So I am back in London for the start of my 3rd year; countless packed boxes have been opened, personal stuffs sorted out, stories, experiences and pleasantries exchanged and a whole new house moved into.
My brand new place is not too bad - it is better in most aspects compared to the one last year; the kitchen is bigger and lighter, the bathroom floor is not in any danger of giving away from below our feet and the bedrooms are way more spacious and have a kinder and more intuitive layout.
Of course, the different thing this year for me is that I am sharing the cavernous front-facing bedroom with Fairuz.
Considering that the last time I actually shared rooms with anyone was nearly 3 years ago in Banting, I reckon that this will be a truly wonderful experience at best and an interesting experience at worst.
I believe that sharing a room with someone else is more than just the breaking down of physical walls; it should also be complemented with the breaking down - or at the very least the slow decay - of any psychological inhibitions one might have towards the very notion itself.
It should not mean the complete erosion of personal privacy but a coexistence built upon mutual respect and humility and most importantly, generous amounts of empathy and sensitivity.
That said, I guess it will be a learning experience for me.
It is a funny thing but when I landed at Heathrow and stepped out of the airport onto the tube to London, I cannot help but to feel a little sad and sentimental about having to leave Malaysia.
There was some sense of yearning to go back home, to turn my back and take the next flight back to Malaysia - it feels very much like the feelings I got back when I was a fresher.
I admit that I cannot fully explain it but I think it may have something to do with the feeling of having to 'give back' to my parents and siblings that I mentioned in my previous entry.
In other words, I felt the need to be there for them, to be around them - physically and emotionally. A feeling - which in this case - exerts a strong enough pull upon me for home.
When I think about it, I have been visited by a fair share of this feeling of inadequacy, this feeling of my inability to reciprocate, give back and help those I care about.
I felt that I have always been asking from them but I have never been able to offer anything in return to them.
I am not sure what I should make out of it but I think a friendship - or any relationship for that matter - that is solely driven by the need to 'provide' for the other person is rather superficial.
Because if that is the way things work, then each side will try their best to not do anything that will hurt, offend or insult the other person.
It may seemed altogether blissful but the mutual feeling of happiness is only but a veneer under which any discontentment is subconsciously suppressed and automatically set aside.
And friendships does not work that way.
For any true friendship to bloom, lines must be occasionally crossed, niceties sometimes forgotten and harsh words exchanged in certain situations.
There will be times when you will learn a lot more about someone else by contradicting them rather than agreeing with them.
That is not to say that one should go all out to be nasty to others but to realize that a friendship that is not made to endure, will not.
Agreeing to befriend someone is an easy thing to do; enduring that someone is a different matter altogether.
But as regards to the earlier issue about my longing for home, my feelings are somewhat calmed when I viewed their photographs taken during the London/Paris trip over the summer.
Seeing their smiling and contended faces fill me with warmth, confidence and a reassurance that everything will be alright.
It is good to know that someone somewhere sometime is always thinking about you - especially if you feel the same way towards them.
