyes." "Thank you for the wonderful dinner." "You look really pretty in that dress." Anything at all! It'll brighten his/her day.
You don't want to end up wishing that you had.
P.S. Not sure if I got all the words of the lyrics right, I did the best I could though. Feel free to let me know if you notice anything wrong :]
My best friend recently introduced me to an awesome new webbie, called listography.com. It's basically a site where you can make lists. It's so cool because I do keep lists... In fact, I have a book of lists: list of books I want to collect in the long term, list of movies I want to own, list of furniture I'd like for my future house... More importantly, I have a list of all the things I love about my ex as well as, err... embarrassingly, a list of some guys that I've had crushes on. Well, I guess I could say it's these lists that are the entire inspiration for this blog. I wanted to have a place to expand on the stories that some of the points in my list represent. I mean, the points on the list don't exactly tell the entire story... they just sort of act as retrieval cues for those memories that I wish to keep forever. I guess you could say that I'm sorta afraid I would forget these beautiful memories... Hmmmm, come to think about it, I often fear I may never make such beautiful memories again. So it's good to sometimes remind myself that I once experienced such wonderful times in my life...? Sigh...
Anyhow, I will soon make an account on listography and transfer my lists in my book into listography.com. So, you can look out for that! Well, today, without looking at my book, I was just pondering, off-hand, some of the things that I loved about my ex. Two things came to mind.
The first one. I loved how he always put most of his beansprouts in his noodle soup into my noodle soup whenever we went to Asian restaurants for noodle soup. He did it ever since I once told him how much I loved eating beansprouts. I think I should add that he too loves beansprouts in his noodle soup... and that's enough said.
The second one. We were lying in bed one night, talking, before we finally drifted off to sleep... I was gushing about how I was having a sudden craving for the wanton suppe that they sell in my hometown. (This was during the time when we were both studying and staying in the hostel of our school in Switzerland... It was where we met.) Fast forward to two weeks later... I was hanging out in my friend's room - Rosie's room. Some of us girls from my class were having a mini party because it was Rosie's birthday. We were chatting, having some cake, playing with balloons, sitting on her bed, drinking some red wine when suddenly, there was a knock on the door...
When they opened the door, it was Jack! He had a serious look on his face and he was looking for me. My face was slightly flushed from the red wine. "Ohhhh, you're in trouble Jenny!!" the whole room cheered teasingly as I went with him (We were still a fairly new couple at the time). When I was out, he said quietly, "You drank." It sounded more like a statement than a question. "Err.. yeah. Just a little. Just to celebrate Rosie's birthday, you know." Then, he looked at me, still with that serious-looking face and said, "Come with me." Then he held my hand and walked me to where he wanted to bring me. On our way, he suddenly asked, "Are you hungry?" "Not really," I replied. It seemed his face became a bit more serious that it already was. He did this thing with his lips that he always does - it's a little hard to describe, it all happens really fast... he sorta bites his bottom lip and slides his bottom lip from right to left... ah, nevermind.
We reached the recreation lounge - a place in the school with plenty of tables and chairs, a pool table and a vending machine. A bunch of his friends were seated round a table, actually, two tables... there were quite a few of them so they had to join two tables together and pull up the chairs from the other tables to gather round. Seems like they were having a mini party of their own. Two big pots were set on the table and they were all happily eating out of the bowls in their hands. Everyone smiled as they saw us approach. I felt so shy meeting all his friends... of course I'd seen them around school, and we'd hung out before too... but it just felt so weird at that moment... him bringing me into their little party. It almost felt like I was intruding, somehow.
"Come eat!" one of his friends started ladling the contents of one of the pots into a bowl for me. No prizes for guessing right, it was... wanton soup! It turns out that Jack had kept in mind that I had a craving for wanton suppe so that afternoon, he'd suggested to his friends to cook something that day, in particular, wanton soup. The other pot contained green bean soup, another one of my favourites. He and his friends had spent the entire afternoon and evening buying all the ingredients and preparing and cooking the food in the students' kitchen.
Frankly, I'd almost forgotten all about my prattle those nights before. Later that night, while we were once again lying in bed, talking, he told me why they'd cooked that night... because they never did cook, you see. Then I remembered and when I realised, I was soooo touched! My heart was leaping with happiness. I think I also figured out the reason for his serious-looking face: he was worried that after eating and drinking at Rosie's mini birthday party, I wouldn't have any more appetite for the wanton soup he and his friends had prepared (for me - even though his friends didn't exactly know that! Haha!)... which was true in a sense, but I'd made myself to eat as much as I could anyway. But in retrospect, he always had a very serious face whenever he was going to surprise me. I think it's his way of covering up his embarrassment... how cute is that, isn't it? :D
I'll leave you with this song (I feel like a DJ) that I'm currently addicted to... I've been unable to stop nanana-ing the tune even at the dinner table. Yes, while eating... My mom, was surprisingly, not irritated. Perhaps I sing well! Nah, I'm just kidding... I think she's just used to my irritating her.
He had just returned from a weekend trip. It was the first time we were meeting since his trip. We were at his place, in his room.
I can't remember what exactly we were talking about... But I remember feeling somewhat disappointed and a little, little bit angry. And then, to make things worse, he said something like, then you can go (leave) now. "No!" I replied indignantly. "Okay, fine, then I'll go," he said. I got pretty upset at this point. You see, we had just gotten together not too long ago... and perhaps this was still the period where you're still learning about each other, and maybe one tends to be more expectant of the other during this time. I mean, I'd really miss him when he was away during the weekend. I'd thought, maybe, he'd be more excited to see me..? And maybe, sweeter than usual 'cos he'd missed me too...?
