The Constellations

Description: In this milestone episode of Voice of Sayar Henry, the host takes the listener on a journey through the last 20 years of his life, sharing how seemingly unrelated events and connections converged and shaped who he is today. Inspired by the non-linear narrative style of How I Met Your Mother and based on real life events, this deeply personal story explores love, heartbreak, growth, and the unexpected ways the universe aligns the stars for us.

Prologue: This is Voice of Sayar Henry Podcast, Episode No. 69: A special episode inspired by the non-linear narrative style of the TV series How I Met Your Mother and based on the true stories that happened to me over the last 20 years. Creating this episode has been a pleasure for me, and I hope you have a great time with it. Enjoy!

THE CONSTELLATIONS

Kids, I’m gonna tell you a great story – the story of how I met my destiny.

It’s a story about love, loss, chance meetings, lessons learned, and how life has this funny way of putting the right pieces together at the right time. And it’s also a story of how I finally moved on from someone I once thought was the brightest star of my life.

But unlike any other story, we’re gonna start with this coffee cup and lid.

Every morning, I reach for this coffee cup and its lid.

But this isn’t just a cup and a lid —it’s a constellation of connections.

6 years ago, two of my students gave me this cup as a gift. And they were not just my students: they’re a couple. And not just any couple. They’re the couple who became a couple only after joining my class and eventually got married. But they didn’t initially come to me at the same time. The girl first joined my Ear Training class in Dec 2015, and the guy came 4 months later. Had they not become a couple, this cup wouldn’t be here. 

And here’s an interesting part: this lid didn’t come with the coffee cup. It came from another student who gave it to me a year before the arrival of the cup. She didn’t know the existence of the couple, and the couple never knew her. And yet, here they are—cup and lid—two pieces from different worlds. They found their way to me, and to each other, finally converging into my daily ritual. Separate origins, united purpose.   

And the people who gave them to me, they had no idea that their seemingly insignificant gifts would one day symbolize something so profound in my life. Even I couldn’t see back then that this coffee cup and lid would come to remind me of my own life’s journey and the connections that led to one of the most meaningful relationships in my life – Susan the ex.

Now, meeting Susan in 2017 wasn’t just a matter of chance—it was like the universe had been setting the stage for years. To meet her, I had to be emotionally available, a language teacher, and—oddly enough—familiar with French. Why? Because our first conversation was about learning French, and the spark between us originated from one of Celine Dion’s French songs.

But to fully understand how the universe orchestrated these constellations in my life, we have to go back to a decade earlier — the time of my life in Singapore.

It was 2008, and I just arrived Singapore. I was in my early 20s, and life was full of hopes and dreams. If you’re wondering how I ended up there, there’s a great story in itself — the one with a model girl. But we’ll get to that later. 

So, while I was studying and living in Singapore for some years, I was also looking for jobs, both part-time and full time. It was there I met Chanda, a Filipino girl. I first encountered her at a job interview in the last month of 2011. But she wasn’t just an interviewer—she became someone who opened my eyes to a new way of thinking. It was Chanda who introduced me to Before Sunrise — a movie that would later define my ideals in a relationship. It was a kind of movie that I never would have known or watched, if it weren’t for Chanda. We hooked up shortly after the job interview. We even managed to build our friends-with-benefits dynamic inspired by a movie with the same name. We had a great time together. But being two people from oceans apart, it didn’t last more than a few months as we finally had to go back to our home countries. What lasted was the movie: it stayed with me for years to come, and it shaped my future relationships in ways I couldn’t predict. 

So what does this movie have to do with Susan and other relationships?

Well, after meeting Chanda, in 2012, I returned home to Yangon. I was unsure of my next steps in my professional life. There was this promising job opportunity, offering me a second interview, which at the time seemed like a logical move. But something happened. The night before that second interview, I happened to revisit some scenes from Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. Something stirred in me—a longing to write, to share, to connect. So the next morning, I skipped the interview and started writing a novel instead. Now, I have to be honest. That novel never went past page one. But the decision led me down a path that would make me a full-time language teacher two years later. It was not only my destiny in career, but also a piece of jigsaw that needed to fit in the painting of Susan.  

