A Piece of The Past

I've been hanging out at The Crib a lot the past few days. The Crib's a nice place to have lunch/dinner or just to simply hang around and chat.

I'm especially pleased that the place is top notch because it belongs to people I know, including a personal friend of mine. I'm more than happy to spend time and money there. At last, a cosy place which DOES NOT play techno.

They do need to jazz up the wall a bit with paintings or pictures and the like. But that's a minor issue. The choice of drinks and food is quite good. The pricing is quite decent. I like it.

The place needs a website. And an assistant cook.

I was there late last night with Rin. And while we were there, I spied a familiar face not two tables away from us. For a split second, we saw each other before going about our business. I told Rin about her and what happened.

Apparently, she's chummy with one of the people working there. Such a small place Kuching is.

And who is this that I spied ? That, is quite a long story. Not to mention a rather embarassing one harkening back to the days when I was less together and more all over the place.

A reminder of how worse off I was then than I am now.

Once upon a time, I came to know this girl. Let's call her Jayne. I think I've posted about her before, but I'm too pressed for time to hunt for that post. Later perhaps.

Jayne, she was a hell of a girl (and probably still is). Confident, somewhat brash and free spirited. Not to mention tall (for a local girl) and beautiful. Obviously, she had a lot of admirers.

We were quite close. We hung out together and gradually drew closer. Unfortunately I was in no shape to be that close to her. I was too emotionally fragmented for her. She was simply too far ahead of me when it came to self-control and emotional maturity, despite being younger than me by two years. I behaved badly.

I messed it up. Our friendship imploded.

Some people get too excited around women, especially when they like them a lot to the point that they can't distinguish what things they should do and shouldn't do. Other people get sad and morose around them, demanding them to mother them and shower them with attention (the popular woe-is-me approach to courtship).

Some people follow their objects of affection around, annoying them and creeping them out. Or royally pissing them off. Some people get hyper intense and ultra possesive, viewing any other male person as a potential threat and behaving accordingly. It's bad enough if the woman in question is the girlfriend, worse if the woman in question is just a regular friend.

I was all these people and possibly more.

I can't help think that I met her too soon. But from another point of view, I would never have noticed my destructive patterns if not for her and others like her.

So there I was at The Crib, seeing her through different eyes. She was as pretty as ever, but somehow less glowy. Less...intimidating.

If she met me and spoke to me, will I act differently ? Honestly, I can't say. She belongs to the past, and somehow I worry that I might regress if I do speak to her. That would be a very, very bad thing.

I like to think that I've progressed since then. I like to think that I've changed for the better, that I'm more capable of forming a great relationship with a woman that will benefit and satisfy both of us instead of just myself.

But that's the troubling thing about personal growth, you can't see it clearly. The only people who can judge that are other people. But having said that...

Last night, I saw a piece of my past. It made me remember. I can say, I'm better now then I was then. If I wasn't I can say with absolutely certainty that I would not have had Rin for company last night, especially when I take into account what's been happening between her and some people we know.

It remains one of my deepest regrets that it took so long for me to find hangups and mistakes and try to learn from them. It pains me to think about how many potentially good relationships I'd screwed up because of how I was.

All of these regrets, Jayne remains the biggest of them all. I can only hope that it these so-called lessons and regrets are not for nothing, that somehow it's not too late for me to redeem them.

I can only wait and see.

EDIT: I have some great news.

I found a place that does fret replacements for acoustic guitars ! I can bring my Epiphone back from the dead !

I'm very pleased. Unfortunately, I can't do it immediately since it costs quite a bit...