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I love taking showers. I love feeling the water flowing down from the top of my head and into the little hole at the bottom. I love hearing the sound of water. It’s soothing to hear the constant flow of water. Like the waves lapping up on the beach. The thing is, I think a lot when I shower. Today, I thought about how my heart is torn into two. How I call both places home – Melbourne and Kuala Lumpur. How I’ve been doing that for almost 6 years. And how tiring it is to do that for 6 years. The point is sometimes I don’t find a reason to build new friendships during my holidays back in KL. Because, the point is I’ll be heading back and the friendship will somehow…vanish over time. It always happens I suppose. And I should know because I’m so used to it. It’s like meeting new people when I travel. We promise to exchange contacts and photos. But really, the photo exchanging session rarely happens. Soon, we learn to drop our expectations and when the session actually takes place, it’s actually a good surprise. It’s a matter of handling expectations.

I like both places – Melbourne and Kuala Lumpur. I can’t imagine myself permanently removed from Melbourne. Melbourne has become a part of me. I’ll miss the city, the little cafes located in the quaint little lanes, the good breakfast places, the parks, the jogging tracks, the beaches and mostly friends who have become almost like family. When I was in Perth, I tried to pretend that I’ll be leaving Melbourne for good and perhaps, moving to Perth. Don’t get me wrong, I love Perth but I was quite upset even when I knew that this was a mock play in my mind. Where are the little cafes? Where are the cool bars? Where’s the graffiti on the walls? Where are the good coffee joints?

By the same token, there’s so much of KL which I love. I grumble and rumble about this place, it’s lack of security and the corruption and political instability. But then again, I did grow up here, eating at the hawker stores and having countless yam char sessions at the mamak stores. I remember the weekly pasar malam sessions, my weekly trips to Holiday Villa, my yearly pilgrimage to Penang and routine meet ups in the shopping centres. Of course, and my friends whom many I’ve known for ages.

See, my heart is torn into two. It’s tough being an international student. It’s tough when you ain’t quite sure where home is for you. They say home is where your heart is. But I don’t know where my heart is. Right now it has a slit right down the middle

Post is slighlty backdated. Was written last night