Familiar faces

Two nights ago, traveling on the bus with Erina and Eugene, I saw this elderly man that reminded me of Yeh Yeh. The tanned brown skin that was slightly dry and dotted with age spots, the beige patterned shirt that hid a slightly smaller belly than how i remembered, the "old-man" sandals that Yeh Yeh was fond of buying during our road trips to Malaysia together. Perhaps it was the alcohol, or the fatigue, or the menstrual melancholiness, but he really did look like a skinnier, and younger version of my grandfather. Honestly, I do miss him. After he left, the family has not really been a family anymore. Yes, the good thing is that Ma Ma goes to church now, but there are rarely anymore sunday gatherings, no more road trips, no more durians, no more homecooked food, no more playing soccer with cousins at the driveway, no more familial activities.

To say a person to be the pillar of the household, I once thought was an overstatement. But perhaps, it seems evident to me that maybe, just maybe Yeh Yeh was the pillar, but now there's no more him. Why am I even saying all this. I hope you're doing well in heaven. Actually, I know you are.

Love,
E

18

"Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road." - Jack 

Kerouac

Today's the big day of a supposed transition into adulthood, but somehow indifference plagues me like a tidal wave. The notion of having a wholly new level of maturity as this "special" day calls for is quite disheartening for me an adolescent. Maybe it's just me, but being legal is not exactly a thing that should be celebrated in my opinion. Being legal only calls for greater responsibilities and harsher consequences. It means more choices but also more decisions to be made.

It's like as soon as you hit the big 18, people no longer say you're growing up, because after all you're legal, you're an adult. They make it out as if as soon as you're done with college and university a couple of years later there's no more growing up to do, you're sort of at maximum capacity. In other words, you're forced to grow up. Forced to act mature, even if you're not. You're forced to act your age in a sense.

I don't know why society, and even I at times, have this notion in our minds that as soon as you get out of college, you need to get you serious shit together. As if this magical fairy is going to pop out and give us adulthood. I mean come on, I don't even look the part! And when we don't get the whole adulthood thing we stay stuck in our parents house and work part-time jobs that aren't related to our degrees and half the time feel like utter failures. Not only that, nobody is there to encourage you, because they're speeding on their own highways to success, or maybe just a slightly brighter future than yours. You're looked at like this giant lame ass who is wafting around life, when every single day you're trying to make ends meet and still try to maintain being happy with your shortcomings. Your parents, friends, the world look at you with encouraging smiles that hide wry feelings of disappointment, pity and distaste; acting like there's nothing more you can do. After all isn't this a rigid society we live in?

But then again this is a timely reminder to myself that it's okay to not know. It's okay to keep on growing up and keep on figuring out things. Most people are just fucking up and growing alongside you and me. I'm sure there are tons of people clueless about their life's direction, and we're sort of in this together. Well we can always change our minds. There's no cut off age to growing up. People just keep trying to scare us into adulthood an it gets stressful when you fell like you're the only person not doing it right. But believe me, you're not the only one and i haven't figured a single shit out either. But we're okay, I'm okay, and I hope you're okay.

Mentor? sister?

Shopping with phui yin today made me feel a strange yearning for an older sister. Someone to guide me, someone to tell me where not to fall, mistakes not to make, and yet also have a mutual understanding of the things going on at the specific points in my life so as to give a leeway of some sort unlike parents born of the previous generation.

Then again, I've always wanted a mentor, like someone to tell me exactly, straight down to the details what to do, how to act, in studies, in life. But I don't have that.  A mentor is someone who takes on a heavy burden of directing a person's life - who would want to do it? A mentor also has to be of age and possess a decent amount of wisdom and experience to guide someone down to the t - where to find such rare species? Again, just some thoughts.

You are not the reflection of those who can't love you

When they don’t love you the way you want to, you mourn that for however long you need to. But then you get back up and you remind yourself. You are not a reflection of the people who can’t love you. You will love again. You will be loved again.

-Caitlyn Siehl

No, I did not break up with anyone; no, I did not have a fight with any of my friends. Just felt kinda lonely these days with everyone working, schooling, and busy being an adult. On the contrary, I'm just whiling my life away, jetting off or maybe just lazing around in general - no contributions, no output; useless in a sense. Ignore me. 

Was it always there?

It's been 2 weeks since As has ended and yet i still feel this sense of existential emptiness within me that is incurable and apparently made worse by the fact that my introverted nature compels me to withdraw from others.

Now, I don't really know how to help myself. I feel myself turning into an entirely new being, perhaps a new facade that my friends do not really like, and that I myself also find it at times difficult to tolerate. I have all the time to read, to write, to draw, to get lost in fictional screenplays and yet these do not fill the hole inside me that yearns to be filled.

What I once shunned to become, I am now gradually transforming into. One of them. Narcissistic creatures that take too much of a care upon their appearance, irregardless of the circumstance of their families, be it in a wealth/monetary sense. Then again, as I reach towards the age of 18, I feel the burdens of an adult slowly settling upon my shoulders. Its there, but not there. College applications, scholarship essays, getting the better job, comparing salaries, comparing wealth, comparing lives. Comparison is what is settling in so starkly into my life, now taking a heavier weight in the evaluation of my life. What was once a comparison between who had the nicer pencil case or who had a nicer backpack, has now become who has a nicer bank account figure, and who has a nicer life.

Friends get jealous and retaliate, and in self defense we retaliate too. Pushing each other further from the point where we once settled comfortably. School life is no more. No more hand holding, no more uniforms, no more explicitly stated rules. Everything is now based on intuition and that determines your grade of evaluation. Do you have enough common sense to do this, or to not do this?

Everyone is assessing your every move, your record now reflects your future. Isn't that enough to be stressed about. No more letting your guard down. Can't time slow down?

Endings are always the beginning of something else

Days like these are finally here. Going to coffee shops and sitting by the bar with the glass windows and looking out. Not studying, but looking out. Looking at all the people running to catch a bus. All the girls with one too many shopping bags. All the couples too in love to care. I see it - a bit of myself in everyone. Don't you see it too? Maybe its just me, but somehow sitting alone in a coffee shop had never felt so good. 

All we need isn't love, but God.

“In that Giant Gap between who you want to be and who you really are, every other religion, including the evangelical church, tells you to “close the gap.” That’s religion.

Jesus is the only who said, “I will meet you where you are. I am running backwards through the gap to you. And we will walk this walk together, one step at a time, me in the lead, and I will be with you whether you feel me or not, always." 

Faith is being more and more sure of this reality, and it’s not being more sure that you’re sinning less. It’s never just running from sin, but running to Him.”