When did we grow up?

When did we grow up?
feeling: bittersweet
music: missy higgins - going north

Last night, I attended the wedding of an ex-neighbour. I don't remember much about her, for it's been about 9 years since they moved away. The only memories I have were of her teaching me to play Part Of Your World on the piano from The Little Mermaid songbook I had, and of coercing me to cook her Maggie noodles.

However, I was childhood playmates with her brother Kevin, together with our other neighbour Tzin Ling. We've known one another since kindergarten I think, and when faced with him and his parents who used live right next door, long filed-away memories were revisited.

Tzin Ling and I shared many belly-aching laughs as we recalled how we used to steal into his house (we knew how to open the front gate without a key) and snatch his Wang Wang stickers; of the time we put together a good part of both our pocket money to buy him an empty Valentine's Day card to give to the girl he fancied; and of the many times we played our version of soccer at the corridors, often ending with Tzin Ling's mom chastising us for kicking it into her gate one too many times or with the ball flying out of the balcony into the trees below.

And Kevin's parents and aunties never let us forget, as they reminded us time and time again at last night's dinner, of how we often ganged up and made him cry. That was one memory I oddly could not remember.

The wedding was surreal, not so much for romanticism but for the sheer fact that the annoying older sister next door was all grown up and now getting married.



When did we grow up?