曾今在一个朋友的朋友圈看到这段话，觉得有趣所以用来做个开头
Writing in Chinese is too slow and like my title says, I can be really lazy at times hence I want to write in English because it is way faster to type than Chinese. This week, I experienced one of the most unsettling and uncertain week of my life and perhaps the last time I experienced this was when I was deciding between a MOE scholarship and a SIA interview 14 years ago. What was I tussling between - going home and not. I remembered when I had to make that decision 14 years ago, I too was sitting inside a room in Hilton Hotel, where I was working during vacation, writing a blog post to weigh the pros and cons. Lil Sis did it with me today and that moment made me realise that we indeed are sisters and adopt the same thinking. I am usually a very decisive person, and I make every decision having thought through all the consequences and once I decide, I will not look back no matter what. However this time round, I am really undecided and my mind is like a yoyo (exactly like the stock market these days). I feel like I have to make a decision by the deadline so on some days I feel that yes I have to go home and after another 2-3 hours and having my luggage all packed, I told myself no, I should just stay put. This is the emotional swing that I am going through now.
People around me gave me all sorts of advices, family and friends eager and supportive of me returning home while others felt that it was not the right thing to do and honestly, a part of me does not want to return home at this juncture. I fear one thing - the journey home on the plane when I expose myself to the risk of the virus and potentially spread the virus to others. Thereafter, what happens to my life here in London? My flat? My belongings? My career? Will I ever be able to return to what it was before the crisis? It was only a month ago that I was writing about the virus rather peacefully and now, it has unfolded to such dire consequences in Europe and the US.
However, as I am rather lazy to type because it is 12am, I have decided to keep it short. After going through all the messages I received, I asked myself - what is the worst case scenario? Death. Am I ready to face it? I am. In case I do have to face it, let's go!
For the people who love me so much: this is for you. Life has been pretty generous with me; I have lived a life of no regrets to be honest and I have always wondered how would my life end some day? I travelled to so many of the places that I have always dreamed of visiting since I was a child and then a teenager, all 6 continents of the world and if you read my 19 going on 20 post, I did a reflection of my last decade. I felt that I have achieved so much in life and I have been a very happy person but I put in so much effort every single day of my life to be a happy person - always striving hard in whatever that I do even though I might have the talent / intelligence to exert less effort than others to do it but I always told myself to give my 100% in everything that I do. Indeed, it can be tiring at times to have to always be diligent, be thinking a step ahead of others, to think maturely and so much more (I see so much white hair in the mirror these days), however I do not feel any regrets in doing so and I do not feel painful having to go through all of these. Of course there have been times that I feel like giving up, questioning myself as to why do I have to strive so hard in life but I persevered time and again because I know that some day, all of these would have to come to a stop and that is the day when I shut my eyes and hopefully go to heaven (or not). If I were to leave this world, do not feel any sorrow for me or feel any regrets that I am gone sooner than you do. In fact, you should be happy for me because I can finally put a stop to all of these and be at peace with all kinds of struggles in life. Life indeed is a struggle - thousands of decisions to be made and consequences to be faced but that is what makes us human so make sure you live a life worth living. For me, I feel that I have done that: lived a life worth living, so why have any regrets? When I was 18, I told my best friend, WenX that if someday I die before I go to Old Trafford, he will have to do it for me. How silly was I back then? Also, do not feel that if I have to die, I have to die in Singapore, my hometown or anywhere or have my ashes put somewhere or whatsoever because I do not believe in any of it. We came with nothing and we will leave with nothing. We were meant to be a speck of dust in this vast universe and so will we be gone with the wind.
I have left enough footprints in the people that I love and care about - the places that I have been to with all these people, people who have kept me company, shared their stories with me, made me a better person in life and you can live on with memories of me. I have made enough impact with my little effort in life - having a first career in teaching, influencing kids, showing them the way of life, imparting my values (upright moral values) and I know these people that I have influenced will go on to influence lives and spread the belief and values to a wider number of people. If there is one thing that you feel that you should have done for me but have not, that is to live happily for the rest of your life. If you think of me occasionally, I would be happy but I hope that you will not be upset or unhappy while thinking of me, so depending on whether you would feel happy or sad while thinking of me, then decide whether you should think of me or not. :) Ciao. I love all of you. 请大家都要笑着活下去
Sunday, 29 March 2020
Sunday, 1 March 2020
Leap year 2020
I have been wanting to hit this space of mine since 3 weeks ago when the virus episode started unfolding and all the discussions / thoughts about the end of the world potentially coming kept surrounding social media/ my friends and I. However, I procrastinated time and again and finally decided to start penning down my thoughts on this special day that comes only once every 4 years. Yes, it is 29 February today!
