(captured and written in May 2024)
This is the ninth time in my life that I have moved. When you’re moving, especially on a tight deadline and alone, your brain goes on autopilot, throwing belongings into boxes or trash bags at a merciless pace. Whatever space and time cannot afford ends their journey with you unceremoniously, like saying goodbye to tour guides in a foreign city. Rooms get colder and larger and you start to notice the colour of your walls. The day you first moved in will feel the most familiar it has ever felt and will ever feel.
This is the ninth time I have moved, but it doesn’t get any easier. Besides this unassuming flat behind that double-locked cobalt blue door, there’s no other place that I’ve called home for longer, and I fear that I will only continue to feel this way for as long as I’m not done forging my own path out here. I remember the last time I was in school in Singapore, I had promised myself that I would make every day after that life count for something, but what I didn’t also register was that counting begets so many goodbyes.
Thank you for the past 2 years Abingdon, for giving me and my best friends a space to laugh, cry, fall in love, eat, learn, host, and rest, and for seeing me off on the final day of my educational journey. I can’t remember the last time I showed someone around this place but I know I was proud. I hope the next three will love you just as much.
precious 