these days i've been thinking about my youth a lot. i think of the blackened sky and the cool morning mist against my skin as i climbed into the back of my mum's altis, vague memories of oldies playing in the background and being awoken at the petrol station outside sji en route to anderson road, where i knew i could look forward to a mini bottle of sunkist's apple juice with aloe vera bits as a little "pick me up" before classes started. i think of fourteen year old me with such a fanatic crush on my chemistry teacher it actually made me seriously question my sexuality. or fifteen year old me with a trauma of handing in blank math papers while feeling like the biggest academic loser in the world. i think of digging into my favourite tom yum chicken noodles from haw's kitchen with princesses and our quarterly post-exam tradition of having a well-deserved, fancy lunch followed by the movies, or drinking koi at the windy benches while wearing our faux leather friendship bands that each sported a similar anchor-shaped embellishment made out of cheap metal. i think of the disappointment i felt when i finally got to work at kinokuniya as a cashier and realised that no one there actually loved to read, except for the store director with the same name as my father. i still remember the sinking feeling in my heart on bus 89 on the way back from yet another monotonous shift at a frozen yoghurt shop, as i read about friends and acquaintances getting into my dream liberal arts college on social media (while i was being relegated to the waitlist). i think of the alienation i felt when i finally shifted into my dream college and abruptly realised that i was going to have to find a new "home" in a completely new environment that had seemed all too overwhelmingly artificial and high-achieving. i think of the numbing brokenness i felt from getting my heart trifled with again and again - the unfounded jitters, the suite parties, the chilly night walks past midnight etc.
i think of this song in particular:
it was either the tail end of 2015 or the beginning of 2016. i remember being on a cruise deck drinking a cocktail with my mum when a live band started playing this song. we were talking about my poor love life from being consistently attracted to the same type of boys who were undeniably attractive but always lacked the courage to commit. she said something along the lines of "imagine dancing to this song with your future husband and putting your arms around him while you sway to this on the dance floor...how nice would that be?"
we both paused and imagined it together. it has stuck with me ever since.
a few days ago, m and i were talking about how we spent our twenties. his twenties are over, but i'm a few years shy of finishing mine.
"do you regret any point of your twenties so far?" he asked.
i thought about it -
"no... i'm actually so proud of how i've spent my defining decade so far. i think i've accomplished everything i wanted to accomplish thus far. i don't think i regret any part of it. i truly don't."
baby n is the reason why i've been reflecting on my youth a lot more. thinking of her makes me think of the relentless 5.45am mornings my mum had to go through in order to send us to schools so far away from where we lived, and all the other sacrifices my parents made for me while i was growing up. i think of the brokenness i felt as a lost teenager and adolescent, and i hope with all of my heart that she will not have to experience that desolate feeling of being left behind by the world. i think of all the boys who may eventually break her heart and hope that she will have enough self love to know her worth and stand her ground. i think of how we can teach her emotional resilience, so that she will be able to overcome any failures and challenges that life will throw at her. i think about the friends that she will make - will she be able to find her people too? i think about how lucky i am to love and be loved - that i have someone i wholly trust, someone whom i can finally dance to journey's open arms with together. i think about the life we've embarked on since our first date and how incredibly blessed we are to have this little human being who makes our little family even more complete. i think about how it's been a long while since i'd felt that dull ache of loneliness from wondering if i'd ever find love. i constantly think about the truest and most beautiful story of my life that i've been working towards manifesting, working with God in tow and not in retrospect.
i recently found out one of my favourite feelings in the world is hugging baby n close as she snoozes on my chest in a baby carrier. there is just something so pure about feeling her bodily warmth envelope my every being that grounds me so immovably. she feels like this little peanut i want to protect at all costs whenever she nuzzles into my chest for comfort, making me feel like the luckiest person in the world that we get to call her ours.
this season is God's biggest blessing in disguise, and i try very hard to remember how lucky i am to be where i am - particularly when i feel discouraged about the shrivelled job market from a prolonged tech winter. there are always two sides to a coin, and i choose to see this season as an opportunity to rewrite my career narrative once again, even as i emerge from the duality of juggling motherhood alongside my multi-faceted identity as a career-oriented individual and daughter of the most High. despite how ambiguous being in this limbo feels, i am exactly where i want and need to be. i am at the very cusp of change, and where i go next will be the stepping stone towards defining the next chapter of my life's narrative. God has always only opened one clear door for me, and that door has always been the best door for me. i truly believe it will be no different this time.
i also recently found out that mental resilience is one of my strengths. it's strange bc i've never really thought of myself as a resilient person, but apparently - according to the person who knows me best (next to myself), he says that i am. we were in the trenches together when we found out about the miscarriage. we were in the trenches together again the day baby n was born - when we found out that she had torn a hole in my rectum (it was a 0.01% incidence) while being yanked out unceremoniously with a pair of forceps. it was absolute chaos - as a delayed side effect, i was throwing up uncontrollably while the oxygen machine periodically beeped in the background signalling baby n's oxygen levels were unstable from her distress. m watched on helplessly as i was wheeled into emergency surgery soon after the delivery (it was in the wee hours of the morning). i laugh when i think back to how my mum kept stressing the importance of "skin-to-skin" contact with the baby just before we checked into the hospital 24 hours earlier to induce the delivery at 40 weeks ("skin-to-skin" was clearly the last thing on our minds and i only got to hold baby n for the first time the next morning after waking up from that episode). we were talking about the future a few years down the road, if and when we're blessed enough to have baby number two - "us and pregnancy don't really seem to get along very well...i'm surprised what we went through doesn't deter you from wanting more children. you actually bounced back really quickly." he is right - somehow i am not horribly averse to the idea of going through this all over again. interestingly, i feel that the scars from my formative years of growing up haunt me much more than the trials i've been through as an adult - and it could very well be bc having someone steadfast to hold my hand and journey through the hard times with me makes dealing with everything so much easier. we just celebrated the end of his master's exam and our second marriage anniversary a few days ago. time passes with blatant disregard for anything and anyone: what had seemed insurmountable (i.e. waiting on God's timing in the sheer ambiguity of not knowing how my career and his residency would line up together perfectly with having a child; going through a full-term pregnancy while working and preparing for the arrival of our baby as he laboured through the final year of his residency; struggling through the arduous newborn phase of being first-time parents, all while he juggled studying after work for one of the most challenging exams of his life) have all come to pass. on paper, everything sounds almost impossible to bear. in reality, we bore everything so incredibly well - all bc of God's grace and how we made it so much easier doing the difficult things in life together.
i listen to the tunes of my youth a lot, particularly those tunes i played on repeat during my college days. i listen to them often partly bc they bring back a flood of nostalgia for those archived times that now seem so imperfectly perfect through rose-tinted lenses. but a huge reason why i still listen to them on repeat nowadays is bc they remind me of who i was and how i had felt then while in the thick of experiencing growing pains. now, they serve as little celebratory hymns of victory reminding me of how far i have come and will continue to go.
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