Letters number one hundred and thirty-five: Ten years ago today

Dearest J, 

Before the day is out, to make a note, to make a scribble of something on the timeline, of another moment in time.

It has not been an easy day.  A day shrouded in pain in more ways than one.  

The pinched nerve on my upper back, persistent and stubborn.  The hangover migraine from last night's drinking on empty-stomach after my show with Cher Siang at The Curiosity.  Yet another episode of lip-swelling, felt like the worst of all cases so far.

And the pain of missing you.

It's starting to blur - the shape and touch of missing you - of what is it that I am missing.  

I gave myself a few moments of good crying today.  It's been a while since I just sit here and concentrate on missing you. 

The body is stinging from a fatigue of stress, overthinking, overdoing, inflammation, and all forms of personal hell.   Typing these out is a horrendous sight to my eyes but I want to document this.  This too shall pass. 

I guess the hollowing fact that this is ten-year mark of your departure is weighing down on me.  Painful as it is, I need to allow the emotion to pass through me.  The weight of sadness eats into my flesh, and the throbbing of my pinched nerve is a literal message of the pain.

Believe me, telling you all these is far from fun.  Like I said, I want to document this moment in my personal history.  

Could not bring myself to see anyone from your family today.  I stayed away.  Your mom told me there was going to be a picnic at the columbrian.  

I peeled myself from the bed at 920am to a breakfast at Wild Yeast Bakery, to meet with those who wanted to be with me this morning.  Went to bed past 3am, I was drunk beyond my realisation.  When I cannot recall how I got into bed then, I knew how bad it was last night.

I should continue another time.  I need to physically remove myself from this screen and attempt some form of rest - although resting can sometimes be a challenge, but try I must.

Today came and, going off.  I am tired, but keep living I will.

Just let me wallow a little today.  I promise I will get up and get going tomorrow....or when I am done resting just a little.

Yours, 

B 

The floor beneath my ass

FB post @ Jan 24

I sat on the cement floor in the first bedroom to cool down. This was my bedroom for all of my high school years in Taiping, all to myself after my sister left home to work in the city. In this humble single story house in Taman Air Kuning, only one room in the entire house was tiled - the living room. My dad is not a fancy nor a fussy guy. Even back then, in my clueless tender age, I knew this was not the best looking flooring. But I never minded it, we didn’t have no air-con through all the years - this cool cement floor has accompanied and provided me a cooling place to read on hot days. 

I have vivid memories of my idyllic school holiday afternoons and where I spent countless hours on this less than attractive bedroom floor, reading many copies of old Readers’ Digest, and other books. With curtains drawn and the floor fan, I could lie here for hours without leaving the room; traveling to faraway places in the pages I feast my eyes on. Those innocent years, stresses of life were of a different kind. Never will I be that again. 

On this very floor was the first time ever I place a pair of earphones in my ears, listening to my sister’s copy of Natalie Cole’s Unforgettable album. 

Today, after an hour or two of air-con in the living room (my dad installed two units of AC in this house two years ago) watching Netflix on my phone, I took a shower and returned to my old room and decided to read a bit. I sat on this floor again to cool down, with a novel...and got transported back in time to my childhood. But this girl who enjoys reading on the cool floor is now much older and her soul bartered with less innocent stresses of life. 

We don’t know for how long more we will keep this old little house here. Now there’s talks of moving the old folks to the city where my sister and I live. But before any of the major changes to come into form, it’s lovely to be cooling my hot ass on this ugly but adorable floor, reading a book.

Accepting the terms, what ageing is

Funny how life is like a mystery and detective novel, where one gets the explanation and answers to an earlier unsolved mystery many pages, chapters down the book.

I was quite miffed about my mom's non reaction after having sat on the front row of my Cinnabar Rouge concert, on opening night and on the same week of our birthdays, April of 2017.  I was waiting for days and weeks for some comments from her about my sparkling and dazzling career milestone.  Nothing.  Much later, I heard from sister that she uttered something close to the effect of "Your sister is such a brave thing, to be able to sing and dance in front of so many people."

