An introduction: to my past life, and my future.

As a lot of people probably don’t know this, I wasn’t always as thin as I am now. I was classified as overweight pretty much since grade 2 in primary school. Of course, people are often chubby at this age, and even my parents thought it a passing thing. Countless times my father told me “You will grow out of it! Don’t worry!” and it was followed up by things such as “It’s just puppy fat!” and “You’re going to have a growth spurt and it will all go away!“.

Sadly, I always believed it.

I mean, what else was a 7 year old boy supposed to believe but the word of his father? I guess I was always raised being naive to such things. My family isn’t a very open one, we keep things to ourselves; our problems, our relationships, our work and business life. Even if we ask each other how things are going, we most usually try to act brave and put on a smile to reassure each other that we’re ok. I guess that’s how I managed to survive throughout my life when my family life was really shitty. For those that know me personally, you know what I’m talking about. For those that don’t, ill just leave it by saying “My family is built on soft foundations.” I guess that’s why I’m the way I am now; stone faced and very hesitant to share my deepest thoughts.

Back to the overweight thing though, I can safely say that by high school I approached “clinically obese” and had to specially order school pants to fit around me. It wasn’t the fact that I had no knowledge about food and calories. Although back then it just looked like numbers to me. I understood what energy was, and by doing exercise you burn energy. But I never had the motivation. I never had the drive to do something with my self. I was content the way I was living. I never saw myself as so fat that I needed to do something about it. Even though I was compared to other overweight guys at school. People used to call us brothers because we looked so alike. I remember in Year 10, one guy (who I hung out with quite a lot) said “Are you sure you’re not brothers? Your ‘size’ is so similar.” Another guy remarked “Which one is bigger do you think?” and the first said “Raymond, most definitely.”

Denial can get you through a lot of life’s barriers.

It wasn’t until Year 11 that I stopped telling myself that I wasn’t obese. It wasn’t until Year 12 that I told myself that I could do it. And it wasn’t until University, that I managed to do what few people can. I went from 112kg to 81 kg in just over 12 months. I am complimented on my improvement all the time; by my family, my friends and most importantly- my loved one. It’s a journey that will soon end. I am now in the process of getting a pricing on how much surgery will cost to cut away at unwanted skin, and will be getting it soon. The doctor I saw on Wednesday gave me promise of good results and got my hopes up. It will all be over.

But as interesting as the last few paragraphs are, this isn’t what the rest of my blog is going to be about. It’s not about journeys that have already come to a close. It’s not about these small turning points in my life. It’s about the biggest turning point of my life. The one and only thing that has inspired me, driven me, filled me with joy, happiness and heartbreak at the same time. What I’m talking about is; getting together with Vanessa. Getting together with my baby was the biggest thing of my life. It has affected me the most, it has made me grow and better myself so much in the past few months; more than I have in my entire life.

It has been a long journey when considering how long I’ve known her, but it still feels like it was just yesterday when I first heard her voice. It goes all the way back to the end of last year, 2005, when Vanessa was returning home to Malaysia for end of year break. We had talked very little when we were on WoW. I don’t think she knew my name at the time. A few congratulatory talks, a few “how is everything” – nothing too big or exciting. She called upon another priest and myself to log onto Ventrillo and talk to her about what was happening now that she was leaving WoW for the holidays. I would say I was shy, don’t ask me why, but I was. “Whitelust” aka Vanessa was known as the ‘hot chick’ of the guild, and she definitely lived up to her reputation. I remember hearing her voice, how sweet and kind it sounded, when she asked “Is Hyperbola there?” I replied with a modest “Yes.” (trying to stick to the strong silent type of guy that I’ve associated myself with). And what would one expect to hear? A reply like “OK that’s good. Well the priest second in command is going to take over for me in the raid.”?

What I heard back from my speakers was quite different, and it is safe to say this was the first time that my baby made me blush (she loves to do it to me! :<). “Is that Hyperbola? You have a sexy voice.” My face was red, as I was confronted by such a straightforward girl. I had never met a person who was so innocently honest. So open and frank. It was this, her honesty and openness, that made me look forward to talking to her again. We started talking more often, and I always PM’d “Whitelust” when ever I saw her online (although I later found out it was most often her ex boyfriend playing the character which they still shared… it’s a long and complicated story).

A little while after going back to Malaysia, She posted on the UD forums saying that she was seldom going to be able to play WoW anymore, and that people wanting to talk to her should add her to MSN. I was hesitant, I was scared that if I added her she might think I was stalking her or something else as strange. I really looked forward to talking to her. I enjoyed chatting to her more than before, because we got past the usual formalities that we used to have. We talked about some personal things, I felt comfortable to talk about my life and make a few jokes to break the ice. I always wanted to talk to her, I always looked forward to it. It was one of the reasons I still showed up to WoW raids. But I didn’t want to look like some online guy trying to pick her up (this also links to another long story involving my baby). So I waited a day, Just to make it look like I wasn’t following her. And then I added her to my MSN. We talked for long periods of time. We talked about a lot of things. Stuff troubling us, things that are going well/bad, things that we wished for, that we hoped or dreamed for. Even stuff that we just liked or loved, and stuff we had in common and laughed about.