4 years ago today, my family and I spent it at Old Trafford on the museum tour after which we had lunch and then prepared to fly to Amsterdam the next day. It was a day to remember for sure since my brother and I had been talking about this dream for the longest time ever to one day visit Old Trafford together!
When you become an adult, time flies. It was only 2 months ago that I was writing my 2020 new year resolutions and boom, here we are going into March 2020!!! I have plans to visit Russia this year and was thinking about going to the Arctic cruise in summer this year when I get an extra two weeks off. However, with this virus spreading through Europe these days, I dare not make any plans. I just hope it comes to a conclusion as soon as possible. Occasionally, fear grips me because I live alone and I wonder what I should do if I really catch the virus. How am I going to take care of myself? The ankle sprain in December made me realise that in times of sickness, you see the true colours of people and the amount of care and concern and help that they can extend to you.
In addition to the health scares, you also feel job insecurity. It is one thing to see news of "stock market tumbles, xx billion being wiped out in a week, millionaires and billionaires losing xx billion, etc." but it is another thing when you yourself work in the finance industry and see your meetings being cancelled and leave you wondering if it is going to be a dry year again and what deals will I be doing this year? I remember 7 years ago I started a series of 31 things to talk about in a month and that was the year when I was frantically writing about things that happened to my everyday life, the people I met, the things that I am passionate about, etc.
As we welcome a new decade, I told myself that this will be the year that I want to write more once again. It does not matter if anyone reads my blog because some day when I am old and I look back, I hope this will be a space where I can reminisce about the past.
Today, I shall welcome my first post of the people in my life and the things that they taught me. Countless people enter into my life, some left footprints, some still linger while others are nowhere to be seen. I shall write about as many as I can. I need to be concise otherwise I will be writing until 12am. :)
1. Mom - People always say, "Daughters take after their mom and look to their mother as a role model." I must say that I do, but I told myself that I do not want to follow the footsteps of my mom for sure. My mom is one of the kindest persons that I have ever met in my life but what I learnt from her is that - if you try to make everyone around you happy, you make yourself unhappy. My mom was my confidant as a kid as I recall I enjoy the walks with my mom home from school and me telling her what happened in school. If I felt afraid, especially during a period of time when I first started secondary school, I will find an opportune timing to speak with my mom (it was not easy because she was burdened with work and household chores) and ask her for advice. However, I cannot recall when it was that I stopped confiding in my mom and in fact did not want to tell her anything in my life because I felt she will go around telling my relatives, neighbours, strangers that she met in the market, etc. I started to distant from my mom; we had many disagreements and before I moved overseas to study / work / live, I had a big argument with her. Yet despite all that happened, I love my mom a lot even though I always felt that she did not love me the way I wanted. Having to share my mom's love with so many people - my grandma, her siblings, my dad, my siblings, and her sense of responsibility and her OCD, it was too thin for me at times I felt. Nevertheless, I see her sacrifices so when I started working, I told myself I would like to bring my mom to see the world, to broaden her horizons, to make her feel happy and to lighten her burden. We have been to many places in the last 10 years - Thailand, Taiwan, Maldives, Beijing, Australia, Europe, Dubai, Kenya, Tanzania and Japan. If there is one place which I felt my mom truly enjoyed, it was Maldives. Just the two of us, by the sea for 4 days, my mom playing games on my phone and me lying around. When I decided to bring her to Africa, I felt that I should have brought her alone rather than with my dad because my dad would be a burden to her and she will not truly feel happy. Despite all the trips that we have taken, I never know if my mom truly felt happy when I brought her on my travels. She would always be worrying about the heap of unwashed clothes when she returns so sometimes I feel that bringing her overseas is my way of loving her but perhaps not the way she wanted. I am doing a "my mom's way of love on me" back on her. When I travel, I send my mom postcards from different places that I went to and shared with her my emotions / experiences from my travels. Ever since I reached an age when I could support myself, I tried all ways and means to make my mom happier - I started earning my own upkeep so that she did not have to worry about money be it taking on part-time jobs while studying, going for a scholarship so that she could leave her retirement funds untouched, giving her a part of my salary / bonuses so that she did not have to worry about money, buying her gifts from time to time, bringing her overseas and showing her the world through my lens with my postcards, etc. The only one thing that I had not been doing in the last 4-5 years is staying at home. So much to be said and so much left unsaid, Asian families' way of love is always left in the heart unsaid and if there is one thing I wish for my mom - I wish for her to be happy because I feel that my mom is a very negative person and all her life, she has never felt truly happy.
