Taking The Plunge

My sister and I didn't start out as bosom buddies.  Born four years apart, I was the eldest and she the youngest with a brother in between us.  In our childhoods we shared a bedroom for some time but led pretty separate lives and little confidences.

As we both grew older and became the selves we are now, we discovered each other somewhere along the way, shared secrets and worries, rants and silly girly excitements about love and all sorts of growing up things.  She taught me some things I should have probably taught her, me being the older one.  I, in turn, was probably just there for her in any way I could be when I felt she needed some propping up.

Over the last ten years we have shared a particular bond from some weird and wild adventures that we may not have fallen into without one another.  Impromptu drives to Singapore and back, unscheduled flights home from a foreign country, long-distance phone calls to chase imaginary ghosts from a hotel room and a random trip to Spain.

Given our inclination towards stepping out into the unknown together, it was perhaps fitting that she was the one who accompanied me on the maiden trip to Langkawi to check out the little resort advertised in the papers.  Only this time we had an extra companion - her then baby son.

The trip, like any that mark a turning point in one's life, was unremarkable in its minutiae.  We saw the little inn, marvelled at the creeper trellis that was probably it's only charm, sunk our toes in the sand behind the rooms and contemplated uprooting our lives and moving to the island.

Prior to this visit, I had not been to Langkawi for some four or five years.  In my numerous previous visits, it had always been somewhere to get away to and nothing more.  But this time round, things felt different.  There was an inexplicable pull that goaded me to keep walking on a a stretch of beach each time I felt like turning back.  It felt, for lack of better words, familiar and new at the same time.  Not like a home you've known your entire life, but a safe place where your soul could be happy and perhaps start a fresh chapter of your life.

We came away from it determined to try and give things a shot.  Anim did the numbers and we talked about the possibility of moving.  We were excited at the prospect of things.  But in the end, as fate would have it, the inn was bought by someone else.  

In retrospect, it was perhaps for the best.  Once the inn slipped from our grasp, I turned my thoughts to the idea of building something from ground up, the way we want it.  And the more I thought about it, the more frightening and exciting it seemed.

I suppose I cannot deny that I have the attention span of a goldfish.  Things that are new and unfamiliar captivate me.  But once I figure them out, they cease to keep me fixated.  So the idea of crafting an entire little resort all by ourselves appealed because it was so different from what we've both done in our professional lives.  Plus, it was a dream we both somehow had tucked away in between the loose leaf pages of our lives and what ifs.