But there’s another star that formed an alignment in this constellation.

A year before I met Susan, in 2016, I was dating another girl – Shauna. Now, this girl played an instrumental part in paving the way for Susan. Afterall, she was the one who introduced me to “Pour que tu m’aimes encore” – the Celine Dion song that connected Susan and me. But like I said earlier, I had to be single again and emotionally ready before Susan came into my life. This is where the values I took from Before Sunrise trilogy came to matter again.

You see, kids, Shauna and I had great chemistry when we started dating, but our relationship was heavily based on physical attraction. We couldn’t connect well in conversations on a deeper level. I felt like something was missing – something I wouldn’t have noticed, something I wouldn’t have realized had I not seen Before Sunrise. I didn’t get what I wanted from Shauna, and Shauna didn’t get what she wanted from me. So it came to an end earlier in 2017, leaving me emotionally available once again, with the clarity of what I’d like to focus on in my next relationship. As it turned out, Susan was looking for that too.

Kids, at this point, you can see how meeting Chanda was an important stepping stone in the path to my teaching career and to meeting Susan later on. And for that to happen, I had to be in Singapore applying for jobs in the same year as Chanda was working as an HR. But that wouldn’t have happened if my first year of college wasn’t the September intake of 2008. 

So, to understand how I got to Singapore and began my studies at the right time, we have to go back to the beginning – where all the chain reactions started. Let’s jump back 18 years into my past – to the Christmas Eve of 2006. 

That year, in my city, there was a Christmas festival at a place called Mya Kyun Thar. I went there  with a bunch of my geeky friends. We didn’t just go there to explore. I had to unofficially represent the display of a van de graaff generator. It was a machine developed by a magazine company I was writing for at the time. Not too far from our booth, there was a stage for live performances and a runway presentation. And there she was – Kate the model. As soon as I happened to lay my eyes on her on stage that day, I knew I liked her. So when she and her friends were exploring the booths at the fair, I took a chance to invite her to try the machine.

Kids, an ordinary girl would have shied away from touching a metal ball that could spike up her hair. But Kate was no ordinary girl. She was curious, adventurous, and down-to-earth. So, she came along to our booth and I set up the machine for her. 

Of course, I was a skinny and geeky young man, and I had no idea how to strike up a conversation with that tall model girl. All we did was exchange some smiles. But it felt like there was something between us.  So, a month later, I wrote a fan letter to her and sent it to her agency, explaining who I was and hoping a path would open and connect us. But 2007 went by quickly and nothing happened. So, I thought I would never see her again.

But fate would have it, that on a summer day in 2008, she and I met, sitting at an internet café, side by side, completely by chance. It was magical. We immediately recognized each other and started talking. And for the next few months, we hanged out a few times, at various places in the heart of Yangon, and I even gave her a rose at one point. 

Here’s the thing, kids: 2008 was the year I was supposed to make up my mind and complete my college application process. I hadn’t decided if I should focus on colleges in the US or in Singapore. But it was also the year of Nargis – a furious cyclone that disrupted life as we knew it. Kate and I lost contact with each other because of it. The last known information I had of her was that she wanted to study or work in Singapore later that year.

A month or two after Nargis, I found myself choosing Singapore—not just as a place to study, but as a way to follow a dream inspired by her. I was young, naïve, and driven by wishful thinking. And I learned only slowly – a year later – that she went to Dubai instead. Later on, she met a guy there and married him. Though our paths briefly crossed again later, my chapter in her story ended there. But for me, my story kept going. Because fate had other plans: Chanda in Singapore, then Shauna, and eventually Susan.  

