Life is either a daring adventure or nothing

Rejected and lonely, I walked towards the Singapore River. Along the way, I bought a bottle of Hooch and just sat down on the steps leading down the river and starred blankly. The sour feeling of rejection was just so hard to bear, and at that moment, even the Hooch tasted like bittergourd juice! Yucks!

I forgot how long I sat there, maybe 2 hours or more. I felt totally lousy about myself. From confidence and self esteem rocketing sky high the day before, I have been hammered to an all-time low. No I just feel like burying my head in the ground and run away from everyone. And run away I did... After a sleepless night and hangover from Hooch, I tendered a transfer the next day at work. I assumed that everyone in my group of friends would have known of my rejection and I wasn't prepared to face anyone of them, espacially the girl whom I liked and rejected me. So I chose the easy way out... I requested for a transfer to another outlet in Suntec City so that I didn't need to face my friends anymore. It was my way of dealing with my emotions... by choosing to run away from reality.

I didn't tell any of my friends of this transfer... I just left quietly and refused to pick up any phonecalls. And for the next one month, I wallowed in self-pity, self-rejection and self-condemnation. To help me get my mind off these thoughts, I diverted all my attention to working. I packed my working hours, from 8am till 10pm daily, even on weekends. Totally no life... not for money, but just to numb my feelings. I was living in self denial.. painful in the heart, but refused to acknowledge or talk to anyone about it, rather I choose to escape by working myself to the ground...

This self-tormenting went on for a month until a week before I was about to enter the army for National Service. I bumped into a secondary school friend whom I have lost touch with for 2 years. We caught up and somehow as we chatted, I shared with him about my rejection incident and how lousy I was feeling.

My friend immediately blurted out back at me... "EeJay... You are a COWARD." ... (to be continued)