Eight Years.

For a while now the depression has been flowing to me like water from a broken dam, overwhelming and unstoppable.

But some time shortly after my birthday, perhaps because I had for so long been living in that lonely, bleak winter I had experienced in Toronto, or perhaps because time had finally decided that I ought to return to the waking world to move on and along, I started working proper again, after eight months of near-inactivity, of living in near-recluse.

May was filled with castings and pre-production meetings one day after another, in between I was tasked to make impossible deadlines possible, and at the same time stay on Pacific Time for my StarCraft II team, which has become increasingly important in my life — a source of laughter and happiness.

In the third week I shot for Elle, a few days later an editorial for SingaporeBrides. Before I knew it I was in Seoul for a project that stretched for two weeks into June. I returned home for a sleepless weekend, and left again the Thursday after for Seychelles to do another photoshoot.

The waiting hours during the trip has brought me some progress with The Glass Bead Game, I have now advanced past half the book, and found a quote I really love — "Every experience has its element of magic."

Even though Hesse's stories upset me a great deal more often than not, I cannot resist their charms that perhaps stem from the same yearnings as his protagonists. For needing to seek the answer to self, to wanting a way to solve the internal struggles, pains and conflicts.

Bit by bit, year by year, every now and then I would tell myself that, "This time for real I'd be moving on."

And then I'll have nightmares and they'll tear at my heart. I'll shed tears and hurt and think about this day and find myself at an utter loss once more.

But somehow the reading has calmed me, made me feel less alone. Even if the parallels and comfort are drawn from some fictitious characters, it feels like I'm finally able to take a step back and look at the larger map of my life again, with its paths and marks and light, and not just the seemingly endless abyss that I was for a long time so deeply submerged in.

There were no flowers when we visited today, it was still morning.

We had lunch after the visit and talked about old times.

Eight years. How has time slipped by us so fast?

My heart aches to remember those days that seem not so far away at all, to imagine what a fine man you'd have been amongst us today, to wonder what different lives we'd all be leading, just wishfully thinking...

But I understand now, to fulfill this life I cannot mourn forever. That I must find the strength to move on while remembering, without destroying myself.