You see, kids, the reason I didn’t really win Kate’s heart from the get-go was not just because I felt like she was out of my league. It was also because I was too inexperienced with girls and didn’t have enough confidence. The universe might have aligned the stars in my favor, but the timing wasn’t right, and I wasn’t ready. If I were to win Kate’s heart back then and successfully attract her to follow me to Singapore, I would have to be the version of guy that Chanda and Shauna fell for. So there’s a question to be asked: how did this guy who couldn’t succeed in romance with Kate in 2008 manage to get a friends-with-benefits relationship with a woman he just met at a job interview?    

Well, to really appreciate what happened and how I evolved in Singapore, we have to jump forward to 2011, several months before I met Chanda.

Now at this point, I was in my third year of my studies and I was busy with my final year project. But it was also the year I learned a valuable skill from another girl. Her name was Jennifer. 

Yes, kids, there’s another girl, but it’s not what you think. I mean… we didn’t really fit in with the lable of friends, but Jennifer didn’t turn out to be one of my romantic interests. If anything, she was more like my sparring partner. Put it like this: if Chanda showed me the ideal of connection, Jennifer taught me the art of forming it. 

Now I should let you know that Jennifer was one of the most attractive girls in the campus. Every guy wanted to date her. But she wasn’t a student. She was a student service officer – the hottest one at that. And that means she had a lot of experiences with students approaching her with extracurricular intents. Whenever it was her shift at the desk, some guys would immediately have “problems” that needed her attention. Some pretended to forget their time table, some claimed they couldn’t scan their ID card, some argued they din’t get class-cancellation messages. You know, those sort of things. But me? I didn’t do any of that. I just walked right to her, mentioned my issue as authentic as it was, and then left her without trying to chat her up. So in a way, to her, I stood out among the other guys. And later on when we met at the canteen, she smiled at me. And that’s how Jennifer and I became friends. 

Kids, it’s very hard to be just friends with a girl who’s attractive, smart, confident, and experienced with flirting. No matter how hard you try to stay on the friendship lane, you get excited and confused from time to time. It’s like riding a roller coaster. But for me, that was a good thing. Because I needed that. I needed someone – like Jennifer – who I could flirt with safely, like practicing the game of dating without affecting the friendship. 

But to fully understand why I wanted to dip my toes in the water with Jennifer, we have to go back a few months earlier – to the beginning of 2011. 

It was January, early in the first sememster of my final year. I was motivated, not just about getting a step closer to my degree, but also to meet new classmates and see new faces in the campus. It was then I connected with – wait, what’s her name? Oh shit! I forgot her name! Kids, it’s been long ago. I can’t remember the names of all the girls I met in the last 20 years. Never mind, let’s just call her Blah Blah. 

Wait! No, that’s not appropriate. Let’s call her the Chinese Girl, because she was from China. And she was pretty. One day, in the library, she needed help with working on a poster. I think it had something to do with her assignment. And as an Engineering student who had experience with so much more complex posters than hers, I was ready to help. Like I said, she was pretty. Soon, we found ourselves hanging out in the campus, going to job fairs and tech fairs together, and meeting around the City Hall. 

But kids, as much as I wanted to get her out on a date properly, I wasn’t much of a different boy from when I was with Kate: I was still stuck in the friend zone. And by March of that year, we had a falling-out. It was during the time we started to get busy with assignments and projects. It happened near a traffic light, not far from our campus. She said something, I said something, and then she said something I misheard. Funny thing is, I didn’t know that I misheard, so I misinterpreted it, and I felt offended. She also looked angry, and then we both walked in different directions.

Later that evening, I did something – a mistake that would change my life. I wrote a text driven by my anger and sent it to her. But what I didn’t know was she had already sent me an apology to my email. So, to her, I pushed this angry message even after she had apologized. By the time I checked my email, I realized I had made an irreversible damage to our connection. An hour later, she replied with a single word, in all caps: RUDE. 