Anyhow, he really left the room. I think I was about to cry...
He suddenly reappeared with a bouquet of flowers in his hand - he had actually gone out of the room to take the flowers he had bought for me. I was dumbfounded as I had not expect such a gesture, at all. You see, he had gone away to attend an interview/give an audition for this internship he had applied for, so I hadn't expected him to get anything for me, or rather, I didn't think he would even had the time to buy anything for me. Afterall, it was a very short trip. Secondly, after purposely making me 'angry', I hadn't expected that it was his prelude to presenting me with his present. Anyhow, the flowers were beautiful. Three roses, one red, one white and one yellow, amidst a spray of many other smallflowers.
"Thank you, dearrrr..." I said shyly. I had instantly regretted getting mad. I mean, well, I hadn't actually showed that I was mad, but I felt bad for feeling it anyway. He looked at me knowingly, "You were mad just then, weren't you?" he probed cheekily, his eyes smiling (Awww... how I love that cheeky, eye-smiling look of his -gushing dreamily-). "No, I wasn't!" I insisted.
Then his expression turned a little guilty and crestfallen. "I'm sorry dear," he professed. "They didn't have green (roses)." Haha.. yeah, well, my favourite colour is green. So I guess he wanted to buy the flowers in green, but there wasn't any. So that was why he had gotten the roses in all the colours the shop had available... Aww! But of course that didn't matter to me one bit. I was already very contented :D
Jack then went on to confessed what he had been feeling before getting me the flowers: At the time, his really good friend had liked my best friend as well, and had gotten her flowers in his bid to woo her. On the other hand, Jack had never given me any flowers or presents prior to getting together or even prior to that day... not that it really mattered to me. I was happy enough that he'd liked me back and more than that, I was ecstatic at having my very first boyfriend. But he was worried about falling short to his friend, and feared that I'd compare him to his friend and wonder why hehad not given me flowers when trying to woo me as well. Jack said, when his friend had presented the flowers to my best friend, he felt pressured and wanted to prove himself to me as well.
I was really really touched that day. Not just because of the beautiful bouquet of roses he'd gotten for me, but also because he had been so thoughtful about my feelings. It was just so... very very sweet >.<
It was once again the time of the week that I could see my deariest. I am referring to Jack, my boyfriend at the time.
He was so eager to see me because he had been dying to tell me something...
"The other day I saw a little family reunion going on at the train station. It looked like the mother had just returned from a trip. She walked towards her husband and son, who was holding a single rose in his hand. When she reached them, she embraced her little 'un tightly and kissed him. Then, he proudly presented her with the rose," he said. "One day, after one of your travels, Jack Jr. and I will welcome your return with a single rose as well."
I remember the warmth that filled my heart upon listening to his recount. I was so sure then that we were going to be married, that were going to be that happy family picture he had just painted.
Now, I'm tearing up as I recall how much he had loved me, and how excited he was in starting a family with me. The look in his eyes as he told me such a sweet little story...
It bothers me how 2 years after the break-up, I still find remnants of my ex-boyfriend popping up everywhere. Did he so deeply entrench himself in my life/mind during that two and a half years that even though almost as much time has passed as the amount of time we were together, a large proportion of my thoughts still revolve around him. The food I eat reminds of the food we used to eat together, the activities I do reminds me of the activities we used to do together, the words I read/hear/say reminds me of the things we used to say to each other. So many aspects of my life has become associated with him... Damn, he still creeps into the conversations I have with the people around me.
Just two days ago, my mom had brought us to eat at this Vietnamese restaurant. All the while we were there, I was going, "Jack used to order this," "Jack would have eaten this with that," "Jack used to do this-and-that when we ate Vietnamese," Look at me: I could go on forever. The thing is, Jack and me used to always eat Vietnamese when we were together. So all these memories tend to seep into my brain whenever I eat Vietnamese.
Well, then, just yesterday, I was chatting with a girlfriend of mine. We were talking about past jobs and somehow it got me started on how I had to resign from my previous job because the breakup had taken place in its duration. I had been in sales and I was out on the streets doing a roadshow one day... This was a tender time following the break up. In addition, I was still a newbie at the time - just 1 month into the job. My friend/colleague had, perhaps out of concern or perhaps for conversation's sake, asked how I was doing. She could very well have been referring to the roadshow but I had inevitably linked it to the breakup and suddenly, I was sobbing uncontrollably. The tears just starting rolling and then I just couldn't stop. My friend had to pull me aside to calm me down as well as to ensure we were hidden from our boss's view.
Talking about breaking down in public... there was one time that my family had decided to dine at a Malaysian restaurant. It's not exactly Vietnamese, but it was close enough (being an Asian restaurant and all), I suppose, to have triggered an upsurge of emotions. I had remained as quiet as a mouse because I was afraid that I'd burst into tears if I uttered any word. Unfortunately, when the orders arrived, the sight of the food set me off immediately. I was trying hopelessly to hold back my tears and suddenly I was choking because the tears just had to come out. I remember the look on my brother's face. He was positively shocked and dumbfounded to find such a reaction to food being served. My mom brought me out for a walk to avoid creating a scene in that nice little place.
I wonder if these memories will fade with time or have they etched a place in my mind, never to be erased?
image source: Walt Disney's 1951 Classic - Alice in Wonderland