2. Dad - My dad thinks he is a "know-it-all"and we always joke about how he likes to GG about his childhood, his values in life, his work ethics etc. I do not always talk to my dad a lot because I find him naggy and he loves to repeat himself but I vividly recalls a few conversations that I have with him. I told him that now I am all grown-up, I have seen more in life than he does because I travelled, I moved overseas, I have a wider network so our roles have reversed. While he used to teach us morals and share with us his experiences, our experiences are now more varied than his and we know more about the world than he does. I know that my dad dotes on me a lot ever since I was a kid and towards him, it is a sense of responsibility that my siblings and I fulfil in life towards him. My dad probably did not have a great childhood, probably does not know what it means to be a father and how to be one because he did not have a role model himself, but I feel that he leads a much happier life than my mom. When I compare how I treat them, I see the difference between love and duty.
3. Brother - The most important lesson my brother gave me was the one when he told me - "Everything little thing that you do shapes up your character". I think it happened during my first/ second year in the polytechnic and that phrase really made a huge impact on me. Each time I felt that I could leave something to tomorrow, each time I felt that I could take one shortcut, each time I felt that I wanted to be rude to someone, each time I felt that I want to be selfish and end up doing something potentially inconsiderate, that phrase came to my mind and I decided to go that extra mile and put in extra effort and be more considerate. That shaped me into who I am today; I have a little bit of intelligence which enables me to pick up things quickly but that phrase coupled with my early failure in life moulded me into someone who would put in double the hard work and effort in my work because I feel that if I were to be a little lazy today, I would be a little lazy tomorrow as well and that laziness would grow and shape me into a completely different person. You never know how your words may affect a person's life so think before you speak. Like my mother, I feel that my brother is also a generally unhappy person despite him having so much love from everyone around him - my mom, my SIL, my sister and I, my cousins, etc. All of us shower him with a lot of praises and love but it seems like his heart is a bottomless pit that no amount of love, care and concern can truly fill it. Hence, I wish the same for him like my mom that someday, he will truly feel happy again. I do not know if that day will ever come but I really hope it will.
4. Sister - My sister is my real pillar of support in the last five years ever since I moved overseas. She is my confidant, my rubbish bin whom I pour all my sorrows, direct all my grouses and complaints to, etc. It can be so tiring to keep listening to someone complain but my sister takes it all in. Hence, I am really grateful for having my sister around me. I used to dislike her when I was a kid because I felt that my mom was biased towards her and loved her more than she loved me. However, having all grown up, I was able to change my perspective that if I were the more able/ capable one among the two of us, it would make more sense for my mom to love my sister a bit more and I will protect them and support them. Hence, I never once looked back at my childhood and lingered in the "my mom is biased" history and have any disdain for my sister. However, in the last 1-2 years, I could sense that my sister is also experiencing a lot in life that she is becoming a different person. It worries me because I once feel that my sister has the purest heart in the world - kindness, sympathy, empathy, love for the people around her and this 赤子之心 once eroded can never be regained. I wish the world would not taint her nature, a part of it out of my selfishness that if my sister stayed who she used to be, she would always be that pillar of support for me but also more importantly, I am afraid she will experience darkness and grow to be increasingly unhappy if she loses her nature. I remember I used to tell my sister that I really hope that she will not die before I do because I will feel lonely in a world without her and I do not want to feel lonely. However, I must say that in the last 1 year, I have started to come to terms that no one can stay the way they are for the rest of their lives - the only constant in this world is change so I have to come to accept that my sister is no longer who she was 5 years ago and I have to cope with the fact that I will be lonely in the many years to come in the future. The sense of responsibility that my sister has towards my parents and these days, I feel towards me as well, is one thing that I really fear. I do not want my sister to feel like she has a sense of responsibility towards us, that what she is doing is out of her duty and not the love she has for us but that is way beyond my control. I wish for my sister to not be tainted by the ugliness of this world.