And that was the last of it. The following days and weeks, I tried to reach out to her again to apologize, but never succeeded.            

Kids, here’s the lesson: Nothing good happens after sending a text within an hour of your negative emotions. Because once it is out, you can never take it back.  

So, there I was, in 2011, regretting what I did to the Chinese Girl, and realizing I needed to step up my maturity and personality. I decided to learn more on how to connect better with other people, especially girls because I knew very little about them, their emotions, and their way of thinking. So, I started watching more videos on YouTube that covered social skills, emotional intelligence, and dating related tips. I even took note of those early YouTubers’s advice on how to pick up girls, get their phone numbers, and how to text them to get past the friend zone. It’s a lot, but I absorbed whatever I could. But there was one problem with my remedial education in the fine art of flirting: It was all theoretical. I desperately needed to put what I’d learned into practice. I needed to test these out, in real life, with real girls, with real consequences. 

And kids, as you might have guessed already at this point, Jennifer, the hot student service officer, came into my life. Being as attractive as she was, Jennifer was no stranger to the dating games. Throughout our friendship, I took my chance to send her playful messages, make overnight phone calls, ask her out on dates, to dinners, movies, and beaches, and she knew what to do and how to respond: She played along. And she boosted my confidence.

And here’s the thing: Jennifer was the kind of girl who would switch jobs frequently and moved up her career ladder pretty quickly. She joined the student service team just before my final year started. But a few months after we became close, she moved on to a different institution. It was like she and I were meant to cross each other’s paths before I graduated and before she resigned. Without Jennifer, at that point of my life, I wouldn’t be ready when I met Chanda a little later, at that job interview. And without experiencing the falling out with the Chinese Girl, I wouldn’t have been ready for Jennifer. 

Kids, at this point of my story, you’d think you’ve heard it all. You’d think all the different pieces of this constellation is now in place, ready for Susan. But trust me, the twists and turns of my story are not over yet.

There’s one more star that needed to align long before the Chinese Girl led me to Jennifer. For that, we have to go back to 2009. 

It was the year I worked around the clock as a part-time waiter at the Shangri-La hotel, thanks to Sushil, my Nepalese friend. And out of a thousand different guests I served that year, there was this one guy that I took the wrong order of. And why did I get the order wrong? Well, the guy spoke English in a very thick accent. And guess what – he was French. When the food arrived at the table, the guy summoned me and humiliated me in front of everyone, saying how he’d rather eat his own shoes than chew what I got him. He was making a point that it was an insult to a French person. At that moment, I realized it would have eased the tension a bit if I could apologize him in French. But I couldn’t. I had zero knowledge in French. And that experience pushed me to take a French class the following semester.  

And kids, here comes the twist: In that French class, I met Ivy – the girl who got in late and couldn’t get any other seat except the one next to me. So, she and I got to practice some greetings and basic phrases in French. And it was just that one time we did that, but it was enough for us to be no stranger to each other in the campus. And because we knew each other that way, nearly 2 years later, she felt comfortable enough to reach out to me in the library, asking for help with her poster. So there we have it: Ivy was the Chinese Girl! 

(Yeah, it’s all coming back to me now.)

You see, kids, if my college intake wasn’t in September 2008, I never would become friends with Sushil. And if I never got recommended by this good friend, I never would have worked at the Shangri-La hotel. And if I didn’t work there, I never would have encountered with that French guy. And without that humiliating experience, I wouldn’t have had the reason to join the French class that would prepare me with the knowledge that Susan would ask for 8 years down the road. And Ivy the Chinese Girl never would have asked for my help in the library in 2011. And Jennifer wouldn’t have to come in the picture. And I wouldn’t become the man Chanda and Shauna could fall for. My life would have been very different: I never would have had the relationship with Susan. 

But the stars aligned, and the constellation of Susan emerged. 

