LOVE ON THE ROAD: EPISODE 1

PROLOGUE

There was a cacophony of accented voices and conversations in multiple languages mixed with the hurried steps of travelers inside the cavernous Köln Hauptbahnhof that morning. Rush hour was in full swing in this immensely busy train station that serves a quarter of a million residents and travelers on this side of Germany. The InterCity Express carriage I was standing on hummed quietly, punctuated only with the thuds of heavy luggage being deposited unto the overhead bins and racks.

He stood there watching me, silently waiting for my answer.

It was my last day in Köln, after only two days in this beautiful cosmopolitan city. We had spent the weekend hobbling across the cobblestone steps of Old Town Köln and walking along the River Rhine, catching up over warm cups of coffee and a split serving of sugar doughnuts. The weather at 10C was more conducive for an indoor tête-à-tête especially for a tropical resident like myself, but we didn’t want to waste an otherwise crisp morning holed up inside. There was so much to see, so much to talk about.

We came upon a viewpoint at the Hohenzollern Bridge and stopped to take in the scenery. Walking the entire length of the bridge to the other side, we took photos outside the imposing Kölner Dom and I brought him inside, told him that everyone gets a wish every time they visit a new church. He waited for me while I said a prayer, then we both lit candles. I never asked what he wished for that day.

EPISODE 1

When I visited my good friend, R, who was in Ho Chi Minh for work a few years back, I never thought I would come home with a travel story for the books. I didn’t think it was possible at all to be part of someone’s world in a grand total of 48 hours. Never knew that it would take me on a journey from Singapore to Vietnam and Germany. Never in a million years did I expect to eat my own words when I brazenly told everyone before this trip, “I would NEVER date someone I met in a club.” Some words of advice from someone who has been there: grand, sweeping statements like this always come back to prove you wrong. Never say never because the universe has a sense of humor and humor me was EXACTLY what the universe did.

On a balmy summer night, R and I danced the night away at Lush, a clubbing haven for expats and locals alike and one of the places to be in the city during that time. We partied along with N, our gorgeous local friend, had a few drinks and a rowdy time because that’s what my 25-year old self did during those days. I remember it clearly: we were all dancing and gushing that the Rihanna song cranking out from the DJ’s deck was “our jam” (I know, so basic of us). If you know me personally, you know that I can hold my own during a dance-off and that’s exactly what I was doing when I met him. I was dancing with a few local clubbers when out of nowhere, this tall guy in a white linen shirt started joining our little group in the middle of the dance floor. At first, I found it laughable: who wears LINEN on a night out?! Sure, it looked good on him, but it reminded me of those British India store displays I see in the mall. Only oldies ever go into that store.

He was across me when he started saying something and between the music at full blast and the drunken laughter around me, I couldn’t decipher a single thing he was trying to say. Next thing I know, he was manoeuvring me to the side, where it was still noisy to conduct a decent conversation, and he started texting. He was typing out questions for me and asked if we could have breakfast. I looked at him incredulously: it’s three in the morning and this guy wants me to wake up at eight for food? HELL NO. Girl needs her beauty sleep. We negotiated on dinner because I had plans to hang out with my friends that day and since I was only there for the weekend, I wasn’t about to ditch them for some guy I met in a club.

That was where it all started: a dance-off and a typed-out invitation for breakfast.

And it ended right there on that platform inside Cologne’s main train station several months after.

Flying to Frankfurt from Singapore, I felt a sense of trepidation at the thought of meeting him on my own, in a place I had no idea about, and during my first-ever solo trip to Europe. A few good days with friends in Karlsruhe helped abate the anxiety and when I finally stepped out from the train and saw him waiting for me right outside my carriage, we fell back into our usual banter as though no time had passed.

As much as I would like to say that everything was perfect – it wasn't. Far from it, actually. There was chemistry, yes, but there were also doubts and differences. The clincher: we were in two wildly different life stages at that time, and nothing, not even the enchanting allure of being in Europe was enough to keep it going. Not the whole routine of playing house, going grocery shopping, and cooking dinner for two were enough. Not the correspondences over Skype when I left Saigon and when he was repatriated back to Germany were enough.

Despite it not working out, the lessons learned were invaluable. I always knew that I would look out for number one: myself, and that I wasn’t going to say yes to something only because it was what everyone my age was starting to do. There was a eureka moment somewhere along the line, when I realized that I could probably make the whole white-picket-fence package work ... at the right time. It was a revelation even to myself. I was then more open to what life would throw at me from every direction, even if that meant recalibrating my semblance of a life plan, to embrace it and the possibilities it may bring.

Flash forward to two years, I was in Frankfurt again in between journeys and sitting at a McDonald’s Café for breakfast. Then, the most incredible thing happened. From the corner of my eye, I saw a familiar figure: it was him. In the flesh. He was sitting on the bench facing my direction, eating pancakes and reading a newspaper. An overnight bag was sitting right beside him.

What were the odds that on the very same day and that very same moment I would be transiting for a few hours in Frankfurt, he would be sitting right in front of me? He doesn’t even live in the city!

Then it occurred to me that at some point while planning that two-month European sabbatical, there was this nagging thought that I needed to see him one last time before I completely closed that chapter. How or when, I didn’t know. We had not been communicating for a year, but I always had it at the back of my mind that I wanted to see him to make sure that he was doing fine. Call it closure, if you might, but I was given that chance right then and there.

It would have been easy to walk over and say hello, see where that would take us. So easy to create a movie out of it in my head, in true Before Sunrise/Before Sunset fashion. Desperately easy to overthink this serendipity, too, and make assumptions when there were none to be had. But I remembered that fateful morning on a chilly autumn day at the Hauptbahnhof when he offered me a way in, as I was stepping into the train carriage that would take me to the City of Love, Paris.

“You can always stay here with me, you know.”

It took me a moment to answer. And I finally said: “But … it’s Paris.”

As I walked from the train door to my seat, I saw him standing on the platform, looking, searching, waiting. Waiting until the train pulled away from the station, going faster and faster until he was but another speck on the window.

EPILOGUE

Those last words may seem vague, even non-commital. It may not be the most articulate way of ending it, but it was a series of personal choices that led up to that moment in the train station and those words were at the crux of it.

In that moment, I chose Paris. I chose the world. I chose myself.

Some love stories are not meant to last forever, rather, they’re meant to teach us lessons about ourselves and the ways of the world. We learn, we love, we lose, we move on.

So on that serendipitous morning at Frankfurt airport, two years after I had made a decision in the very same country, I made another choice: I picked up my bags and moved on.

HAPPY MONTH OF LOVE! x

#selfdiscovery #Europe