The 4 most important people in my life since I was born - 一辈子或许很短但一瞬间可以很长. I learnt that even though you might be so reliant on someone for a good 5-10 years or even more, your relationship may not always stay the way it is for the rest of your life even though you are connected by blood. Love is... neither out of responsibility nor duty. Love should be from the heart. Perhaps I had not been spending enough time at home but I feel that I truly love my mom, my brother and sister. I always wished for the best for them, for them to be happy and I always try my best to help them and encourage them in my way, yet I have only been through perhaps half a lifetime and I could feel fatigue in our relationships and some days I feel it could break down any time. In the past, I would have no qualms about asking for a favour from my sister i.e. buy something, do something for me, etc. but these days, I sense that she might find it a chore to always have to deal with my requests. I feel sad when I think about how it has evolved into because I always feel that if we are one family, we should not feel bad / guilty about asking for a favour because that is what being family means. You do it out of love for your family but if you let such a thought seed in you, it is the start of a relationship deteriorating and hence in Chinese, a lifetime might be short but you live through so many moments in a lifetime and it is those moments that can be seemingly long and painful.
5. Bihong - Bihong is also family to me, someone whom I grew up with and always like a sister to me. I always feel that she is the most blessed among our entire family - a decent career, good looks, a loving husband now and two adorable kids, need not worry about finances, etc. For that, I hope I can protect her, protect her happiness because happiness does not come easy in life, especially for us who grew up in a disadvantaged family - low income, broken, divorced, etc. She is the only person in my family whom I envy and for that, I feel happy that I can at least envy 1 person in my entire family. 请你一定要一直幸福下去
6. Doe Doe - Watched her grew up, always felt that she would have a smooth sailing life, steady boyfriend, finally graduated from university and having her own career. I paid much less attention towards her than Efu but things took a sudden turn and her life collapsed. I always recall the time when she came to my university dorm in NUS and me helping her during PSLE. It is a bond / moment in life that you share with that someone whom you will remember for the rest of your life. After the breakup, I felt one thing towards her - negligence. I realised that I had not spent enough time with her, had not shown her enough concern because I felt that she had a better half to take care of her already. Yet in my eyes, I really feel that she is outstanding and she deserves someone who will take good care of her for the rest of her life. She shall not and cannot belong to our 'forever alone' gang, please.
7. Efu - Watched her grew up and I know I have made an impact in her life but little does she know that because of her, I will also want to better myself so that I can always be ahead of her and guide her when she feels lost. Though heartless as she may seem, I feel that she is the true embodiment of love from what she does for her parents and siblings. She is still young and has not been tainted by the ugliness of the world. She is the someone whom I talk rubbish with these days even when we are miles apart. You cannot imagine how touched I am when she told me that she want to go with me to somewhere that I have not been to, to explore the world with me because she knows that I love to travel and now that she is all grown up and can earn her own upkeep, she can travel with me rather than me playing the tour guide. :) Like my sister, I wish Efu can stay pure and innocent and continue to love the people around her.
8. Benjamin - Watched him grew up as well and seen how hard he has ploughed to get to where he wants to be. There is a Chinese saying - 帮人帮到底 送佛送到西. 2009 was the defining year for our relationship - me deciding to give this cousin of mine a push during his O levels and since then, I can only say that I am really proud of him. Always giving his best, truly wanting to become an educator and mould lives - he can continue what I left behind and ever since 2009, I always think about this cousin of mine, about how I can give him a little push whenever he needs one because since I have decided to interfere in his life back in 2009, I am going to have to do it all my life! He is this close to fulfilling his dream of becoming an educator after 11 years of biting the bullet through from poly to army to university. Please, God, bless him with strength and conviction to finally get to where he wants to because he really deserves it!
