What happens when a company expands too fast?
Strapped with cash-flow problems and overlooks,
that's what.
And the end results?
Back to zero, or worst,
a negative.

Recently,
I've been feeling like a company that has executed its expansion policy too quickly,
too rashly.

Just the other day,
I found myself with time to spare.
Idle, I hooked myself back into cyberspace and checked out my links.

And I realised
just how distant I've become.

Subconsciously,
I knew that it had been a long long time since I met up with some ppl,
and for the first time in a long long while,
I had the very strong urge to just call them to hear their voice,

Of cos I did no such thing.

What? Did u think I was crazy?
It was an unearthly hour ok?

A tinge of regret,
as I read the entries on their blogs,
part of their lives that I no longer have a part in.

A tinge of melancholy,
as I felt our distance widen,
as I read their thoughts,
thoughts which used to be conveyed through face-to face conversations.

I distinctly remember a friend who once told me that she hates the phrase
"I feel like we are drifting apart"
and I distinctly remember myself telling her too,
within the dark confines of the cab,
that sometimes,
I wonder if the group of us came together by choice or by no-choice
because, however I look at it,
our differences are simply too glaring to ignore.
I also distinctly remember my wondering to myself
how the hell can she be so optimistic about everything?

Vividly, I also remember myself hating myself at that point in time,
when I felt my insecurities laid bare.

We are like a plate of rojak,
cuttlefish, you cha quay, tau pok, cucumbers, mang guang, and beansprouts.

The only thing that holds us together as complements is the peanut sauce.

It had also never slipped my mind that I missed her birthday,
and his birthday,
and his birthday too,
and god knows how many others' birthdays I have missed.

Yesterday a friend from SIM drove,
and we went to Ang Mo Kio for lunch.

I saw the NTUC that we got baking supplies from.
The huge container-like one that is still there,
though not for long anymore.

We ate at Pizza Hut.

I didn't even know Pizza Hut had a new branch beside KFC, near the library.
My impression of Pizza Hut had always been the one near Jubilee, or at Kovan.

Suddenly,
I missed the days when we always ordered too much food,
fought for the sweet and spicy drumlets,
and almost always,
ok,
is ALWAYS bullied the boys into finishing off the food.
Then wasting our time away creating noise pollution at KBOX.
I also remembered the time Ah Toh was subtlely manipulated into giving a treat at Pizza Hut
lol~

Sometimes,
I feel like an athlete running a never-ending marathon.
Running like that, feeling the wind in my face,
has never been more exciting, more exhilerating as new experiences enter my horizon.

Running like that has also never been more wrong.

True, I cover alot of ground as I kept going.
Then again,
I missed out on the rainbow overhead,
I missed out on the sight of a single morning glory blooming amidst the weeds,
I missed out on the fresh, yet stale smell of the after-rain.

I even forgot,
what that fresh-stale smell is really like.
I'm trying to remember.

And today,
I got a reminder of what that smell cld be like.
I caught up with someone from the past,
whom I have not met for...9 months?

He drives a van now.
Wonder what he did to his bike.
Supposedly still supplying me tissues for lunch,
but unfortunately
"just happened to run out of tissue"
He's still the same nice man that I used to know,
kind eyes.
a certain msn emoticon

I was truly glad that I had his company for lunch.

It isn't worth chasing the past,
if the past doesn't some catchin up with u.
But it is an outright ridiculous expectation for the past to catch up with u
if u had never slowed down and gave it a chance to in the first place.

A company shd never expand at a speed that its resources cannot feed.