remembering what it feels like to be (still) twenty four

the days blur into months into quarters into a monotonous, cumulative mass but i want to actively remember what it feels like to be at the tail end of being twenty four, in a similar way i remember typing:

 "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. 

la bendición

su presencia te acompañe 

dondequiera que tú vayas 

que te llene 

te rodee 

va contigo 

va contigo 

de mañana, y de noche 

en tu entrada y salida 

en tu llanto 

y alegría 

Él te ama 

Él te ama 

here's to remembering that all good things come from You - my giant-slayer and provider of everything i'll ever need - past, present and future. when i feel out of my league and overwhelmed, i will remember exodus 14:14 - "the lord will fight for you, you need only be still." set me apart in the market place, that everyone who sees me will know that it is undeniably You who works through me, que Tú bendición esta sobre mi. 

transitioning

here i am, hovering on the cusp of youth's transition to adulthood in its purest sense - forging a career in the industry of my dreams with a glistening rock resting on my ring finger, about to buy and embark on building a home with the only man i can say i (romantically) love - will i able to do them all, and do them well? 

how is it that i still feel like a child inside, carrying with me arbitrary flashbacks of sneaking out to eat cup noodles at the playground with my coolest clique of friends in primary school; freezing up at math questions i couldn't answer for the life of me in my navy blue pinafore; sauntering into the rj canteen only to make a beeline for haws' kitchen as a tight-knit clique of four. in the blink of an eye those days are past but the present me is still here - slightly confused that years have flown by but nonetheless i am still the same "me" deep down. i have travelled in metropolitan cities across the globe alone but inside i still feel scared to graduate into the next stage of life - unadulterated adulthood. one that houses responsibilities, cash-strapped expenditures, meaningful debt and the search for optimal work-life integration. but somehow it seems like everyone figures it out eventually, and so will i. 

it is easy to drift through life as if one were traversing through a cloud. these days the weeks seem to bleed into one another, and decision-making doesn't stop even after work ends. but i also realise that these days will form the bedrock of nostalgia in time to come - i will look back at this moment and only remember the good moments of piecing together a new life at the threshold of my mid-twenties. i am where i had wanted to be a year ago, and god-willing, i will be where i want to be now in another year. i need to get my headspace out of this fog and start enjoying the process through and through. 

infinite moments that were fleeting yet immortalised in memory

 

circa 2016, taken by an acquaintance at a suite party in college

“with her foot on the threshold she waited a moment longer in a scene which was vanishing even as she looked, and then, as she moved and took minta's arm and left the room, it changed, it shaped itself differently; it had become, she knew, giving one last look at it over her shoulder, already the past.”

 - to the lighthouse, virginia woolf

have you ever thought of the moments you'll time travel back to, if you had the gift of time-travel? 

i would go back to the little moments that had felt infinite even as they were passing, moments that had made me feel human at my core. moments of companionship and warmth - a quiet wine night, a grounding hug and the ineffable moment of a shared kiss. moments where the nights were chilly, the moon was bright and the expanse of the sky felt like it was huge enough to cover the dull ache of loneliness, my familiar friend. moments where i had crossed the bridge (i.e. clementi flyover), either en route back from night suppers at al-amaans with a close friend or a solitary walk from the neighbouring bus stop, and paused momentarily to take in the view of the partially lit saga towers - a temporary place i called home for the four most formative years of my life. moments of a raw, self-emanating vulnerability from feeling fearful of pushing personal boundaries juxtaposed against the sheer freedom of abandoning my sense of self to the ebb and flow of what had felt like a zhuangzi-esque world. or moments of self-empowerment where i felt my heart was brimming and bursting at the seams from having conquered something that had truly scared the shit out of me. moments where i had felt so infinitely beautiful and mulan-esque. 

i would traverse through the streets of spain and seoul, taking in the sunset of alicante's costa blanca or the sunrise of a post-halloween drinks morning en route to the hongje mcdonalds near my apartment, feeling (once again) the very human emotions of pining and lovesickness. i would go back to my last night in new york where i had just sat with myself in the light drizzle of a gray and cloudy sky, committing to memory my last live image of the gorgeous manhattan skyline. i would go back to a mundane weeknight spent churning essays in the college library where it had always felt like winter. i would go back to one of those college suite party nights with the knowledge of love and life i have now, to revisit the unbridled carefreeness of single hood and a passé party life with the greediness of enjoying the stability and steadfastness of love in the now. i would rewind to the nights spent in osaka walking back from the train station to our airbnb, our attempts straight "home" always getting sidelined by the most delicious takoyaki from tako tako king and sapporo beer from seven-eleven. or the moments at coastal kitchen on the royal carribean where our eyes would light up from how perfectly cooked a beef mignon steak was, or how satisfied we were with stuffing ourselves full. i would go back to have the yummiest kalbi-tang at the fast-food restaurant near yonsei in sinchon that lilith and i always frequented after north korean politics class - 

these moments were so fleeting, yet they have somehow immortalised themselves in the memory pockets of my brain. there is no bad - in my coloured memory vault, only the infinite good are left.