I am really tired and in line with my new 2020 NY resolution to sleep early and live a healthy lifestyle, I shall continue with this tomorrow or the day after. There are just so many people for me to write about.
4 years ago today, my family and I spent it at Old Trafford on the museum tour after which we had lunch and then prepared to fly to Amsterdam the next day. It was a day to remember for sure since my brother and I had been talking about this dream for the longest time ever to one day visit Old Trafford together!
When you become an adult, time flies. It was only 2 months ago that I was writing my 2020 new year resolutions and boom, here we are going into March 2020!!! I have plans to visit Russia this year and was thinking about going to the Arctic cruise in summer this year when I get an extra two weeks off. However, with this virus spreading through Europe these days, I dare not make any plans. I just hope it comes to a conclusion as soon as possible. Occasionally, fear grips me because I live alone and I wonder what I should do if I really catch the virus. How am I going to take care of myself? The ankle sprain in December made me realise that in times of sickness, you see the true colours of people and the amount of care and concern and help that they can extend to you.
In addition to the health scares, you also feel job insecurity. It is one thing to see news of "stock market tumbles, xx billion being wiped out in a week, millionaires and billionaires losing xx billion, etc." but it is another thing when you yourself work in the finance industry and see your meetings being cancelled and leave you wondering if it is going to be a dry year again and what deals will I be doing this year? I remember 7 years ago I started a series of 31 things to talk about in a month and that was the year when I was frantically writing about things that happened to my everyday life, the people I met, the things that I am passionate about, etc.
As we welcome a new decade, I told myself that this will be the year that I want to write more once again. It does not matter if anyone reads my blog because some day when I am old and I look back, I hope this will be a space where I can reminisce about the past.
Today, I shall welcome my first post of the people in my life and the things that they taught me. Countless people enter into my life, some left footprints, some still linger while others are nowhere to be seen. I shall write about as many as I can. I need to be concise otherwise I will be writing until 12am. :)
1. Mom - People always say, "Daughters take after their mom and look to their mother as a role model." I must say that I do, but I told myself that I do not want to follow the footsteps of my mom for sure. My mom is one of the kindest persons that I have ever met in my life but what I learnt from her is that - if you try to make everyone around you happy, you make yourself unhappy. My mom was my confidant as a kid as I recall I enjoy the walks with my mom home from school and me telling her what happened in school. If I felt afraid, especially during a period of time when I first started secondary school, I will find an opportune timing to speak with my mom (it was not easy because she was burdened with work and household chores) and ask her for advice. However, I cannot recall when it was that I stopped confiding in my mom and in fact did not want to tell her anything in my life because I felt she will go around telling my relatives, neighbours, strangers that she met in the market, etc. I started to distant from my mom; we had many disagreements and before I moved overseas to study / work / live, I had a big argument with her. Yet despite all that happened, I love my mom a lot even though I always felt that she did not love me the way I wanted. Having to share my mom's love with so many people - my grandma, her siblings, my dad, my siblings, and her sense of responsibility and her OCD, it was too thin for me at times I felt. Nevertheless, I see her sacrifices so when I started working, I told myself I would like to bring my mom to see the world, to broaden her horizons, to make her feel happy and to lighten her burden. We have been to many places in the last 10 years - Thailand, Taiwan, Maldives, Beijing, Australia, Europe, Dubai, Kenya, Tanzania and Japan. If there is one place which I felt my mom truly enjoyed, it was Maldives. Just the two of us, by the sea for 4 days, my mom playing games on my phone and me lying around. When I decided to bring her to Africa, I felt that I should have brought her alone rather than with my dad because my dad would be a burden to her and she will not truly feel happy. Despite all the trips that we have taken, I never know if my mom truly felt happy when I brought her on my travels. She would always be worrying about the heap of unwashed clothes when she returns so sometimes I feel that bringing her overseas is my way of loving her but perhaps not the way she wanted. I am doing a "my mom's way of love on me" back on her. When I travel, I send my mom postcards from different places that I went to and shared with her my emotions / experiences from my travels. Ever since I reached an age when I could support myself, I tried all ways and means to make my mom happier - I started earning my own upkeep so that she did not have to worry about money be it taking on part-time jobs while studying, going for a scholarship so that she could leave her retirement funds untouched, giving her a part of my salary / bonuses so that she did not have to worry about money, buying her gifts from time to time, bringing her overseas and showing her the world through my lens with my postcards, etc. The only one thing that I had not been doing in the last 4-5 years is staying at home. So much to be said and so much left unsaid, Asian families' way of love is always left in the heart unsaid and if there is one thing I wish for my mom - I wish for her to be happy because I feel that my mom is a very negative person and all her life, she has never felt truly happy.
