People deal with their miseries in different ways.

One of my main sources of miseries is from regret of not doing something that I could have done. It was something I had known right from the start I wanted, but over the years, I got distracted and the possibility of fulfilling that wish seemed a lot more remote than how it had been in reality. I could have visited London 2012 Olympics had I worked hard enough for it, but I had not. So the Olympics came and went and my life is still Olympic-less.

It is so unlike me to dwell in past regrets, especially those that happened a few years ago. But I just finished reading ‘Stardust’, a novel by Neil Gaiman and re-watched the movie subsequently. It was then that I remembered that the end credit of the movie was Take That’s ‘Rule the World’, one of my favourite songs of all time. Naturally, I went to YouTube to search for all the different versions of the song, and this came up:

It was like opening an unhealed but forgotten wound and exposing it to fresh air again. I was so in awe from watching the performance, that all these horrible thoughts started to come back: how I could have been there, and remembered the stories of my friends who were there to watch the biggest sports event in the world at one of the cities I love the most – it could have been me there too! And Olympics being in my bucket list and all!

And of course the only way I deal with my miseries is by writing about it. Through writing, a silver lining can somehow magically appear, reminding me of something good that came out of those miseries so many years ago. In this case, the silver lining came in the form of a keyring.

It was a present from a friend of mine when he moved from London. I still use the keyring until now.

And just like that, I smiled. The regret vanished and I have fond memories of London Olympics once again.