and so it goes
I find it hardest to write about my family.
"The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them - words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller, but for want of an understanding ear." The Body, Stephen King
The womenfolk came over for a trip so brief, it’s barely 24 hours since we dropped them off at the departure terminal and their presence already feels like a ghost. I get very grumpy around them, which makes me wonder if my singaporean-self is the norm, or if my australian-self is out of character. I always find it more daunting to go back, than to leave. Going back means feeling like I’ve lost touch (again), with nuances in dynamics, or having to relearn bus routes and behaviours and being perennially stuck in feeling familiar but foreign.
The past five days I wandered through a dreamscape. Pushing through a grumpiness that kept surfacing, culminating in a series of eye rolls and unnecessary snarky remarks, all to which were dismissed with a wave of a hand and laughter. How? How is it that no matter how ugly my heart can be, I am still loved, still cherished. I never thought of myself as a perfectionist, but recently it has been plain as day how much I stop functioning properly when things don’t go as they ought to. A switch flips and I beat myself up over all that I cannot fix, and it spills over and tarnishes all the good things.
I’m still trying to figure things out, as it goes.
It makes me sad to think that my parents are growing older, that my dad’s eyesight will never ever get better, that my mother’s driving is no longer as legendary as I remember it to be. How terrifying to know that these are things you can never change or mend.
"The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them - words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller, but for want of an understanding ear." The Body, Stephen King
The womenfolk came over for a trip so brief, it’s barely 24 hours since we dropped them off at the departure terminal and their presence already feels like a ghost. I get very grumpy around them, which makes me wonder if my singaporean-self is the norm, or if my australian-self is out of character. I always find it more daunting to go back, than to leave. Going back means feeling like I’ve lost touch (again), with nuances in dynamics, or having to relearn bus routes and behaviours and being perennially stuck in feeling familiar but foreign.
The past five days I wandered through a dreamscape. Pushing through a grumpiness that kept surfacing, culminating in a series of eye rolls and unnecessary snarky remarks, all to which were dismissed with a wave of a hand and laughter. How? How is it that no matter how ugly my heart can be, I am still loved, still cherished. I never thought of myself as a perfectionist, but recently it has been plain as day how much I stop functioning properly when things don’t go as they ought to. A switch flips and I beat myself up over all that I cannot fix, and it spills over and tarnishes all the good things.
I’m still trying to figure things out, as it goes.
It makes me sad to think that my parents are growing older, that my dad’s eyesight will never ever get better, that my mother’s driving is no longer as legendary as I remember it to be. How terrifying to know that these are things you can never change or mend.
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