2. Dad - My dad thinks he is a "know-it-all"and we always joke about how he likes to GG about his childhood, his values in life, his work ethics etc. I do not always talk to my dad a lot because I find him naggy and he loves to repeat himself but I vividly recalls a few conversations that I have with him. I told him that now I am all grown-up, I have seen more in life than he does because I travelled, I moved overseas, I have a wider network so our roles have reversed. While he used to teach us morals and share with us his experiences, our experiences are now more varied than his and we know more about the world than he does. I know that my dad dotes on me a lot ever since I was a kid and towards him, it is a sense of responsibility that my siblings and I fulfil in life towards him. My dad probably did not have a great childhood, probably does not know what it means to be a father and how to be one because he did not have a role model himself, but I feel that he leads a much happier life than my mom. When I compare how I treat them, I see the difference between love and duty.
3. Brother - The most important lesson my brother gave me was the one when he told me - "Everything little thing that you do shapes up your character". I think it happened during my first/ second year in the polytechnic and that phrase really made a huge impact on me. Each time I felt that I could leave something to tomorrow, each time I felt that I could take one shortcut, each time I felt that I wanted to be rude to someone, each time I felt that I want to be selfish and end up doing something potentially inconsiderate, that phrase came to my mind and I decided to go that extra mile and put in extra effort and be more considerate. That shaped me into who I am today; I have a little bit of intelligence which enables me to pick up things quickly but that phrase coupled with my early failure in life moulded me into someone who would put in double the hard work and effort in my work because I feel that if I were to be a little lazy today, I would be a little lazy tomorrow as well and that laziness would grow and shape me into a completely different person. You never know how your words may affect a person's life so think before you speak. Like my mother, I feel that my brother is also a generally unhappy person despite him having so much love from everyone around him - my mom, my SIL, my sister and I, my cousins, etc. All of us shower him with a lot of praises and love but it seems like his heart is a bottomless pit that no amount of love, care and concern can truly fill it. Hence, I wish the same for him like my mom that someday, he will truly feel happy again. I do not know if that day will ever come but I really hope it will.
4. Sister - My sister is my real pillar of support in the last five years ever since I moved overseas. She is my confidant, my rubbish bin whom I pour all my sorrows, direct all my grouses and complaints to, etc. It can be so tiring to keep listening to someone complain but my sister takes it all in. Hence, I am really grateful for having my sister around me. I used to dislike her when I was a kid because I felt that my mom was biased towards her and loved her more than she loved me. However, having all grown up, I was able to change my perspective that if I were the more able/ capable one among the two of us, it would make more sense for my mom to love my sister a bit more and I will protect them and support them. Hence, I never once looked back at my childhood and lingered in the "my mom is biased" history and have any disdain for my sister. However, in the last 1-2 years, I could sense that my sister is also experiencing a lot in life that she is becoming a different person. It worries me because I once feel that my sister has the purest heart in the world - kindness, sympathy, empathy, love for the people around her and this 赤子之心 once eroded can never be regained. I wish the world would not taint her nature, a part of it out of my selfishness that if my sister stayed who she used to be, she would always be that pillar of support for me but also more importantly, I am afraid she will experience darkness and grow to be increasingly unhappy if she loses her nature. I remember I used to tell my sister that I really hope that she will not die before I do because I will feel lonely in a world without her and I do not want to feel lonely. However, I must say that in the last 1 year, I have started to come to terms that no one can stay the way they are for the rest of their lives - the only constant in this world is change so I have to come to accept that my sister is no longer who she was 5 years ago and I have to cope with the fact that I will be lonely in the many years to come in the future. The sense of responsibility that my sister has towards my parents and these days, I feel towards me as well, is one thing that I really fear. I do not want my sister to feel like she has a sense of responsibility towards us, that what she is doing is out of her duty and not the love she has for us but that is way beyond my control. I wish for my sister to not be tainted by the ugliness of this world.