"as a collective" - how i'll remember my first year of work

it's been slightly more than a month since we have "graduated" from our year-long graduate program in the workforce. through and through, i am thankful for growth. growth that comes in spurts - some longer and more tangible than others. even sitting in ambiguity for a protracted period of time was in itself a growth journey - albeit a quieter one. to aptly summarise my journey thus far in the best way i can and know how:

this is the free-verse poem i had crafted on behalf of the eleven of us and verbalised to over fifty colleagues (including bosses from both my department and others) who had turned up for our virtual graduation ceremony last month. am still grateful to have had the opportunity to share a piece of what makes me "me", in what is normally perceived as the cold and hard corporate sector. i can be both - two selves co-existing in one body. i can have my cake and eat it. 

--  

the first of july, 2019. 

we gathered around the conference table of merlion two

as acquaintances, as new colleagues, 

sharing the camaraderie of emerging
from the competition that had annihilated everyone,

but us. 

us - twelve minus one. 

even from day one, we have been a collective. 

many of us had just laboured through college,

eyes fixated on the ultimate reward that was now in our grasp,

but still an obscure concept - this concept called "work".

the rest of us had jumped ship 

in hope of greener pastures - 

biting the bullet of adjusting to a new environment

despite emptier pockets. 

all of us - wide-eyed,

impressionable blank sheets of paper

eager to learn and absorb. 

youth is a currency to be spent 

while one is young. 

we are young. 

we were, and still are. 

and so, we learn. 

we quickly learn that we chafe at achieving for achievement's sake.

certifications are a means to the greater end of learning,

not the end in themselves. 

we learn that to go fast is to go alone

but to go far is to go together. 

we learn that there is value in pushing back,
in managing expectations
and finding the right time to say no.
we learn the onus of self-enablement
falls squarely on our own shoulders -
there is no longer going to be
periodic examinations or assignments keeping us in check.
along with that came the quiet realisation
that we are now in charge of determining our rest -
out with the academic calendar that determined our summer holidays,
in with the financial calendar that we use to plan around our holidays.
swept in the whirlwind of change as the new constant,
we were forced to adapt to changes quickly - some even
painful changes that hit home.
call us the walking personifications
of pro-sci's "change management" (just kidding).

we learn that we are eleven individuals
gifted with different skill-sets and personalities,
each unique in our own way.
how could we complement one another with our strengths,
to combat our individual weaknesses?
what could we each bring to the table and show up for?
find your niche, 
only then the reward will be proportional 
to your hard work. 
i hope you, the audience, would agree,
that we are all individually known for something.

this journey was not a bed of roses.
coming in without any prior experience was daunting,
and at times even demoralising.
we were building credibility from scratch -
every action we took either a vote towards building our brand
or against it.
and so we had to tread carefully.
how was it possible that we went through
so many hour-long enablement sessions in the beginning,
but the workings of the company still felt like a mystery
existing only in theory, in the fog of the unknown?
our services grad counterparts had it harder -
enablement came with their job,
on the job itself.
out of the blue they found themselves
waist-deep in projects
when they hadn't even learned how to swim yet.

what does good look like for the job,
and by extension, for a grad?
ambiguity, the big word
encapsulating the environment
we found ourselves mired in.
lacking defined expectations of us,
we found ourselves confused -
were we doing well?  
or just doing enough to get by? 
even when we were told we were doing well,
imposter syndrome always crept in
to steal the limelight of our victories.

our victories.
a year later as we look back we are able to say
with greater clarity:
we are proud of our victories.
gaining client facing experience early in our careers
particularly for many of us fresh out of college,
is a triumph in itself.
the piecemeal knowledge we've gained day by day,
over three hundred and sixty-five days,
empowers us with more confidence in work and customer interactions.
we even surprise ourselves sometimes
with knowledge that we didn't think we had (but do),
or when we're able to deliver on something
that no one expects us to.
but our greatest triumph as a cohort
is that we've stuck true to ourselves, together.
trouble-shooting, laughing, collaborating, eating
even crafting and dancing,
as a collective.

the first of july 2020. 

we gather around the virtual table 

about to say goodbye
to this year-long journey.

not as colleagues, but as friends -

sharing the camaraderie of journeying through
the highs, lows and everything in the in-between
from our first year of work at salesforce.

even from day one, we have been a collective. 

duality of feelings

why do we feel the feelings that we feel?

feelings, a double-edged sword.

the duality of feelings - 

in some instances they breathe life,

in others they take away,

coming and going like the tide that ebbs and flows

in tandem with the gravitational pull of the moon. 

the duality of feelings - 

both a dependable compass and a faulty one:

the uncanniness of feelings having more self-awareness

than i am conscious of. 

they are my trusted advisor - 

interpreting and making sense 

of things happening to me from a third person's perspective,

even before my head can wrap itself around them

and find the appropriate words for.

