"my name is denise, i am twenty, and every part of me feels alive here, here in new york city"
from the top bunk of a double-decker bed, with four other strangers crammed into a room in a rundown apartment at bushwick on a chilly night in 2016. i was alone on the opposite end of the world that i'd hitherto only known and that thought was both humbling and incandescently empowering. or the way i still vividly remember spending the last hours of my twenty first birthday alone at a japanese restaurant in alicante, giving myself a congratulatory toast for another year of personal growth.
in the same vein i want to remember the little triumphs of a covid recovery year and celebrate a seemingly mundane anniversary of working solely from home. i want to remember how vulnerable it feels to be a young working professional accountable and responsible for driving the success of large and complex enterprise accounts, and how the act of stepping up and showing up for the job day after day despite the consistent butterflies in my stomach warrants a self pat on the back in itself. just for showing up and doing my best, you know?
i want to remember the triumph of today - where i met with an extremely agitated cio from a world-renowned luxury conglomerate clamouring for us to meet his demands or risk having the meeting end immediately (it was my first time hearing an unapologetic profanity uttered in a serious business meeting, but there is a first for everything). i witnessed him shutting down almost every one from our side with palpitations in my chest, thinking i would be next, but i bit the bullet anyway - exodus 14:14 came to pass, allowing me to cruise through my presentation without a word from his end and the cherry on top of the cake - genuine recognition on a job well done from my biggest internal stakeholder for this account. there are days where i feel like my job is a thankless job with little gratification, and there are other moments like this which reminds me of how the morning sun in my house always feels like - little rays that juxtapose themselves against the coolness of a house shrouded in morning chill, fleeting but bringing with them enough warmth for you to appreciate the cold.
i also want to remember that at the end of the day the process does matter - just like how all my fond memories are of the little things in life. the solitary night walks to cheers after a long 28mc day in college. how the red, orange and green from the traffic lights refracted as they hit the glass panel reflections of two mammoth skyscrapers on an ordinary night in new york. how i relished sipping on my freshly made avocado juice to satiate my homesickness on my walk back to my apartment in hongje during semester abroad. at twenty four, i want to remember how it feels like to be continuously doing mini-aerobatics as we smooth masking tape resembling the lengths and widths of an imaginary table, a sofa and even a king bed on the floor, or how we smugly lean back in our roller chairs to enjoy the cool southern breeze blowing into the barren living room of our to-be house on a hot afternoon. i even want to remember the bitter taste of traditional chinese medicine that i have to endure twice a day bc it is my attempt to take care of my body ("调养身体" they call it) while i still have the luxury of time.
i want to remember the unfinished product so i can fully appreciate the fullness of the finished product when i look back on a closed chapter - be it a house, health, wealth, or a basket of skill-sets. i want to be proud of the toil that enables me to arrive at a destination that past-me had hoped as a future for the present me.
