I stood there today in the drizzle, staring over the rolling fields just beyond the entrance of the cemetery. I tried to imagine you sitting there and giving me that silly grin like you always do.

‘I know, Jean. I knew long ago and it is the same for me.’ She said to me. I looked blankly at her, too stunned to react. What is it that she knows? A love that has no name to it, I thought to myself: how could it be? Surely it was an abomination, a direct ticket to hell. I was ashamed that she knew, I couldn’t face myself or say anything more and she left it as that, unsure and nervous over my silence.

We spent the subsequent months being the ‘best’ friends that we were to the rest of the world. We were inseparable, much to the amusement of her boyfriend, who would say in jest that he was dating two girls instead of one. To which I suffered silently in my adolescent guilt, together with the isolation and loneliness I felt for being gay.

S was a quiet girl in class. I often found her sitting alone, watching the rest of us monkey around and chatting up a storm. Maybe it was instinct or just plain curiosity; I soon made my way toward her to see if I could get her to join the rest of us. It was not long before we became good friends. I found myself searching for her between breaks and she, for me. There was an unmistakable connection that we had, as if we could read each other’s mind.

We spent many hours after school at the park nearby, sitting on a small hill, looking at the fluffy white clouds, trying to out-imagine each other over the many challenging shapes and sizes. It was a silly game we played, so that we could hang out with each other a little longer. Sometimes she would brush her hand on mine and turn around to look at me expectantly. In spite of my desires, I would pull away every single time.

We graduated soon after and went on with our busy lives, preparing for the next stage of tertiary education, but she was always with me in my thoughts. One day, S called and delivered the grim news of cancer. I tried to tell her how I feel, but the words never came. I was too scared and unsure.

A week later, I received a phonecall from her mother and was told that S wanted to see me one last time. I raced all the way to her place and was greeted by the sound of tears. I was too late…

Today, I stood at the entrance of the cemetery, wishing and hoping that you were sitting there grinning at me. This time, I sat down next to you under the protective shadow of a large tree, the leaves shuddering in all that drizzle and wind. I was a teenager again and we were alone together again. ‘S, I do love you. I’ve always love you.’ I whispered to the wind, hating myself, hoping S would hear it and forgive me.

For a long moment, I stared blankly at the emptiness of the place, my heart heavy with regret. I saw her with my inner eye again, this time with her arms extended; I couldn’t help but grin back through my tears. Under the looming clouds, I hugged her one last time, not wanting to let go, but I knew I must and made my way down that winding path alone.

I miss you.

The GLBT community in Singapore is not exactly the most conducive environment for a questioning teen. Heck, it wasn’t a conducive environment either for the teen who is already out and proud. When I first discovered PPC, I imagined it to be like a community centre, complete with basketball court and GLBT teens just chilling about. No kidding. I thought I could even find a proper youth group there to mingle with and have fellowship. Imagine my shock when I finally saw the real thing.

Going to the PPC at its old location was a nightmare. I have never felt so scared walking around in Singapore before. Tucked away in a maze of shophouses, you had to navigate in between confusing roads and rows of shophouses. Pass by many prostitutes and goodness knows who else, as you attempt to make your way to the place. I’ve been to PPC more than 6 times. And each time I go there, I walk by a different way because I keep forgetting how to navigate to the right spot. 6 times of trial and error. Going home after Women’s Nite is an even bigger nightmare. It becomes all dark and scary outside. But of course, this was the best place that the management could find, and for the fact that it(PPC) existed, I was more than grateful already. Besides, I learned to have more guts and courage just by going there.

Furthermore, if you exclude the gay-affirming religious organisations, sports and charity organisations, gay culture in Singapore seems mostly comprised of clubbing, clubbing and more clubbing. And what’s worse is that you rarely meet youths like yourself in the non-clubbing aspects of gay culture. It is mostly adults. For youths who are just timidly aware and recognising their own sexuality, without any gay friends their age, that can be a very demoralising fact to digest. You will be left wondering, where are all the teens who are like me? Having said that, there are no proper avenues for a gay youth to find peer support. By peer support, I mean someone your age and generation, whom you can talk to.

Don't you just love to travel?

When you travel, you are exploring a totally different kind of environment. One that is so foreign and fascinating compared to staid old Singapore.

But do you know what it's like to travel inside yourself?

When I finally discovered that I wasn’t straight, it was as though somebody suddenly flicked a switch in my brain. Awareness came flooding in. All the little signs in the past, all those hints to self that I denied. I was discovering the real me for the first time. Before realising our sexuality, many of us would try to suppress thoughts of same-sex attraction whenever they inevitably came out. This time, I let my mind wander and explore freely. Everything seemed to make sense now.

But then again, there were also alot of things that didn’t make sense to me… and I thought, “Okay, so I’m gay. Now what?“

It is hard to be surrounded by your own friends and feel achingly distant from them. As though you never really knew them. That was true in way, you could never understand the girls’ boy-craziness. Even though you might understand a guy’s attraction to girls (like bees to honey), it is still different. Somehow. From that attraction to girls you feel. And to make things worse… I didn’t have any gay friends in school.

And hell, it sucks to be gay by yourself.

Like I said, when you finally come out to yourself, alot of bottled and pent-up feelings are finally released within you. And when that happens, there is a need to verbalise what you are feeling. Sure you say, I could do that to the straight friends I’m out to. But no matter how hard they try to emphatise, they could never reach that level of understanding that another gay person will have… for the very fact that they aren’t one. And don’t you wish once in a while, that people understood you? All of us yearn for and need friendships that aren’t casual or fair weather in its nature. But when you’re a homosexual and are going through all that emotional turmoil that accompanies realisation and self-acceptance, all the more you need that someone special to listen to you. You needed someone who cared, and genuinely understood.

Part 3

THE LAST

After 14 months, the relationship hit a rather serious rut where neither of us could work out our differences of timing and circumstances. It was a heart-rending decision, but we knew it would be better if we didn’t try to push things forward till it reached a cliff, for want of better metaphors.

But, if three strikes would mean I’d have to stay entirely out of the love-game, then my third serious relationship with S would effectively be it. From how we relate as two individuals in complete synchronicity in heart, mind and soul , I know I have met the one who’d fit my puzzle-piece.

With her, time seems to hold no significance because even when we first got together as friends and then lovers, we seemed to have traversed the world over and our roads converged at a complete understanding of soul-mates.

Our meeting would almost be destined though it never occured to me then that I would ever love again. At a charity event where we volunteered, I knew on first impressions that she was a lovely soul – something about the way she smiled, and her kindly disposition you’d trust on sight. What struck me later in her company was her sincerity, and how her experiences with love were so similar. We both came from very familiar places of love and loss. Significantly, I knew somehow that we would work out, only because we never really made too much of what we acknowledged, a little like a quietness in your heart where no words are needed.

In fact, words would do no justice for what we have, but all I can put here is we have a vision of a wonderful future where my children share a place in, because with her, I feel like I have come home to the soul I have denied for too long, and with her, I finally like who I am.

My children took to her as instinctively as I did, perhaps because they could trust her in the way I could. And it’s wonderful how the past months seem like years, as I’ve mentioned, time seems to have no bearing on how deeply we’ve grown together.