Wednesday 14 August 2013

Young and Beautiful

                      Will you still love me, When i'm no longer young and beautiful?
                      Will you still love me, When i've got nothing but my aching soul?

                                                         ---  'Young and Beautiful' by Lana Del Rey

For the sake of work, I have been surrounded by people who falls out of my age group. Wait a second, that is wrong, should be people who falls out of my generation or my recent generations. People I worked or working with have all seem to be lucky to have found their life partners. Most of them are blessed to be well-heeled enough to centre their complaints constantly on holiday destinations' weathers or how unfair the public school start to request their precious princes or princesses remain in their current uniform in such 'hot and unbearable' weather. 

Of course, there are also some not so lucky ones who are still in the drama of marriage or their relationships with their partners. They occasionally would like to spare some of their unused parenting love to me by giving the advice to urge me to 'live it to full when you are young' or 'do whatever you want while you are young' or such. After giving the precious advice, there would normally followed by a long gaze at me, from which I can sense a mix of regrets, a bit of jealous, and might be some voices from them pounding themselves 'what the hell I was doing when I was young'. 

Well, as in the early 20s, I find myself taking this pierce of gold advice in a mix of feelings as well. To start with, I know that how good it is to be young, as if the world is in your hand at your service and you can play it as a game as wild as you could and F*** it up every single way you like to. Recently at a restaurant at central London where the waiter put me and my friend to a table where a pair of strangers were at. They claimed to be a pair of uncle and nephew, which my gut feeling told me that they were a pimp and an escort (do not ask me why, but to give a bit taste, they spoke to each in English with different strong accents). At the table, we were barely looking into each other until a comment came out from nowhere 'you are not a real vegetarian when you are partying and having 6 every single day, you had much more meat than I ever had'. When I heard this, I, obviously, nearly had a rib fallen out of my mouth, but I immediately wanted to congratulate the nephew for 1) having a seemed satisfactory and fulfilling sex life 2) a big thank you for sharing this moving and exciting news to us two strangers at dinner and 3) by enjoying meat on a daily basis, I hope he realised now how pointless of being a vegetarian was. After the eye opener comment, the conversations broke out naturally between us and them, guess no harm to have a few words more since we had already passed 'how's your sex life' greetings. At that table, however, I was the one who had a mix feeling of regret and jealous to the nephew as he is living a life at my age that I dare not to, he is young and beautiful, and he is partying and getting laid everyday, he has it all.

I could have it all as well. So why the hell am not doing it. There are many reasons why, but one of the reasons might be I guess am waiting for an opportunity to play it wilder. I guess I do not want to just settle for some mundane parties but aiming for proper sprees after achieving something, something nice, meaningful, satisfactory and worth celebration. Maybe. But if that does not happen, does it mean that I then lost all my chances to have fun when I could? Oh, let's stay away from that question...

Couple of months ago I had been getting to know a boy of my age who, according to him, was an orphan and had been bouncing between adopting families. I believed that, so I felt very sorry for him (however I do have a little bit doubt of his story). We met over an mobile app and started chatting for a few weeks as we share many common interests. Then we moved on to pub, and after a few drinks I even took him to join me at a after-work drinks with some of my mates from university. We had one or two intimate occasions after a few nights out with other people partying and clubbing, and he has been having the 'have it all' lifestyle. The lifestyle that I have green eyes for but also the lifestyle I have great concern to live on. The reason? His cute faces, however, always remind me the song 'Young and Beautiful', reminding me that while it is great to have fun along the way, there are also things deserves to be in patience waiting for: a person who will love you when you are no longer young and beautiful, and when you got nothing but your aching soul.

Well, I guess am just self-comforting for losing what I could have. I may turn out to be an completely idiot in doing so, time will tell me in 10 years. Not a big deal anyway, at most I would just be joining the club of those who are giving advices to youngsters with regrets and jealous, so what, it seems that I won't be feeling lonely in that club anyway. Aha.

Nighty night.