When Susan and I finally met, we knew we loved each other — in a way that was hard to explain for both of us. But instead of labelling our feelings as one or the other, we quickly built something beautiful. It wasn’t perfect; no relationship can be. But it was hopeful. For nearly three years, we shared dreams and challenges: We evolved and shaped each other along the journey. It seemed to me that she was my destiny, and that I was hers. But I was wrong. We were wrong. We couldn’t foresee that the very things that we focused heavily on in our relationship would one day pull us apart. So, in 2020, during the pandemic, our relationship ended. 

Kids, not all relationships are built to last. Life is unpredictable like that. Even with the celestial orchestra that staged Susan and me over the span of 15 years, things cannot be taken for granted. But for me, who had seen it all and lived it through, it was really challenging. While Susan moved on, I struggled. I didn’t just lose a partner—I lost a part of myself.

But here is another twist of my life – perhaps the most important one. As I had been trying to navigate the hardest breakup of my life for two years without success, the universe had been preparing a way out for me, long before the day Susan decided to end things. It was a twist of fate, which I would dearly refer to as The Pixel Incident.

To understand what it was and how important it was for me, we have to go back in time one last time, to 2019. 

It was early in the rainy season, six months before the rise of coronavirus in China. A phone made by Google was on its way from US to Yangon. And its purpose, at the time, was to serve as my secondary phone – one that was meant for my side projects, not for phone calls. Because I already had my primary phone – the same one as Susan’s. But one afternoon in June, I got a call from a lady who wanted to enroll her nephews in my classes. After the conversation, I pulled out the student registration folder. And I had forgotten that between the sheets of the folder lied the earphones attached to my iPad which happened to be covered by the folder. So, as I pulled the folder, the tension in the earphone’s wire also pulled the iPad to the edge of the table. As soon as I sensed that my iPad was about to fall off the table, I quickly caught it. But my hands’ sudden movement forced the folder to push my phone off the table’s edge. The phone hit the floor and immediately went black. No matter what I did next, it didn’t come back to life. It stopped working.   

I was furious that my primary phone, which I loved because it was the same as Susan’s, died just like that. I also felt so frustrated with wired earphones. Because in my mind, that wouldn’t have happened if I had a wireless headphones instead. And that’s when I made the purchase decision for a pair of noise-cancelling bluetooth headphones. And because I needed a replacement phone quickly, the Pixel 3A had to enter the scene. Now it became my primary phone — despite my original intentions.  So there I was, using the pixel phone and the SONY’s headphones on a daily basis for years to come. I was so sure a similar accident would never repeat. 

But here comes the next thing I couldn’t have predicted. It happened about a year and half later, one night in January 2021, a couple of months after my breakup with Susan. I was holding my phone, iPad, and AirPods, switching from the living room to the bedroom while listening to music on my SONY headphones. It was dark and my senses were dumbed down by the headphone’s strong noise cancellation feature. And suddenly, my fingers lost touch of the phone, and I dropped it. The poor pixel phone hit the floor, like its predecessor. I was shocked and worried. What if it died? 

Kids, think about this: The very phone that had to take the place of the previous phone that dropped because I didn’t own a wireless headphone was now on the floor because of my use of wireless headphone that was purchased to avoid this type of accident. What a big loop of irony! 

Luckily enough, the pixel survived. It was still functioning when I picked it up. But its screen was scarred with cracks, and the touch screen’s sensitivity was now messed up. And it broke my already broken heart. I was speechless that night. 

The next day, I decided that I would not replace this pixel phone with another one, until it stopped working entirely. In my head, I already lost someone in 2020, so I didn’t want to let go of another one even if it was just a physical object. I would hold on to that phone for as long as I could. And its scars in the form of cracks on the screen and the occasionally-not-going to-work touch screen would be a constant reminder of my carelessness with it, and with my relationship with Susan. I thought there had to be a lesson to learn. So, I kept using the phone, and kept blaming myself, for the next 2 years.

Well, not exactly 2 years. Because it wasn’t meant to go on for 2 years.  The universe knew it was about time I let go of this pain.  

