I have three highlights of my twenty one years of existence. In chronological order:

Germany

It is 2011 and I am 17 and I come home from school crying on most days. In retrospect, I think it might have been the closest thing to depression I would ever encounter (either that, or I am a bored, spoilt kid). I am passionate with nothing to be passionate for. I am restless, but I have no where to run. My parents are amazing and wonderful, I don't know if they understand me, but I think they know that I am looking for something I can't find here, so they buy me a solo air ticket to Munich, Germany and I stay there for a month.

For the first time, I feel alive. I fall so fucking hard for the city. My heart immediately invests in everything I see, every day. I memorise the train map with fervour so I can feel like a local. I eat marzipan, and gag. I visit cemeteries by myself, in ghost towns on weekdays. I stumble across a bookstore that has books written in languages I don't understand tucked into every nook and cranny, under every staircase, the creaking shelves are bursting with stories I will probably never read. I buy a book anyway, for keepsake. It's a French poetry book. Inside I find a note written in French. I tell myself to find out what it says. I never do.

On the plane back to Singapore, I watch a cheesy, mediocre German romance film. I cry for hours. It's 2015 coming 2016, I am 21 going on 22. I miss Munich every day.

Scuba Diving

It is the beginning of 2013 and I am in a new school. I have just graduated from secondary school and am now studying something I finally like – Creative Writing – and I'm excited. I feel brave and happy. School events and CCAs have mostly repelled me, but like I said, I feel brave, so I agree to go to the CCA fair.

It's hot and crowded and there are way too many groups of students screaming for freshmen to join their CCA. I walk around, annoyance very quickly replacing my brief bravery, until I reach the last aisle. On a whim, and because I didn't want to feel like I wasted my time, I put my name down on the piece of paper at the scuba diving booth.

It is June, and I am on my first diving trip. We are on a tiny boat, heading to our dive spot. Someone plays the worst music on their phone speakers. Someone else cuts up a 1.5 litre Coke bottle in half and fills it with sea water. I later learn that it is our makeshift ashtray.

When we dive, the silence is life-changing. I try to swim at the head of the group so that I am always looking out into the vast ocean, and not at someone's feet. I pretend that I am alone.

Coming Out

I meet the girl I would later fall in love with the day before a dive trip. I am walking along the stretch of Holland Village when I decide, hey, I should get a job. She interviews me. I go for my dive trip. I come back. It is my birthday week.

We hang out almost every day for weeks. I ask myself if I have been doing this whole friendship thing wrong, because I think she is a friend, but am I supposed to miss friends this much when I am not with them?

We work night shifts and after work, we hang out in the dark, empty café drinking apple cider. We talk for hours, and I am astounded at how comfortable I am with this girl.

One night, she kisses me, and I kiss her back. Later, I text a friend asking, "Does kissing a girl make me gay?" She says no. Then I ask, "Does wanting to kiss the same girl again make me gay?" She says, "Maybe. Probably."

There is no difficulty with coming to terms with my newfound sexuality. The difficulty came with family. My mother cries. My father doesn't know what to say. For a year, we adjust to each other.

A year later, we celebrate Christmas together. All of us. My family, their friends, my friends, and my girlfriend. We all get drunk together. I am so goddamn lucky.

***

There are one or two other major events, but these three are my favourite to talk about. I find it depressing as hell that every time I write, I write about things that have happened a long time ago. Nothing happens to me anymore, because I happen to nothing. My excuse to myself is that I am 'settling down', but I'm not. I'm just existing, and it feels like shit.

Henry David Thoreau said, "How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live."

How vain it is.