my feelings are my clearest articulation 

of what constitutes a right choice 

and conversely a wrong one.

and yet, the irrationality of feelings

also means that subjectivity 

becomes weighted on a much heavier scale.

once feelings are involved,

all things bow into the realm of subjectivity - 

i become the center of the universe

and the singular point of reference. 

a flawed compass guiding me on a terrain
only i can see. 

my thoughts on ge2020

i struggle to find words that aptly encapsulates how i feel - but i resonate so much with this article from rice media that articulates this complexity of emotions i feel, as well as its accompanying aspirations that make my heart swell with patriotic pride.

for so many years i had the personal impression that our government was synonymous with the incumbent party. in my head, it was difficult to tease the party and the government apart, and i admit sheepishly that for the longest time in junior college (the "feeder" of sg politicians - including sg's newest heart throb) i had thought "psc scholar" equated to "pap scholar". i too, had bought the rhetoric that we needed a competent government to rule and prosper, resigned to fate as i explained to any of my international friends interested in sg politics and willing to listen that we - singaporeans, valued economic progress and stability over peripheral matters i.e. having an unadulterated democracy and freedom of speech. i was a global affairs major in college and even based my final-year capstone thesis on investigating corruption's impact on electoral margins of victory in single-party dominant states like sg, but in terms of political engagement i had always looked outwards - big power politics, east asian politics, southeast asian politics - many places elsewhere but home. there was just so much political apathy in the state of sg politics that i accepted things as they were - as inevitable trade-offs for the comfort of a prosperous nation that most of us have the privilege of partaking in. perhaps it was also because until this election i was short of the legal voting age. without some skin in the game, it just felt easier to pass off the opposition scene as dismal and disengage on the pretext of sg lacking credible opposition.

on the 10th of july, i held both my identification card and polling card with my legal name imprinted on it and stood in line at my primary school i.e. my designated polling station - a place so vividly familiar yet distant all at once (so many years had passed, the context had changed but the environment remained strangely unchanged). i couldn't help but feel joyful yet solemn with the weight of this civic responsibility. joyful because it was my first time voting this election, and it was empowering to feel like i was part of a collective that got to decide on the future of singapore's leadership and governance. i was no longer a bystander! my vote was going to be part of the vote count during the announcement of the electoral results later that morning! joyful bc i recognised that the access to universal suffrage is in itself a privilege, and that having a public holiday on general election day to make the act of voting conducive is also a privilege that we should never take for granted. singapore is far from a western democracy and having some sort of political structure and process in place for periodic elections may seem like democratic tokenism, but i am still thankful for these guardrails that protect our universal suffrage. voting is such a sacred act bc it is the vested responsibility conferred from the constitution on a citizen to his/her/their nation: to do it justice, i had to make an informed choice and arrive at a conclusion that only i myself would be accountable for.

this election, i wrestled to come to a decision on which party to cast my vote for. i wrestled bc it was a fight between my values and guiding principles i hold close to my heart, and so arriving at that decision was a highly personal process: being the voice for those who cannot speak for themselves; giving credit where credit is due; valuing kindness above all, separation of the people from the party - like distinguishing between the sin and the sinner ("hate the sin but love the sinner") in the biblical sense; standing up against injustice and any forms of bullying (non-partisan bc values transcend party, creed etc.); rewarding earnestness, grit and intentionality over mere results, valuing substance and credibility in representation etc. but one thing i learnt was to remember that the world is far too complex to be classified into manichean handles. voting did not have to be a dichotomous process where i had to localise and pledge my vote based on the evaluative criteria of a person or the concrete results of any one party. i could desire for the incumbent to remain in power, acknowledge the efforts of their members with gratitude and still vote otherwise. and vice versa. at the end of the day, i voted based on my heart - as i always do in decision-making, and walked out of it feeling like my heart was singing.

i spent friday night and the wee hours of saturday morning shuffling between the living room (where my entire family was up) and the comfort of my ac room snuggled up with bae in bed, keeping our eyes and ears peeled for the keywords "east coast", "west coast", "sengkang", "aljunied", "bukit panjang" and "bukit batok". we eventually went to bed at 5am, my heart brimming with pride and love for my country and her people. watching the election results was cathartic, for lack of a better word. we really showed up as one, and in doing so sent a clear message to the incumbent that they should not rest on their laurels and assume buy-in. the logic is simple - they may be free to make choices on behalf of the nation, but they will have to be answerable at the polls, and a few may be sacrificed in the process. there is a new generation stepping up and that is none other than my generation. a generation that is increasingly educated and becoming more politically engaged. a generation that is unafraid to call a spade a spade and willing to stand up against any forms of bullying. a generation that may seem ungrateful but actually cares about those who fall through the cracks. a generation that can no longer be bought with money, especially in the face of what seems like moral barrenness. a generation that shows up when push comes to shove. a generation that believes in the weighted promises of our national pledge.