Tujuh Laut

Once upon a time donkey years ago, this song used to be my midnight lullaby. I was only 20 years old then, alone in the big but exciting city of London, loving the new change but struggling to adjust myself to the cold weather (well, relatively cold to me until I discovered Sheffield's winter less than a year later) and most importantly, missing the then 'love of my life' badly. It was at the beginning of winter 1996 and the whole world was at the brink of a huge economic recession (although obviously I wasn't aware of it at the time) and our sponsors decided to cut its spending and only sent very few lucky ones to the UK. I was one of the lucky ones, he wasn't.. so he had to do his 1st year degree in Malaysia instead. We thought it was a brutal decision especially that he already got an offer to go into Imperial College and especially that we were madly in love. 'How could they separate us this way?' we asked ourselves again and again.

Bear in mind that it was 1996.. there were no facebook, youtube, mms, skypes, YM etc yet. We had emails already but not many households in Malaysia had internet yet although students in the UK already had fairly easy access to it at campuses. 'Alamak' was the in-trend chatroom at the time, before the birth of mIRC. Oh, and not that many people have yet to own mobile phones too. So, the only affordable mode of communication (students were cheapskates, remember) between London and KL, between these 2 unfairly-separated lovers was by letters. We wrote and received 2-3 letters per week and each can be easily 5-10 pages, filled with either diary-like entries or song lyrics and photos, and of course romantic words. The Royal Mail and Pos Malaysia were our best friends back then and the ever-so-faithful receptionist lady at College Hall, Malet Street was my every-other-day postman, she would automatically checked my pegion-hole for me the moment she saw me through the main door, coming back from lectures. Of course, any letters from Malaysia received from her would be opened enthusiastically there and then with big grins on my face.

Those were the days.

I'll travel 'round the seven seas for you
It's written in the melody I adore you
I wrote my love a symphony
To show you there's nothing I won't do..

This song was sent to me in one of those love letters. Only the lyrics obviously since CDs weren't that big in Malaysia yet (or rather expensive), but it was written ever-so-romantically that I would hold it in my hands, near my heart for quite a number of nights after that. When I managed to get hold of the song in one of my mixed tapes, it filled my room again and again for quite some times too. I know it sounds stupid now but I was a naive 20-year old girl, madly in love and missing him badly. Can't blame me for being cheesy eh?

Those were the days when I thought love conquers all. The days when 'till death do us part' was really my believe and not just cheap words adopted from fairytale books and movies. Oh well, lesson learnt. Painfully but wisely.

Fast-forward 14 years later. I am hardly a romantic at all now. I still believe in love and 'the one' but you won't ever catch me queezing my brain to write love letters or that sorts. Sorry but I have better things to do (work, study etc) with the remaining brain cells that I have now. Of course, the occasional 'I love you' and 'I miss you' are still there but more in quick smses instead of in time-wasting lengthy prose. Pity him I know but does it mean I love him any lesser than the previous? Definitely not. I know it, he knows it... so what's the problem right?

Insya'allah we'll be walking down the isle soon and now, seven seas mean nothing more than the seas I want to dive in this year and next..