Three years later, it took yet another...post festive season sibling row (me and brother) self-reflection for me to come to light...

Of course there was hardly any visible reaction from my mother towards my display of talent in the concert.  She would have been overwhelmed and too distracted by her increasingly crowded mind.  Alzheimer was coming onto her.  I was oblivious to it all then.  She wore dark shades on the front row, having just been out of a single eye cataract operation - she would have been super disoriented and in discomfort.

With so much noise in her head, what dazzling commentary could I have possibly asked of her?  Only if I knew better then.  I was self-absorbed and clueless.

It's all clearer now.

I am still coming to terms with this now not-new thing about mom.  I think I am doing well.

Dad is still mostly quite the alert and active one, and he too is learning lots in coping with all the changes.  Bless his soul.

FB post earlier today:

My earliest memories of my parents’ relationship is that they argued a great deal. So much so that it was the norm in the household for me - listening to the bickering. But there was always food on the table, money for school bus and allowance for me. As I grew up and observed more families of others, many I’ve envied and many more I’m glad weren’t mine; I learn that in life our job is to make the best with what we have. My parents belong to the generation that fix things instead of throwing away things (my dad just had his cheap 7-year-old electric floor fan repaired); and they endure things. They’ve stay put in their marriage that has clearly changed in so many ways since they fell for each other all those decades ago. I can’t say if I have more respect for their tenacity or more sympathy, perhaps a bit of both. 

Comparing myself to them, I see a person who’s so ingrained in her own orbit of beliefs and system, I cannot see myself making room for another soul in this planet of mine. 

Now in their seventies and still bickering, however, I see how things have shifted a little. Mom’s on set dementia is progressing steadily. She’s ever more reliant on dad being her driver, person bringing home packed food (knowing that they are eating outside food every meal really pains me), etc. Just watching them at home for over a few days, I get updated a great deal on how things will unfold soon - or so I think. It takes great effort for me to stay emotionless seeing the change in my mom’s condition. 

I’ve never been a family person and I don’t plan to pretend to be one soon. However, I do feel deeply about the call of service as a daughter to offer kindness, understanding and support to my folks in this golden age. Still a long way for me to learn, I just hope I don’t learn too late.

Been reading all day on social 
media of others counting their 
blessings and achievements of 
the past year and decade.  
I have done that before, previous 
years.  The more I read, the less 
I want to make my own list.  
First reason: I've had one hell of 
a busy year - to the point that 
I consciously stopped using the 
word ‘busy’ on myself - but I’m 
not sure if I know what I was 
being busy for, so I’m not sure if I can make my list 
of achievements feel ‘valid’ without sounding like I’m 
just doing it for the sake of it.

(On being busy - I know I enjoy working a lot, like 
the kind of work that’s exhilarating and...long hours.  
But maybe I’ve liked it too much for my own good)

Two, suddenly, I don’t see the point of it now.  
Not saying that the rest who made that list are 
lame or boastful - no no no - I enjoy reading them 
in fact (it’s like reading a summary of what my 
FB friends been up to all year or all of past ten 
years, it’s a pretty cool way of updating myself).  
I just don’t see the point of ME doing it at this point.

When I look back at what I’ve been up to the past 
one year...and the past 10 years - I have mixed 
feelings. Sure, some of the shit I’ve done between 
2010 to date, I think, is pretty fucking amazing 
stuff. Impressive stuff. I am not shy to say that 
I know I have done amazing stuff between the 
age of 33 and 42. That’s the first feeling I get.

The other feeling that’s mixed into that is - so what? 
Whilst surviving losing a partner, and then making 
albums and concerts, and spent my hard earned 
on super exotic adventure trips, and finally 
owning a property and still have my current job - 
sound like a big deal. I still feel like, these don’t 
deserve the air time at this...rather, special point 
of history. A few hours before we enter year 2020.  
I feel that those milestones don’t need to be 
credited and reminded again now, because that’s 
what we humans do. We cope with life and deaths, 
we create things, we won’t sit still, we seek out 
the things and people that stimulate us - while 
doing that we achieve things, beautiful things 
like making albums, taking trips with friends 
to top of the mountains, and decorating one’s 
home, etc. All these are, things we human 
are designed to do.