The 4 most important people in my life since I was born - 一辈子或许很短但一瞬间可以很长. I learnt that even though you might be so reliant on someone for a good 5-10 years or even more, your relationship may not always stay the way it is for the rest of your life even though you are connected by blood. Love is... neither out of responsibility nor duty. Love should be from the heart. Perhaps I had not been spending enough time at home but I feel that I truly love my mom, my brother and sister. I always wished for the best for them, for them to be happy and I always try my best to help them and encourage them in my way, yet I have only been through perhaps half a lifetime and I could feel fatigue in our relationships and some days I feel it could break down any time. In the past, I would have no qualms about asking for a favour from my sister i.e. buy something, do something for me, etc. but these days, I sense that she might find it a chore to always have to deal with my requests. I feel sad when I think about how it has evolved into because I always feel that if we are one family, we should not feel bad / guilty about asking for a favour because that is what being family means. You do it out of love for your family but if you let such a thought seed in you, it is the start of a relationship deteriorating and hence in Chinese, a lifetime might be short but you live through so many moments in a lifetime and it is those moments that can be seemingly long and painful.
5. Bihong - Bihong is also family to me, someone whom I grew up with and always like a sister to me. I always feel that she is the most blessed among our entire family - a decent career, good looks, a loving husband now and two adorable kids, need not worry about finances, etc. For that, I hope I can protect her, protect her happiness because happiness does not come easy in life, especially for us who grew up in a disadvantaged family - low income, broken, divorced, etc. She is the only person in my family whom I envy and for that, I feel happy that I can at least envy 1 person in my entire family. 请你一定要一直幸福下去
6. Doe Doe - Watched her grew up, always felt that she would have a smooth sailing life, steady boyfriend, finally graduated from university and having her own career. I paid much less attention towards her than Efu but things took a sudden turn and her life collapsed. I always recall the time when she came to my university dorm in NUS and me helping her during PSLE. It is a bond / moment in life that you share with that someone whom you will remember for the rest of your life. After the breakup, I felt one thing towards her - negligence. I realised that I had not spent enough time with her, had not shown her enough concern because I felt that she had a better half to take care of her already. Yet in my eyes, I really feel that she is outstanding and she deserves someone who will take good care of her for the rest of her life. She shall not and cannot belong to our 'forever alone' gang, please.
7. Efu - Watched her grew up and I know I have made an impact in her life but little does she know that because of her, I will also want to better myself so that I can always be ahead of her and guide her when she feels lost. Though heartless as she may seem, I feel that she is the true embodiment of love from what she does for her parents and siblings. She is still young and has not been tainted by the ugliness of the world. She is the someone whom I talk rubbish with these days even when we are miles apart. You cannot imagine how touched I am when she told me that she want to go with me to somewhere that I have not been to, to explore the world with me because she knows that I love to travel and now that she is all grown up and can earn her own upkeep, she can travel with me rather than me playing the tour guide. :) Like my sister, I wish Efu can stay pure and innocent and continue to love the people around her.
8. Benjamin - Watched him grew up as well and seen how hard he has ploughed to get to where he wants to be. There is a Chinese saying - 帮人帮到底 送佛送到西. 2009 was the defining year for our relationship - me deciding to give this cousin of mine a push during his O levels and since then, I can only say that I am really proud of him. Always giving his best, truly wanting to become an educator and mould lives - he can continue what I left behind and ever since 2009, I always think about this cousin of mine, about how I can give him a little push whenever he needs one because since I have decided to interfere in his life back in 2009, I am going to have to do it all my life! He is this close to fulfilling his dream of becoming an educator after 11 years of biting the bullet through from poly to army to university. Please, God, bless him with strength and conviction to finally get to where he wants to because he really deserves it!
I am really tired and in line with my new 2020 NY resolution to sleep early and live a healthy lifestyle, I shall continue with this tomorrow or the day after. There are just so many people for me to write about.