It's 1.45am in the morning. I'll be leaving for Melbourne in about 19 hours' time, marking the end of my 3rd summer. Somehow, I feel like I'm living a truncated life, a double life of polarising extremes. In my mind, I've come to associate Singapore with the best things in life, my friends, my family, familiarity, fun and freedom. Melbourne, with the worst, the struggles, the stress, the fight for survival and the soul-sapping solitude. But the curse in life is that there cannot be good without evil. There would be no happiness in Singapore if there was no Melbourne to return to. A place where I know I must struggle, a place where I know I have no choice but to work, a place where there is no fun. I think we all need that certain place - a place we wished never existed, but one we cannot exist without. It is a place that deadens us but paradoxically keeps us alive. A place where we go beyond ourselves to chase our dream, but we only go beyond ouselves by being in that place. That dream doesn't exist. We make ourselves believe it does, to justify our decision to stay in that place. The dreaded place. But also, the coveted place. And when all is said and done, we go back to paradise (or so we make it out to be) and believe that it is better. Believe that there are no struggles, no stress, no fight for survival and no solitude. But when that dreaded place cease to exist, so does our paradise. We go back to the beginning, to find another paradise because our once-paradise, is now the new dreaded place.

Today, I was standing outside Fullerton Hotel, waiting for Zhi. It was a quiet night, the kind of night where even strangers seem to partake in an unspoken understanding of keeping the fragile silence. In that quiet oasis, dwarfed by the magnificence of the building, I realised how beautiful Singapore was but I was being delusional. It was beautiful only because it gave me a peek into the big world out there, beyond the horizon. And that was what attracted me. The big world out there. Not the immediate beauty of the Singapore skyline. But as with all things, the curse of life comes back to haunt us. When we have stepped out to see the world, that beauty fades.

Despite my sudden urge to stay and fully belong, the curse of life comes back to haunt us and I realised that I'll never be happy if I remained in this paradise, even if it makes me sad to leave it. And leave I must, to find that sweet spot between happiness and sadness, even if it means chasing a dream that is merely my own illusion.