Last week I was at a jungly retreat with my TSS gals, 
with no internet and all that, we were chatting 
about life and stuff. May Mow asked me a 
question that stopped me in my track, even up 
to this minute - I think that question sort of 
shaped how I feel about this whole 
end-of-the-decade, end-of-2019 thing. She asked 
me who is the most important person in this world 
to me.

I was dumbfounded, immediately I admitted that 
it was a really good question to ask ourselves 
from time to time. After a few moments, I 
told her I think the person is me...just me.

While I was embarrassed about my answer 
(not my parents? Not my closest friends?  
Not my siblings?), it opened up a can of...
I don’t know. I think it forces me to think 
about things that I am otherwise too busy 
working to be thinking about.

So back to this Wawasan 2020 and end of the 
year thing.

I started the decade moving into my own place 
in KL. A place with my name on it, and one 
other name. I am ending the decade with me 
still living happily in the same home, this 
time this place has just one name on the 
paper - my name alone. The same year I 
moved in, Sitting Duck had the bike accident, 
and the rest of the decade, is history. Duh.

So, maybe I can say that it has been a 
decade of living with myself and learning 
what a shithead and silly person I can be, 
while carrying on as usual with my 
lack-of-big-picture career ambition.

It has been a decade of serious career-building, 
though it was built without a clear blueprint, 
it was guided mostly by instincts and doing 
what feels good. I feel grateful that I am still here.

After I finally believe that I’m born to do 
this work - performing; I looked around and 
realise, hey, my mom...my parents back home, 
have been such figures at the back of my head 
- I didn’t even realise how different they’ve 
grown, while I was busy building a life of my own, 
without Justin around.

The feeling will stay with me for a long time, 
the first I realised my mom is a different person 
now, she is now a child who needs help - about 
less than two years ago. I’m sure it’s feeling 
many of us can resonate with, you’re a bit 
angry, sad, remorseful, frustrated, helpless...
and goodness know what else. I watched 
my mom struggled with the buttons on her 
blouse, nonstop fumbling with her handbag, 
being clumsy with utensils, struggled to 
finish a sentence...she is much younger 
than my dad but she has aged much faster 
than he did.

Now, I have come to accept that whatever 
my parents and myself are going through - 
is all part of the package of life. I am still 
largely a self-absorbed single 42-year-old 
in the city. I am allowing myself the 
headspace and time, to ease into the next 
phase of life. I’m grateful that my sister 
Yvonne Lee is sensible and responsible, 
and that we are not alone in caring for 
them old folks. Mom recently starts to ask me about having 
a steady boyfriend. She worries much more 
than before, and is increasingly more lonely.  
My wish is to be able to offer any form of 
relief and joy that my mom and dad are 
now capable of enjoying. Dad is still pretty 
much quite mobile and almost carefree, 
addicted to his iPad and daily routine in Taiping.

Have I digressed from the main point?  
If I did, isn’t that what life does to us?  
We keep getting distracted with what life 
throws at us.

Older, and really not sure if any wiser.  
I have definitely made and kept some good 
friends along the years. I have cleared out 
most of Justin’s stuff in the house but kept some.  
Life has been good to me despite my initial 
panic of where the ground would be after my 
pillar of many things were gone. He left with a 
legacy of life’s lessons - kind to people, 
living things and just things, and pursue without 
fear of what one loves (ask me one day and I’ll 
share with you what he taught me about getting
up after you fall), definitely not how he 
predicted how others would remember him, 
he was just a kid with big heart.

OK, this has past my bed time now. Grounded at 
home this week to nurse a tired and sick 
voice and body.

It’s really just another year, and another decade.  
We are still here, alive. Let’s try to be a 
better human being. Happy new year and peace. Good night. Hello 2020.