Unfortunately, a lot of my convo history doesn’t start from where we first began talking to each other. I looked over some of it, in order to write this blog. And as soon as I opened the first archive, a big grin made its way onto my face;

	«VāÑë§s» At melbourne!	ray ray :)
	«VāÑë§s» At melbourne!	hahahaha
	«VāÑë§s» At melbourne!	im still on msian timezone ^^
	«VāÑë§s» At melbourne!	you go to sleep :)
	reimon ®™	yeah i should >,<
	«VāÑë§s» At melbourne!	hehe
	«VāÑë§s» At melbourne!	i never asked which uni you go to
	reimon ®™	Yes you did, lol. >_<
	reimon ®™	:'(
	«VāÑë§s» At melbourne!	oops...haha short term memory
	«VāÑë§s» At melbourne!	im sorry ray ray...
	«VāÑë§s» At melbourne!	hehe which uni are you at? and what course are you doing?

I somehow adapted the nickname “RayRay” and I thought it was weird at first, but I came to like it, and eventually love it (although she calls me MaoMao now (lol, that rhymes ^^) :<). I know it sounds really creepy, but I was already beginning to like my Butterfly. Every day I came home, I went straight to MSN and hoped that she was online so that I could talk to her. We had been debating whether or not we should meet up at uni when she got back to Melbourne. I was fearful that she wouldn’t like the way that I looked. As I mentioned in the beginning of this entry, I have changed a lot (because of my baby) I wore FUBU jerseys, and a white baseball cap and baggy jeans that made it look like I had pooped in my pants 15 times. I had grown my hair very long and was afraid that Vanessa would stop talking to me once she saw my photo. It has happened to me before, once I showed my photo to some other person online that I thought I would meet, and I never heard back from them. I was hoping that Vanessa would be different. I was already on border line “liking her” territory and I hadn’t even met her yet. So I postponed meeting her because of my need for a haircut. I was stalling for time, I was a few kilos overweight and saw myself as chubby still (I was so used to being called fat that it became all I saw when I looked at myself in a mirror). So a week or two before we met, I began training hard; cycling everyday, eating healthy, doing 50 pushups and 100 sit-ups to try and get into my best shape. I realized that I couldn’t post pone meeting her forever (I had even joked about meeting up to see HOSTEL! THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN AWFUL!, and besides your friends were all asking who you kept talking about/were meeting up with :P), so I decided to suck it up and meet her at Uni.

We chose outside the Balieu Library.

I hid in the shadows, on a chair where she would walk past me. I waited to see her, the long awaited meeting with my soulmate. It, to me, was like a movie scene. It went by in slow motion. She called me on her mobile phone, asking where her “RayRay” was. I said out waiting beside the library/bookroom. And that’s when I saw her… She was wearing a dress and high heeled shoes. I remember a light coloured dress flowing in the wind, while she walked on over to the entry to the bookroom. I was terrified at the time. I thought to myself why would such a beautiful girl want to meet me? And what if she doesn’t like me? “RayRay, where are you? I’m going to shout it out infront of everyone if you don’t come out!” That’s when I came up behind her, and I was straining to say anything. First impressions count. And baby, if I knew that I was going to fall in love with you so quickly, I would have said something a lot more romantic. Through the frog in my throat, I managed to say four words; “Hello, Vanessa. I’m Raymond.”

This is where my life changed.

We went and sat down to have something to eat in union house. The pictures I saw on msn did my butterfly no justice. I thought she was cute in the photo, but she looked a lot cuter in real life. I was very nervous and fearful of saying something stupid or weird. Id never really had much experience with talking to girls and I knew for sure that they weren’t into “Slugs, snails and puppy dogs tails.” All I just wanted to do- was listen. All I wanted to do was hear the voice id been hearing online, in person. It was such an amazing feeling. All the anticipation and working out, and training, and dieting to make me look better had led to this moment. She was right (later that night) when she asked if she talked a lot. And that’s one of the reasons why I love her so much now. Words just seem to flow from her pretty face, words that aren’t sinister or mean or biased. I remember one thing very clearly, and I still visualize it today. I can picture the way she looked when I first saw her laugh. It was like music to my ears and made my heart light up. The way that her smile lit up her face. It entranced me. I was hypnotized. I knew from then on I’d always want to be the one to make her laugh. To see that angelic smile as many times as I possibly could before id die. I wanted to see you laugh hysterically because of something I did. I wanted to stare into your eyes, and see you staring back at me, so I’d know that you were truly happy. It was from this point that I started to like her. You said to me that day, that I didn’t say much, but that the questions I asked you were very different from other peoples’ questions. I never really understood what that meant. At the time I thought it was you trying to politely say that I’m too quiet and weird. But maybe its one of the reasons you started to like me too. You always said to your mum (after we got together) that you liked the quiet types. Am I still that kind of type now? I seem to talk a lot more than I used to and I sometimes find myself cutting you off or asking you too many questions. I don’t think I have changed in that respect. I still want to know about your day and your feelings and your thoughts. I always did, even before we got together. The first meeting was probably one of the most memorable moments in my life. We ended talking after her 2 hour break was over. I was walking away asking myself if shed still talk to me ever again, and thinking about whether I had come off as being creepy-quiet, or silently-weird. We ended in a handshake, and then a hug (one of few, to my own planning). And I then added “ending the meeting awkwardly” to the list. I’m thankful to God everyday that she decided to still talk to me. I love you so much baby, from day one- I’ve always been thinking of you. And i always will, forever and ever.