It was one morning, in the first week of November 2022. I was walking out and about in the neighborhood and came back home. As I was unlocking the door to my apartment, I sensed a vibration from my pants’ pocket. I took my phone out and looked at the screen. I just got a missed call: It was Susan.

At this point, it had been quite a while since the last time we spoke. So, I paused. I wasn’t sure what to do with it. But I knew I had to return the call, so I did. 

And kids, to this day, I couldn’t believe what happened. When Susan picked up my return call, I learned that she was also giving me a return call because she got a missed call from me earlier. I told her I didn’t, but she confirmed I did. 

And you know who initiated the call? 

It was the Pixel: The phone with its messed-up touch screen because of the cracks from 23 months ago. The sensors got it wrong, and it unlocked itself inside the pocket of my jean’s pants and somehow randomly dialed Susan’s number. It was one in a million shot.

Susan and I were both surprised, and immediately laughed at the odds of it. Then we realized it was about time we had that conversation. I realized I still had unresolved feelings, and that pocket-dial reopened a door I thought was closed. Over the next few months, we stayed in touch and got to talk through what we couldn’t the first time around. We learned together what we truly wanted in a relationship – not something too heavy on one or few aspects, but a balance of romantic, sexual, intellectual, and emotional attraction. We finally understood our breakup in 2020 highlighted that for us, even in each other’s absence. And now we connected once again, but this time as good friends. None of this would have happened if it weren’t for that pocket-dial.

And just recently, before the end of 2024, Susan and I spoke again. She told me she’s seeing someone new, and for the first time, I felt … nothing. No pain, no bitterness. Just peace. I told her I was happy for her and I gave her my blessing. 

That moment was my closure— something I never thought I would get from the end of a chapter that I thought would define me forever. It was a long and arduous journey, but I am finally free.

Kids, sometimes in life, you arrive at a destination and start to wonder, “Where do you go next?” To me, I’m right back where I started, before that Christmas Eve of 2006. It feels like I’m home: single, free, hopeful, young at heart, and my best years ahead of me. 

So here I am, looking at this coffee cup and lid. Two separate gifts from two separate worlds, yet they somehow fit together like they were always meant to. My life, much like this cup and lid, has been a series of connections. And just like the universe brought this cup and lid together, I know it’s still at work, creating new connections and possibilities. That’s what life does. 

If the last 20 years have taught me anything, it’s this:

Every person we meet, every twist in the road—it all leads somewhere. We may not see the pattern at first, but one day, when we step back, the constellations appear. It all guides us to where, when, and who we have to become. All you need is a little courage and action, every step of the way.

You see kids, the universe may have sent Kate the model girl to cross paths with me in the Christmas of 2006, but it wouldn’t have mattered if I didn’t have the courage to invite her to come try the machine. And that humiliation I felt with a French customer in 2009, it wouldn’t have led me to Ivy if I didn’t take action to enoll in French lessons. And without taking steps to learn from my mistake with Ivy, I never would have approached Jennifer the right way and we never would have become friends. And without putting out what I’d learned with Jennifer in the real world, I never would have had the confidence to ask Chanda and Shauna out, and I wouldn’t have become the person that Susan crossed paths with. And things never would have led to this moment of clarity.     

See? The universe may align the stars for you, but you have to take action to connect the dots and get to your constellations, one after another. Destiny isn’t just something that happens—it’s something you meet halfway.

Kids, I’ve closed a chapter of my life, but the stars are still out there. And who knows? Somewhere far away from here, another lid could be on its way to her cup.

And next time, when that shift of constellation begins, I’ll be ready. Ready to take action and trust the journey. Because that, kids, is how I meet my destiny.

– THE END –

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, you’ve been listening to Voice of Sayar Henry podcast. I’m your host, Sayar Henry, and with this episode, I’m officially closing a chapter of my life. Thank you so much for your time and support.